Page 33 of Skins Game

“Oh, well, they might be a small business, then. Sure. I’ll take some Pop-Tarts and a package of sunflower seeds.”

Kingston tapped his card against the machine’s sensor and started dropping candy into the bin at the bottom. “I don’t thinkI’ve ever eaten a supper like this in my life, but it’s never too late to learn.”

“What, you didn’t eat supper out of the library vending machines at college when you were cramming for your calculus final?”

“Didn’t take calculus in college,” he said and dropped every package of nuts, corn nuts, and granola from the machine’s metal coils, as well as several candy bars.

“I’m sorry. I just assumed—I hang out with nerds way too much, and I have a big mouth. Um, tell me about yourself?”

Kingston gathered the packets from behind the flap and carried several dozen over to the table. “I majored in sociology. So I crammed for a stats final, not calculus.”

“Oh, stats. Yes.” She nodded gravely. “Very difficult. Much cramming.”

He knew when he was being patronized. “You had to take the three-semester calc with analytical geometry sequence, didn’t you?”

“Well, I was in the College of Engineering, so yeah. Calc with geometry is a core class.”

“All right. For that bit of preciousness, you do have to arm wrestle me for the Snickers. Elbow on the table, Ms. Professional Engineer.” He rolled up his sleeves with flips of the silk fabric and set up, bracing his elbow and tucking his other hand behind it. “Let’s go.”

Nicole grabbed the lone Snickers bar from the middle of the table, even though she’d had one for lunch, too. Snickers was her favorite candy bar. “It’s mine now.”

“Hey, that’s not fair! We were going to arm wrestle for it.”

“I outsmarted you, and possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

He shook his empty hand that was waiting for her to wrestle. “Stand and deliver.”

Nicole eyeballed his forearm. “This is ridiculous. There is no way I could even start to arm wrestle you. You can have the Snickers.”

“Set up, little lady.”

She hung her mouth open at him and then said, “You obviously work outa lot,and I obviouslydon’t.Your forearm looks like a python is wrapped around it.”

“Aw, you’re just saying that.”

“I am not just saying it. Is that even real? Do plastic surgeons do forearm implants?”

“That’s a question you would only hear in California.” He pinched his arm. “I can assure you, that’s a hundred percent beef.”

“Great, if the doors don’t unlock tomorrow, it’s reassuring to know that I could fry you up for dinner.”

“Surely we don’t have to resort to cannibalism the first night. Come on, what do you have to lose?”

“Evidently, my Snickers bar. Why do you even want to go through with this preposterous arm wrestling?”

Because he wanted to hold her hand again.

Because holding her hand while he’d helped Nicole up and steadied her and pretended that there must be some reason why he was still holding onto it had blistered through him like lightning.

Picking up a woman in a bar for sex paled in comparison. He’d looked into Nicole’s eyes. Her fingers had wrapped his, and his attention hadn’t wavered every second their palms and fingers had been intertwined.

He said, “Because we agreed to arm wrestle for the Snickers.”

“Fine.” Nicole slapped the contested Snickers bar on the table and sat across from him, examining how he had braced his arm and fidgeting as she figured out how to copy him likea kitten choosing its angle of attack. “This farce should be over with in one second, anyway.One-two-three-go.”

Aw, she’d tried to trick him. So darn cute.

As she tried to shove his arm over, Kingston locked his muscles and held her arm straight upright.