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Teeth gritting into a tight unbreakable seam, I urged Buddy toward the spot where I saw Ellenie disappear to.
I found her to the left of the stage, almost down in front, with two kids on either side of her.
She looked up when I took a seat, and her eyes were already wide and telling me without words that she knew without me having to tell her.
Yes, I always had my best friend approve the guys I might be meeting—and having sex with.
Plus, I’d given her my itinerary, my expected time of arrival and where I possibly would be staying.
She’d taken it upon herself to go all private investigator after I’d left and looked into him further.
When I’d gotten back, she’d asked me if I wanted to know anything about him, and I’d vehemently refused.
Narrowing my eyes, I turned to my best friend, then slowly slid my headphones off so I could hear her. “You knew, didn’t you?”
She licked her lips nervously, then did that eye twitch thing she liked to do when she was trying not to show her ‘lie tell.’
“Ellenie,” I growled.
She held up her hands. “Technically, I figured he might be here. But this wasn’t a ‘let’s set you up’ kind of thing. This was generally a ‘let’s take the kids here and rub how fuckin’ beautiful you are in his face.’”
I sighed and turned back to the front, slipping my headphones back into place.
Buddy bounced in his seat when a woman with long black hair and fantastically tanned skin walked out with a massive yellow snake around her shoulders.
She started to do her show, swaying her hips and dancing exotically.
Meanwhile, my eyes kept trailing over to the sexy man that was now openly watching me with narrowed eyes.
I kept my head facing forward and hoped that he couldn’t tell I was looking at him from so far away.
But then his mouth twitched, and that stupid top lip that I always thought would be so kissable, tipped up at the corner. Letting me know that my sideways not-looking looking definitely didn’t go unnoticed by him.
Dammit.
I looked fully away and once again looked toward the woman with the snake.
I was so focused on her that I hadn’t realized the kid at my side had practically stood in his chair to raise his hand for something.
I looked toward him, then back to the lady with the snake, and realized what was about to happen.
I tried to pull his hand down, my heart beating irrationally fast, but he was exceptionally strong for a six-year-old kid.
“Stop before she brings that thing over here,” I hissed at him.
Then she was there, the snake’s face rather close to mine.
I licked my lips and my heart started to hammer even harder and faster.
Ellenie, sensing my near panic, stood up and placed herself between me and the snake, making my heartrate finally start to come down to more manageable levels.
A hand on my shoulder startled me, and I was seconds away from throwing up—because did I say I really didn’t like being startled?—when a muscular hand came into view.
Looking up, I saw Mr. Tinder in the flesh.
He said something to Ellenie, and then he was pulling me out of my chair and toward the back of the tent before I could think to tell him I was babysitting.
When we got outside, he reached forward and pulled my headphones off, exposing me to the loudness of the circus around us.
