Page 67 of Call the Shots (For The Arena #1)

JUNE

Every night, I told myself, ‘this is the last time I'm sleeping in that man's bed’ and every morning, I woke up with his arms around me, cuddly and nestled in. Because Bear was very into physical touch.

Spending nights turned into holding hands on our way to class, then we were kind of holding hands everywhere.

Holding hands led to forehead kisses, hugs from behind, constant touches, and with Sémajuste’s arrival, their practices were way more demanding.

If I was studying for my upcoming finals, stretched out on the couch, Bear was napping on me.

I tried to talk about the trips his family took without him, but Bear brushed it aside with, ‘I was at hockey camp,’ ignoring how weird his absence had been. I couldn’t push the issue because I didn’t want to hurt him.

How are you supposed to say, ‘I don’t like how your family treated you’ to someone who doesn’t understand?

It blurred the lines even more. I felt guilty for my role in it, and unsure what it meant, and so, so tender about him. Bear was way bigger than me, but that didn’t temper the protectiveness. During practice, I panicked when his helmet wouldn’t clip right.

“Why do you care, killer?” He smirked. “Huh? Why do you care? ”

He knew why.

Shit.

We both knew why.

While Bear got Zoo Cultivation IV ready for our gaming session with his cousins, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

How to tell him, how to convince him. I pulled open the fridge, reaching for the carton of orange juice.

I bit my lip, glancing between that and the cranberry juice.

Which one? I flipped the carton to check the calories and gazed down at a dark blue Marrs University sticker, obscuring the numbers.

Did Bear put stickers on the calorie chart?

I checked the cranberry juice, seeing stickers plastered over the information. All the condiments too. When did he do this? He didn’t even mention it.

My heart softened and I poured myself a glass of orange juice before opening the dishwasher to put in the few dishes.

“Don’t touch the dishwasher,” Bear threw over his shoulder.

I paused. “Why not?”

“You don’t load them right—leave them in the sink.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yep. The blue ones go in the middle and the tupperware—it’d take too long to explain. Don't touch the dishes, that’s my job.”

Ugh, the smiles were impossible to push down. Bear teased them out of me. The smiles, the butterflies, the heart pounding because of him . I ignored the impending end of the road because Bear made things so good.

I walked to the couch and tilted his head back until I could kiss him. Bear rumbled in pleasure, stroking my hair as I nipped his bottom lip. “Did you reinforce the zoo walls?”

“I’d rather watch you go crazy and destroy shit,” he muttered, kissing me again. “Sounds way more fun.”

“Last kiss.”

“Hm.”

Bear’s grunt of disapproval made me laugh. It was easier to stay a cushion apart instead of explaining things to his baby cousins about our…situation.

I sank to the couch and Bear started the call. His cousins appeared on the screen.

“Commander Teddy!” Jillian shouted while Bear showed me how to use my controller.

“We have Colonel June signing on today,” Bear announced.

“Okapi!” AJ exclaimed.

“Hi.” I waved. “I’ve never done anything like this, sorry in advance.”

The kids laughed but Bear caught my eye. “You’ll do great.”

The game opened to their zoo, this elaborately-built structure with thousands of layers and winding parts. The screen split if Bear moved too far so I stuck close to him while he gave me a tour.

“Press A to pet the hippo,” he encouraged me.

“Don’t hippos kill people?”

“Her meters are green, you’re fine. I’ll do it with you.”

The kids realized what we were doing and shouted at me not to do it, but the animation sequence had already begun. It was an adorable cutaway to show my character petting the hippo that I was instantly discouraged from doing again.

“It pauses the game!” AJ groaned.

I laughed. “Aw, but it’s adorable.”

“We’ll do all the animated stuff when it’s just you and me playing,” Bear said, standing up to make popcorn.

When he returned with the bucket, I took a handful without tearing my eyes off of the screen. The game was so detailed.

“Ooo, is that June?” a new voice asked, and I glanced at his laptop to see a woman with auburn hair, peering with interest.

“That’s my Aunt Holly,” Bear explained. “Hey, Auntie.”

Bear’s aunt was his mom’s sister-in-law, his uncle had passed away a couple of years ago. She was so excited to hear from us, and I filled her in on the little things Bear forgot to mention. There was so much teasing and love between them, it was clear how close they were.

I thought about the stories Bear’s dad used to tell me about how he ‘rescued’ Bear.

I wondered how many of those were actually true.

An hour passed— an hour already?— and we had ten minutes until his cousins had to call it a night. I checked my phone and spotted the new email.

My test results.

I snuck a look at Bear, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration while he washed the whale tank with his cousins.

If I had my results… “Hey, can you check your email?”

“Uh-huh, yeah.” Bear held his phone out to me. “Sergeant AJ, you’re going to fall in the shark tank.”

