Page 93 of Puck Your Friend

Fried pickles. She takes the first bite, crunching down with a pleased little groan.

“Better than the State Fair ones.” She grins, licking grease from her thumb.

I grab it and take a bite. The outside’s hot and crisp, but the center’s cold. Shouldn’t work, but it does.

I nod, sucking my fingers. “Alright. That’s fair.”

She bumps my hip with hers and lifts an eyebrow. “You mean, I’m right.”

I smirk. “You’re not wrong.”

Cotton candy comes next. The spun sugar’s fresh, soft, and barely holding shape. I pull a piece off and hold it out. She leans in and bites down slowly.Her tongue swipes across the tips of my fingers as she pulls it into her mouth. The warm, wet contact sends a jolt straight to my dick. I swallow hard.

Fuck. I need to kill this hard-on. Time to think of gross things:spiders, old people, losing a game.

That last one does it.

A hum rises in her throat. “Sweet.” She licks the corner of her mouth with the same lazy care. She’s got no clue how hard she’s making this.Literally.

She makes eye contact as she pulls more slowly into her mouth. “Really sweet.” Or maybe she knows exactly what she’s doing to me.

I blink, pulse knocking too hard.

I’m too young to have a stroke, right?

“Yeah. That’s one word for it.”

She grins and tears off another piece. My grip shifts to keep from fumbling the rest of the fluff.

Frankie leans closer, her shoulder brushing mine. “Alright.” She motions her head toward the ring toss. “Let’s see if your aim’s any good.”

She tugs me toward the booth, eyes locked on the pyramid of bottles. We trade a few more tickets for a set of plastic rings.

She goes first. The ring arcs clean through the air, dead center. It bounces off the neck and skitters to the ground.

She squints after it, hands on her hips. “That was perfect.”

I pick up the next ring. “That’s because it’s rigged.”

Frankie leans in close, mouth tilted in amusement. “You’re just saying that ’cause you’re scared you can’t do better.”

I glance over, catch the gleam in her eye. She knows exactly what she’s doing.

My fingers tighten around the ring. “Scared? No. Waiting for the right moment to destroy you? Maybe.”

She folds her arms and shifts her weight to one hip, smug as hell.

I square my shoulders, flick the ring once between my fingers. “Watch and learn.”

I throw.

The ring catches the edge, wobbles, then bounces wide. It clatters to the ground with a sad little rattle.

Frankie covers her mouth, eyes bright with too much joy to fake sympathy. “Brutal.” She trails her fingers down my arm, her lips tugging into a grin. “Truly humbling.”

I fake a frown. “That was practice.”

She nods. “Right. The warm-up round. Totally counts for nothing.”