Muffin Top (Page 34)

“Then Luke the Llama can lighten things up.” He stuffed the tickets into the pocket of his jeans and jerked his chin toward the line of skill game booths lining Main Street. “Come on.”

She hesitated, looking around at everyone, knowing that there would be stares, maybe a comment or two from concern-trolls about whether having those deep-fried Oreos was a good idea for someone like her. Her skin crawled with the ugly anticipation of it.

Really, it was amazing. In her office, she never had a moment of doubt, because when it came to spinning a crisis, no one did it better than she did. But back home in Antioch? That nervous and insecure fifteen-year-old she’d thought she’d ditched all those years ago came rushing to the forefront—and she hated it. Really. Hated. It.

“Okay, let’s do this,” she said.

And they did. There was the game where they had to throw the baseball to knock over the milk jugs (which they both decided were weighed down with anvils), a magnetic fishing game (where she won and declined a goldfish), and a test-your-strength hammer (Frankie’s ego grew three sizes when the metal puck went flying up the pole and slammed into the bell). And the whole time, they laughed and talked about dumb things, like which Bob’s Burgers character was the best (Louise, always Louise).

In a way, hanging out with Frankie was like hanging out with her girls. For the past few years, she, Gina, and Tess had a standing girls’ night at Paint and Sip, where they’d drink wine, catch up on one another’s lives, and paint something ridiculous—nothing could top the woolly mammoth in a hot tub. Those nights involved a lot of wine, a ton of gossip, and relaxed giggles.

Running around the carnival with Frankie while trying to beat the rigged games was like that, with the addition of extreme sexual tension.

Like right now, when she couldn’t help but notice how nice his ass looked in the shorts he was wearing and the way his dark T-shirt showed off just how broad his shoulders were as he stood in front of the Shoot the Duck booth. A shoulders girl? Her? She never had been before, but then again, she’d never spent this much time with someone like Frankie Hartigan before. It was definitely a blessing and a curse. That little talk they’d had over beers at the bar hadn’t been far from her mind since lunch. His whole “patience makes it hotter” philosophy was going to kill her.

He turned away from the lineup of paint splattered ducks, a paintball air rifle in his hand, and shook his head. “I’m from Waterbury, not the sticks of Antioch. When in the hell would I have ever shot off a gun?”

The way he said it with just a hint of teasing and the dip of his gaze to the lowish neckline of her shirt let her know just how full of shit he was. He thought he’d get her to take this game, so he could stand behind her and watch her ass instead of her gameplay like he had at the other booths. Yeah. That wasn’t going to happen.

“It’s easy,” she said, not making a move to take the air rifle from him. “You just point and shoot. Sort of like how a hose would work.”

One side of his mouth kicked up into a sexy grin. “I am familiar with those.”

Of course he took it there. She rolled her eyes at him but managed to keep the giggle his comment elicited under wraps. “A fire hose, not your personal one, you pig.”

“Don’t knock the animal who gives us the glory known as bacon.” He held up the air rifle. “Now, how do I do this? Are you sure you wouldn’t do better at this one?”

“Oh, for the love of Sunday mornings,” she grumbled.

Sure, she sounded frustrated—and she was, but not the way some may have thought. When she grabbed a step stool that raised her up to his height, plunked it down behind Frankie, and then took her place behind him, her entire body was humming. She had to step close to him, so much so that her breasts pressed against his back, so she could reach around him and put her arms in line with his as he held the air rifle.

“See that little thing that sticks up from the barrel?” she asked, her lips practically touching the shell of his ear.

He took in a ragged breath. “Yeah.”

“Line that up with your target.” She waited a few beats. It was about time he was the one suffering with the whole patience-makes-it-hotter thing. “Let out a breath.” She blew against his ear, just to demonstrate proper technique, of course. “And pull the trigger.”

Just as he was about to fire, she licked his earlobe. The man jumped. The shot cracked. The paintball pellet exploded out of the barrel and splattered against the giant stuffed llama hanging in the corner of the booth.

Quicker than she could let out a breath, he turned around and curled an arm around her waist so she didn’t fall off the stool. They were face-to-face like this, and she could take in every detail of him up close from the dusting of freckles across his nose to the small, faded scar on his chin to the heady promise in his eyes that he would get her back for that in the most patient way possible.

Her pulse went haywire as anticipation skittered across her skin until her entire body felt like a live wire.

“You did that on purpose,” he said, his voice low and his mouth almost close enough to kiss.

“Yeah.” Okay, that’s what she meant to say, but it came out as more of a sigh. What could she say, getting the full force of Frankie’s attention when you were pressed against him in the most intimate way possible with clothes on was a lot for a woman to process.

She could barely hear the tinny sounds of the carnival music or the crowd filtering past. Everything had been muted as she stood there on that stool, with Frankie’s arm around her, filled with the certain knowledge that a kiss—and not just any kiss, but a brain-wiping, oh-my-God-don’t-ever-let-it-end kiss—was coming.

“I said, here’s your prize,” the older man wearing an Antioch First Baptist T-shirt who was working the booth practically shouted at them from all of two feet away. “There’s no way I can give it away to someone who actually earned it now.”

The rest of the world came screaming back into existence. There were more people in the world than just her and Frankie. Huh. That was a little bit of a surprise until she got her brain back online.

She stepped down from the stool, slipping out of Frankie’s grasp, and picked it up. “Sorry about that.”

The booth man, who like everyone else working the carnival was a local, accepted the stool and handed her the llama in return, amusement glittering in his eyes. “Not to worry, I was young and full of sass at one point in time during my life, too.”

She and Frankie were laughing and arguing about which one of them was sassier while walking between the Tilt-A-Whirl and The Hammer toward the Ferris wheel when they were stopped by an unmistakable voice.

“I didn’t realize they made stuffed animals that big,” Constance said, her words slurred. “It’s almost as big as you are, Muffin Top.”

Lucy and Frankie turned. Constance, per usual, looked absolutely perfect, from her casual yet cute outfit to the waves of her blond hair—right up until a closer look exposed the pained tightness around her mouth, the sheen of perspiration making her forehead dewy, and the glassy look in her blue eyes. Perfect Constance was drunk as hell—and back to her high school mean-girl self.

Next to her, Bryce blanched and shot them an apologetic look. “I think it’s time to head home, honey.”

Constance didn’t even acknowledge what her husband had said. Instead, she looked up at Frankie. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but it’s gotta be big if you’re with her. Why else would someone like you be with someone who looks like that?”