Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Getting down a cup and putting it in place before hitting Brew, I tried to replay the night before. The familiar sound of the machine cranked up, and I headed to the living area to see what kind of a mess I had made. There had been ice cream involved, and if I had left it out, then there would be a sticky mess to clean up. My gaze brushed past the television to see it was still on, although nothing played. It was back to the Netflix screen that made you choose who was watching.
When my eyes swung over to the coffee table, I was prepared to find melted ice cream, but hoping I didn’t. My entire body stilled, and my breathing seized on the middle of an inhale. An icy-cold feeling seeped through me as I stared at the sofa and what sat on it. My throat felt much like it had when Oz held me by it and squeezed. I shivered, my body reacting to the situation and every scenario that was rushing through my head. There was not one that made sense, not one that eased the terror, laced with confusion, that had me transfixed.
How in the HELL was the sloth from yesterday in my apartment? This was how horror movies began. This scene right here would be an excellent start to one. Another quake shook my body, and I realized I hadn’t finished taking a breath. I sucked it in hard, then let it out.
Think, Winslet. You drank a lot. There was some blacked-out part where you put the ice cream away, blew out the candle, and got in bed. What else happened? Did someone stop by?
My eyes swung then, making sure there were no other glasses around. But there was just mine. The Goldfish I hadn’t bothered to put away.
“Who was here?” I whispered, trying so hard to remember something. “Think!”
I closed my eyes for a moment. Had Toby come back? Oh, please don’t let him have come here while I was blackout drunk. What would I have said to him when I was like that? Would he have known I wanted the sloth? Gone back and won it for me and wanted to check on me and give it to me?
He hadn’t seemed that observant. I was finding that unlikely, but then there was no other person there that was around when he was playing that game. Besides, I hadn’t said I liked the sloth.
I stared back at it and all its cuteness. “How did you get there? Who brought you?” I asked the inanimate object as if it were going to reply.
Had it been a pure coincidence and he had chosen the one I wanted? I mean, it was a one out of three chance. It wasn’t impossible that he’d guessed right. But that meant he had come here last night, and I had no memory of it. I wouldn’t have kissed him, would I? Alec had always said I was brutally honest when drunk. I’d told him once that I faked orgasms during sex with him because I couldn’t ever get off before he did. That had caused a rather dramatic fight when I sobered up.
If that was the case, then what in God’s name would I have told Toby? I grimaced. He’d still left me the sloth. It had to have been him. It wasn’t like someone else would stop by and bring it. No one other than Toby was at that festival who also knew where I lived and would come visit me.
That was it. Not another soul, I thought as I started to go over and get the empty wine bottle.
But there had been one other…soul there who knew where I lived and had seen us at the ring toss game.
My eyes cut back to the sloth. There was no way…I mean…was there?
I scrunched my nose and went to the sloth and picked it up. I studied it closely.
Had he even been close enough to see what game we were playing? He wouldn’t have known I liked this one even if he could.
Right?
I stood there, replaying it all in my head for any clue that it might have come from Oz, which would mean he had stopped by last night. The things I might blurt out to him while I was drunk.
Oh, please no, God. Do not let that man have come by here last night. Not with me like that.
No, it was fine. I didn’t remember everything, but I did remember what I had googled and found out about him. That man was not going to go win me a sloth and bring it to me. He was more than likely in bed with Miss America, doing all the things I fantasized him doing to me.
I shook my head. “You are a silly girl,” I said out loud. “If anyone stopped by to bring you this, it was not that man. No way.”