Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
And he was back. Carson Stinger, Straight Male Performer. I cocked my head to the side, looking at him through narrowed eyes. “Why do you do that?” I asked.
He pulled his teeth over his lower lip, looking bored. “Do what exactly?”
“Pull that ‘sex in your face’…mask on?”
He stared at me thoughtfully for a minute. “Mask? A mask would imply that I’m hiding something beneath it. What would that be exactly?”
I looked away and shrugged. “The guy who just made a crazy fool of himself singing ‘Sister Christian’ to me to help me cope with a bad situation?”
He chuckled. “I just did what was necessary so that you didn’t die on me. If I’m gonna be stuck in an elevator, better that it’s not with a corpse. I’m into a lot of crazy shit, but necrophilia isn’t one of them.”
I made a gagging sound. “God, you’re really…” I chewed on my lip for a moment, thinking. “No, you know what? I’m not buying it. I call your bluff, Carson Stinger. You’re a phony.”
He laughed, looking truly amused. “Well, who exactly do you think you are, buttercup? You know me so well after being with me for what”—he looked down at the watch on his wrist—“fifteen minutes?”
I sighed. “You’re right. I don’t know anything about you. Just that you’re a phony, that’s all. Call it a gut feeling.”
He put a hand under his jaw and moved it back and forth for a second. Then he slid his long, muscular legs down and crossed them at the ankles as he continued to stare at me. “What I think is that you’re into me. And you’re trying to make me the good, sensitive guy that I’m not, so that when you slide across this elevator and climb onto my lap, you’ll be able to justify it to yourself.”
I choked on my own laugh and sat up on my knees to glare at him. “You arrogant asshole! The only way I would crawl anywhere for you is if my very life depended on it.” I glared at him for a minute and then fell back onto my haunches. I pointed at him. “Wait. You did it to me again. See, that’s the mask. You made me angry so that I’d forget my point. Which is…you’re a phony.”
He laughed. “Still on that, Dr. Phil? Okay, then, what about you, Miss Perfect Princess? What are you hiding behind that hair pulled back so tightly it’s about to strangle you and that high-and-mighty attitude?”
“High-and-mighty?” I scoffed. “I’m hardly high-and-mighty. And I’m hardly perfect either.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think that’s exactly what you are—perfect. Why? Why do you need to be so damn perfect? What has you strung so tight that as soon as you lost control, you couldn’t even breathe? What’s under your mask?”
I laughed loudly, overdoing it to show him how ridiculous he was. “My mask? Please. Now you’re just making stuff up to distract me. What you see is what you get here, Carson. I hardly wear a mask. Now you…” I brought my hand up and studied my nails.
“All right, buttercup,” he said after a moment. “I’ve got a proposition for you. How’d you like to play a little game? It’s called, Sink One for a Secret. It’s not like we’ve got much else to do. Especially if you planting yourself on my lap is off the table.”
“It was never on the table. What exactly does this Sink One for a Secret game entail?”
He sat up. “Do you have anything in your purse like a cup or a bowl or something?”
I gave him a look. “No. That’s not exactly the type of stuff I carry around in my purse.” I opened my large bag and looked inside. “Wait—what about the top of my hairspray?” I pulled it off. It was plastic and roughly the size of a Dixie cup. I held it out to Carson.
“That’ll work,” he said, snatching it out of my hand. He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a dime and held it up to me. Then he placed the hairspray cap in one corner of the elevator and went and stood in the opposite corner. “The rules are, if one person sinks the dime into the cap, the other person has to reveal a secret about themselves. No lying. No making something up. A genuine secret—something they’ve never told anyone else before.”
I crossed my arms, looking from the cap in one corner to Carson in the other. “That’s an impossible shot. The distance and the size of the cap—it can’t be done.”
He raised his brows. “Are you in or not?”
I exhaled. “Fine. Whatever. Go.”
He paused. “Wait. Do you agree to the rules?”
“Yes, yes, a basket for a secret. I’m in.” I knew it was impossible, and so why not? I’d play his dumb game.