The Cost To Play (Slivers of Love) Read Free

fingers move across the screen. She knew he had turned it off for the weekend. It was one of the many traits that bugged her to no end about Toshi, but indecisiveness was not one of them.  Once he made up his mind that was the end.
    Toshi Yamaguchi had just dumped her.  When he had to make the choice between dressing up as a crime fighting superhero and drawing comics, or being with her, he opted to be the super hero. In her mind, his actions were villainous. He had just made a down payment on a new enemy and she was not going to let this go lightly. There would be no way to explain to her parents how she had managed to run off another potential husband.

Chapter 3
    At 4:00 pm on Friday afternoon, Toshi dressed as Gambit from the X-Men and headed downstairs to the hotel lobby to mix and mingle with the other conference attendees.  Many con junkies came early to meet the prettiest ladies and maybe score a conference hook up. This had only happened twice for him, but he was single again, so his mind was open to the possibilities. Slipping into the black seamless pants, and picking up a deck of cards, he held up an ace of spades to any woman who caught his eye. Thus far, there had been only two.  So many of these attendees were very young and if any reminded him of a student, he shied away.
    Vendors had set up earlier in the afternoon.  At such a small con, there weren’t many writers, artists, or designers present, but Toshi had been tapped to teach two of the classes on Saturday. One in the morning and the other in the afternoon. He was looking forward to it. As he passed by the vendor room, he nearly kept walking but was halted by a vision of delightfulness bent over into a bin of buttons and tchotchkes. In his mind, he hoped it was a woman. The purple Lycra pants, black hair, and a glimpse at side boob said female. It would be most uncomfortable for him if she were not.  Feeling confident, he leaned down and whispered close to her ear, “that has to be the most perfect ass I have ever seen.”
    The princess with the perfect posterior turned slowly, raised her body to full height, and faced Toshi with a look of disgust, “you do realize you said that out loud, right?”
    The directness of her tone made Toshi step back.  He was also surprised to see that she was a black woman, with a whole lot of attitude.  The heels she wore gave her an additional few inches in height, but he imagined her in stocking feet to stand only at five feet maybe four inches.  She had full lips and deep, wide set brown eyes that looked like pools of liquid milk chocolate. She had a gap in her teeth and the cutest nose he had ever seen on any woman.  Initially, he had thought the hair to be a wig, but as he stared at her, it did not take long to understand it was actually her hair.
    “I meant to say it loud enough for you to hear me,” he added with a cockiness that was unlike him. Being dressed as Gambit, he felt stronger, more powerful, and far more daring than he should.  “At least I didn’t ask you to sit it in my lap.” He stood with his legs shoulder width apart, his arms folded across his midriff, calling her out. By making such a bold move, Toshi also noticed that his heart rate had increased.
    Toshi thought she looked extremely hot dressed as Bling, and much like the comic book character, attitude and angst radiated from her. Jayne was staring at the costumed man, but it was unclear if behind the mask he was Japanese or Chinese. What was evident was the man was arrogant and thought she was an easy mark.  She moved closer to him, bringing a smaller smile to his face as she extended her index finger, wiggling it, beckoning him to come closer. “I like the costume Gambit and I like how you decided to take a gamble, but I have to let you know something very important.” She paused to drive home the words she was going to hit him with, “but….”
    Toshi leaned closer to hear what she had to say. He placed his hand upon his