Page 21 of The Snuggle Is Real

I’m not used to not knowing what Emily is thinking or feeling.

I hate it.

"Look," she says, grabbing my sleeve. "Malcolm. Look."

It's a pumpkin. It's a very large pumpkin, sitting on a wooden pallet with a blue ribbon pinned to it and a sign that says 612 LBS. GROWN BY THE HOLLISTER FAMILY.

"It's a gourd," I tell her. I’m a little impressed, but I refuse to admit that.

"It's a champion." She pulls her phone out and takes a picture of it, then a selfie with it, then a picture of me standing next to it looking pained. "For scale."

"I'm six-two, not six hundred and twelve pounds."

"None of this even feels real," she muses.

There is truth to that.

Or maybe it does feel real, even when it’s not.

I'm a numbers guy. I know what the numbers are telling me.

I'm choosing not to read the report.

"Games," Emily announces, pocketing her phone. "I want to win something impractical."

"Define impractical."

"Something with googly eyes."

The game booths line the east side of the square, run by what looks like every club, team, and church group in the county. The high school FFA has a ring toss. The Methodist youth group has a duck pond. The volunteer fire department is running a dunk tank, and the man on the seat is Fred Callahan, in his funeral director's suit, looking grave and dry and deeply unbothered.

"Is that the man from the diner?" Emily asks.

"Yes. Fred. He does this every year. Nobody's ever dunked him."

"Why not?"

"The fire chief says the target's welded wrong.”

“Then why don’t they fix it?”

“I think everyone's a little afraid of Fred."

Emily narrows her eyes at Fred. "Hold my baked goods."

She shoves the bag she’s been carrying and eating out of for the last twenty minutes and her cup of coffee into my hand.

Three throws for two dollars. I pay, because I'm her fake boyfriend and because I want to see this. Her first throw goes wide left. Her second clips the edge of the target and does nothing.

"Something is definitely wrong with this thing. The angle is off.”

"I told you."

"You're an accountant. Calculate it."

"I'm a CFO."

"Then chief financially officer it for me."