“No, I won’t!”

I gazed at his phone, surprised. “No, I meant…um…?”

“Oh, sorry. Passcode’s zero-zero-four-zero,” Bear said, distracted. “AJ, if you jump like that, they’ll bite you—dude, what did I just say?”

“No, they won’t— they got my leg! ”

“Oh, man,” Bear muttered, clicking a thousand buttons. “Now there’s blood in the water —"

“Can you die quieter?!” Jillian demanded. “I’m making a beautiful underwater sculpture! I need to concentrate!”

Bear…gave me his phone. Just like that. Surprise flickered through me as I typed in the passcode, waiting for it to decline.

It didn’t. I stared at his phone, thinking of all the times Xavier snatched his out of my hand when I wanted to check the weather or ping a picture to him.

And Bear just gave it to me. Just like that.

A blush colored my cheeks as the realization sank in. Bear’s passcode was forty.

Oh my god, this man.

“No way.” Bear motioned for me to look at the screen. “We’re in consideration for another okapi—it’s a minigame, you have to help me.”

I quickly screenshot his email and changed it to his phone’s lock screen. “Like it wouldn’t be only me in the exhibit?”

“Uh-huh. If we do it with a high score, we get to pick the name and gender.”

“Ooo…high score? You should get one of the kids to help you?—”

“Nope, you’re doing it with me!”

Despite my objections, Bear showed me the two-button combination I had to press while he went through the rest of the sequences, his thumbs flying across his controller. If I slowed, the lefthand bar went down.

“Bear, I’m not good at this?—”

“Keep going, June!”

My fingers were cramping but I hopped up on my knees, focusing to keep up with him.

“Almost there!” he shouted.

“This is why I don’t play video games! If we lose the okapi, it’ll emotionally destroy me!”

“ALMOST THERE!”

“ OH MY GOD! ”

“DON’T STOP, JUNE!”

Sparkles whirled across the screen with a big congratulations window, and the kids were ecstatic. They’d been trying to get more rare animals to win a trophy.

“Gender, male, ” Bear announced.

“Do you need an O name?” Jillian asked. “What about Oscar?”

“No, we’re naming him Bear,” I laughed. “Aren’t we doing that? Wasn’t that the only point of the minigame?”

Bear was quiet for a moment. “Yeah.”

“Put in the name, I want to see him in his new exhibit!” I watched as the okapi Bear was dropped in our special place, his pixelated form shaking off the dust. “Oh, he’s so cute.” I beamed at Bear. “Just like you.”

Bear gazed at me, his face weirdly blank, before he grabbed me by the shoulder and yanked me down for a kiss. I gasped in surprise and Bear wrapped his arms around me, kissing me harder.

“Ew!” AJ gagged.

“YOU KISSED HER!” Jillian screamed. “ I KNEW IT! I KNEW YOU TWO KISS EACH OTHER!”

I flushed as Bear hurried through an apology. They eagerly told his aunt what happened until their voices disappeared when their call ended.

“Sorry—I got caught up in the moment,” Bear said, embarrassed.

“We’ll talk about that later.” I pulled my shirt over my head.

“You listened to animal fun facts for thirty minutes, didn’t say anything when Jillian messed-up the sidewalk creation kit, you repaired it when she wasn’t looking—” I kissed him, flashing his phone’s screen.

“You’re so patient and so sweet. Now we’re having no-condom sex. ”

“Huh?” Bear read his screen and his eyes flashed to mine. “ Yeah? ”

They were hurried, insistent kisses while we tore each other’s clothes off. That wasn’t unusual. The last couple of days had been yanking down jeans and making up for the unnecessarily celibate summer.

“So, uh, what do I do to recreate this?” Bear muttered, deepening the kiss.

“I don’t know—thoughtful Bear is really doing it for me.”

“Okay, volunteer at a soup kitchen and fuck in the parking lot?”

I burst into laughter while Bear coaxed me down to the couch, running his tongue along my neck. I loved the feeling of him on top. I just loved how safe I felt with him, and comfortable, and how good he made me feel…

When he kissed me on the lips again, I broke away. “I want you to cum so deep inside me, my birth control has to do its fucking job.”

Bear froze. “Huh?”

“Sorry.” I panted. “Too far?”

“No, I—” He faltered. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Something about his tone told me that wasn’t a bad thing. I licked his bottom lip. “I’m your toy. Do whatever you want to me.”

I ran the palm of my hand over his bulge, rigid in his boxer briefs. Satisfaction coursed through me from the wet spot. Precum . With a grunt, Bear jolted away.

“You’re leaking, baby,” I murmured. “Can I taste?”

His eyes were trained away from me as he pulled off my panties. “I need to eat you out.”

“You don’t want to keep kissing?”

Bear didn’t respond, just propped my thighs over his shoulders.