Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Was it possible to love someone that you only really saw online?
“I’m going to reach out to a few other people in your old area, too,” he continued after his once-over was clear. “Do you think that you’d want to have a relationship with me?”
I blinked, surprised by his complete one-eighty in the conversation.
“Um,” I paused as I looked at him. “Are you asking me if I’d be interested in dating you? Having something more with you than what we have going on through the interwebs?”
His lip quirked up at the corner, and I felt my heartbeat pick up.
“I’d have been interested in having a relationship with you the day you started stalking me,” I blinked at him rapidly, fluttering my eyes at him. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He reached over and pulled me into his side. Where I was sitting and he was standing, I ended up bouncing my head off of his hard hip bone.
He barked out a laugh, then said, “I’ll come back with more information.”
That sounded an awful lot like goodbye.
I didn’t like being the one that was said goodbye to.
Usually I was the one doing the goodbye-ing.
“I found some!” JP came up then, not just one, but eight books in her hand. “I couldn’t choose. So you’ll have to choose for me.”
I watched the way Kobe seemed to melt for my girl, and I knew that he wouldn’t be choosing anything. She’d be going home with every single book she wanted.
• • •
After we got home from the store, we walked around Mooresville’s fairgrounds.
I didn’t think anything was amiss, which showed my obvious naivety.
“Why do you keep looking around the fairgrounds like something’s about to jump out and bite you?” I asked curiously.
He grinned, flashing that smile down at me, causing my lungs to seize and my breath to hitch.
He’d smiled more today than he had in a very long while. It was confusing. And awesome. And I hated where the end of this night was about to leave us.
“I’m not necessarily looking at all of the stuff,” he admitted. “I’m looking at all of the people.”
“Oh,” I paused. “Are you seeing anything?”
It was weird. With him around, it felt like all of my worries were just nonexistent. I trusted him that completely.
“No,” he answered. “But knowing you have a hit out on you, and you can’t even make out where this chick is online, is giving me major eww vibes.” He paused. “If I saw that photo of you in the newspaper, who’s to say that she won’t, too?”
That’d been on the back of my mind since he’d arrived, too. If Kobe had seen it, would she?
“I just have to hope that she won’t see it,” I admitted. “And I can’t be looking over my shoulder every second of every day,” I paused. “I have to think that I’ve done everything that I could to protect us—myself. If it happens…”
He caught me around my hip and pushed me to the side of one of the tents. It didn’t give like you would expect it to. It was pliable, yes, but it held my weight.
“If you finish that sentence with ‘it happens,’ I’m going to murder you,” he growled, getting into my face.
My gaze went to JP, where she’d stopped to talk to Keene, who was in his circus attire for the night, then went back to Kobe.
“Always mama bearing it, aren’t you?” he rasped. “What happens to her if you’re gone?”
I swallowed hard. “I hope that you take care of her.”
He snarled softly.
Then he was kissing me.
He was kissing me with a desperation that I thought only I had felt.
My hands went to his torso, and my fingernails dug in slightly to his muscular chest.
And I realized what it felt like to fly.
“Mama?” I heard JP call. “Where’d you go?”
The fear in her voice was enough of a slap in the face to get both of us to stop what we were doing.
He stepped back and called, “She’s over here, JP.”
JP, looking relieved to see me, ran toward us.
Just as she was halfway toward me, Kobe said, “It’s time.”
I knew it was.
I hated that it was.
He pulled out his keys, and JP, forgetting what she’d wanted me for, said, “Are you leaving?”
She sounded just as heartbroken as I was.
“I have to go home and shut everything down,” he said, curling a stray piece of hair around my ear. Then he turned to JP. “Where’s the circus’s next stop?”
JP grinned. “Gulf Shores, Alabama.”
“The beach.” Kobe nodded. “I’m seeing a theme in the next four or so. The one following that is in Daytona, right?”
“It is,” JP nodded. “Followed by Miami, then Stuart, Florida.”
Kobe tossed his keys up in the air and said, “Are y’all headed back to the bus?”
I shook my head. JP was allowed to do whatever she wanted on the last night of the circus. I still had the kissing booth, which happened to be with new dogs tonight, to do with her. As well as the fun house and the food to hit up.