Addie grins back, startling the hell out of me.
“I have to be a hard-ass,” she told me more than once. “If they see me crack, they’ll walk all over me.”
And here she is, smiling for all of Copper Valley’s biggest charity supporters to see.
“How long have you been playingCroaking Creatures?” Levi asks her.
“Since day one.”
“Do you all know the game?” Levi asks the crowd.
The halfhearted murmurs of response suggest the majority of this crowd either doesn’t know it or doesn’t play the game.
Fucking shame.
It’s hilarious.
It’s a sim game about building an island to host your favorite creatures, except shit goes wrong and the creatures croak.
“Well, there’s still the tea part of your offer,” Levi says.
“One thousand dollars!” someone yells from the back corner of the room.
Addie pulls a face.
Levi half chuckles. “We haven’t started bidding?—”
“Two thousand,” the fucker at the next table says.
“I was going to ask if your arm’s okay,” Levi says to Addie.
“It’s fine,” she answers as he holds the mic in her face. “My doctor says I can’t arm-wrestle bears anymore though. National Forest Service says the same. Apparently wrestling bears is a federal misdemeanor or something. Especially when you beat them.”
Paisley giggles. “She’s funny.”
I scowl.
Addie being funny used to be my personal secret.
And how two-faced am I for being mad at her for wanting us to stay low-key while also wanting how funny she is to be my secret?
Fuuuuuck.
I am so not over this woman.
“Five thousand,” someone hollers from the center of the room.
“Ten,” the dude next to me says.
Levi looks out over the crowd. “You’re in demand, Coach Addie. I haven’t even told them exactly what you do for the Fireballs and Copper Valley sports yet.”
“I don’t play soccer,” she says, which gets a laugh.
The only other women offering experiences tonight are from the Scorned, Copper Valley’s women’s soccer team.
“We’ve hung out before,” Levi says to her.
“I had to kiss your ass since your brother’s my boss,” Addie agrees.
