“Isn’t that your favorite game, Uncle Dunc?” Paisley whispers.
“No,” I lie.
“It’s anafternoon,” Addie says to Levi. “Not an evening.”
She’s making her way through the crowd toward the stage, and I don’t like it.
She can do whatever she wants.
She wants to offer anafternoonof playing a handheld video game at a tea shop, fine.
But what I don’t like are the murmurs going up around the ballroom.
The way the men at the tables around me are sitting straighter.
Reaching for their paddles.
Addie’s hot as fuck tonight.
She’s glowing in a shimmery pink gown, her arm in a matching sling. I don’t know much about makeup, but I know she’s wearing it. Her lips are a deeper pink and her eyes pop in a different way than they normally do. And her hair—all of that thick chestnut hair is tied up in an elegant knot that you’d never see her sporting on a baseball field.
Addie Bloom is the sexiest secret hiding in Copper Valley. Now, because she put on a fuckingdress, all of these nitwits are noticing what I knew years ago.
My fingers curl around my paddle.
Not my business.
If she wants to get fancied up and have men drool all over her, tough shit for them.
She won’t give any of them the time of day.
And she can take care of herself.
“Sit back, boys, this one’s mine,” a guy at the next table says.
He’s graying at the temples. Custom-fit black suit. Beady little predatory eyes tracking Addie as she makes her way to the stage. Thin mouth. Soul patch that makes him look like he has an ashy turd under his lower lip.
He’s oozingbad guyas he taps his bidding paddle on the table.
“You playCroaking Creatures?” I ask him.
The look he gives me is pretty easy to interpret.
No, you fucking moron.
But he doesn’t say anything out loud.
Just goes back to tracking Addie.
“You’ve been having some fun with my friend Waverly back there,” Levi says as Addie finally climbs the few steps onto the stage.
“She’s a fun person,” Addie replies as he shifts the microphone to her.
“Are you a fun person?”
“No. I’m boring as hell.”
Levi grins.
