Page 4 of Haunted Games

Galen

Iwandered into my buddy Josh’s office in a daze.

“You out of here?” he asked, not looking up from the ancient computer he used for this operation.

“Yeah,” I replied absently.

“Well, I appreciate you helping me out, man. I know you don’t need the money, but guys with bodies that fit this particular role are hard to find.”

I tossed the skeleton mask onto the desk and collapsed in the rickety chair in front of it. “You need help next Saturday too?”

His eyebrows shot upward. “I mean, yeah, if you’re willing? Don’t you have fancy lawyer shit to be doing?”

I did. I did have fancy lawyer shit to be doing, but I didn’t particularly care about any of that right now. I was doing my best not to launch myself over the desk and kiss Josh square on the mouth for guilt-tripping me into helping him out tonight.

“Nah, I had fun,” I said with a casual shrug of my shoulder. “I don’t get to let loose like this anymore. It’ll give me something to look forward to while I’m trapped in a stuffy office all week.”

“Sure, man. Happy to have you.”

Josh was a friend from high school, and his family ran an event production company.

They’d landed the coveted haunted house gig for the North Texas Fall Festival this year, and Josh had been put in charge of staffing.

He’d needed guys in decent shape to fill the shirtless masked men roles, and he’d mined our friend group from high school pretty thoroughly.

I hadn’t been back in town for long, and I figured doing a favor for an old friend would be a good way to restart my life here.

And it sure fucking had been because I’d ended up on my knees for Abby Rogan.

I was going to be high on her taste for months. Years.

My Abigail. The girl I’d been obsessed with since the last day of our first year of law school.

The moment the professor of the one class we’d shared that semester announced I’d taken the top grade and she the second highest, she’d hit me with the world’s surliest glare.

And then she’d tried to take it out on me on the soccer field.

She was so cute when she pecked at me like an angry little bird. Flushed freckled face, adorable turned-up nose, blonde ponytail swishing with every cutting word she sent my way.

Tall and lean and athletic. Fast and agile on the field.

Brilliant. Tenacious. Ambitious.

And, by the time I’d shown up to our second year of school, ready to maybe do something about it, very taken.

Michael. What an asshole. Thought he was God’s gift to the courtroom and the practice of law in general.

If I hadn’t had an extremely clear notion of the shitstorm of liability I could bring down on Josh’s family’s head, I’d have broken his fucking nose and chalked it up to the risks of the haunted house.

I hadn’t known the status of Abby’s relationship with him (and frankly had been afraid to ask), but I sure as fuck knew now.

He was not supposed to be here, and he was not supposed to be anywhere near my Abigail. He’d clearly fucked up, and she wanted nothing to do with him.

Something had come over me when the guys and I had stumbled onto whatever the hell was going on in that room. Abby was alone and upset, and he was fucking there, being pushy and forward. I’d reacted without much thought.

And then… holy shit.

I shouldn’t have done it.

I’d crossed a line that I had no idea how I was going to come back from.

But I couldn’t regret it. Abby thought I was playing up a female fantasy, but I’d really been acting on my own.

Abigail. In my hands. Desperate for my touch. Shattering on my fingers.

Mine, if only for a few minutes.

It was everything I’d ever dreamed of.

I wanted more.

But for now, I needed to scrub this paint off my body and get these horrible contact lenses out of my eyes.

I stood up and gave Josh a salute. “I’ll see you next Saturday, man.”

And I had more than an inkling of hope I’d see her then too.

Ryan Peters dropped by my office Monday morning and planted himself in one of the client chairs in front of my desk.

“You watch the game on Saturday?” he asked, kicking his polished cowboy boots up onto my desk. Ryan was in his third year here, while I’d been hired as a fifth-year attorney. “Fucking brutal. I don’t know how I’m expected to work today.”

“I’ll let you take that up with Bob,” I replied.

My college team had also lost this weekend, but I’d stopped letting the athletic performance of nineteen-year-olds destroy my ability to function.

“The sellers for this new deal have starting dumping a mountain of documents for us to review. I could use you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He rolled to his feet and stuck his thumbs in his belt loops. “Anything for the billables. Don’t make me liaise with the tax group again, though. They’re assholes.”

“They are not. They’re just smarter than the rest of us.”

He grunted. “Right. Well, back to the grind—”

“Wait.” I cast a furtive look past his shoulder into the hall. It was deserted other than my legal assistant, Jana, dutifully typing away at her station outside my door. “Is it true that Abby was the senior associate on the team that pitched the client for this thing?”

“Oh, uh….” He scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, maybe? That was back before she went on leave, though, so she had to transition all her files before she left.”

My lungs nearly fell out of my chest. “She went on leave? Was she sick? What happened?”

He waved a hand at me. “Nah, her mom had cancer or something. But it’s all good now. I think.”

I sagged into my chair. “Right.”

“Why?” he asked, smirking. “She busting your balls for stealing her deal?”

“I didn’t steal anything,” I muttered. “I was in Bob’s office for something else, and he had a lunch scheduled with the client right after, so he brought me along.

” I’d been thrilled because I was new and needed some big files.

The client’s CEO and CFO had been decent guys, and it turned out their sons were both playing soccer for my old club team.

We’d hit it off. “I’m not here to poach anyone’s shit, Ryan. ”

“No one thinks you are,” he replied. “We catch work wherever we can, man. The partners tend to throw it at who happens to be standing in front of them when a new client comes in the door.”

That’d been true at my old firm, too, but this shit with Abby losing out on things just because she went on leave pissed me off.

Ryan ambled off, and I swiveled in my chair to stare out my 31st floor window at the expanse of downtown Dallas, preparing to stew for a while.

I needed to fix this somehow.

Later that afternoon, my plan was in motion.

A quick knock sounded at the door. “Bob, you wanted to see me?”

Abby strode into Bob’s office, a yellow legal pad clutched under her arm.

It still struck me dumb every time I saw her around the office.

She was somehow even more stunning than I remembered from school.

Maybe it was the confidence and experience.

Maybe it was because the scant few pictures she posted on Instagram in the four years since we graduated were never enough, and I’d been starved.

Maybe it was also the years of physical separation from that douche Michael.

She stopped short when she noticed I was here, too, lounging like a large cat in one of Bob’s two client chairs. “Galen,” she grumbled, her eye twitching, which made my dick twitch accordingly, “am I interrupting an important meeting?”

Bob, still squinting at his Blackberry and oblivious to the vibe, motioned for her to have a seat. “Ah, Abby, good. Give me just a moment.”

“What’s this about?” she hissed at me under her breath. “Am I going to be handing over another of my files to you?”

I grinned at her. “Patience, Crossbar.”

She gritted her teeth and blew a harsh breath through her nose like the world’s most adorable bull. “If you want to keep your balls where they are, you’ll stop calling me that at work.”

The thought of her going anywhere near my balls was almost too much to bear while I was trapped in the office of one of this law firm’s most senior partners. “Does that mean I can call you that outside of work?”

“I will punch you.”

I shivered. “I don’t remember you being so violent in law school. Only on the soccer field.”

“Ah, okay, sorry about that,” Bob said. “Abby, thanks for stopping by. I just wanted to let you know that Galen here has had a chance to dig into the initial diligence for the new deal, and he thinks the load is substantial enough to merit two lead associates. He suggested you split it up between the two target subsidiaries.”

She stared at him with wide eyes for a few seconds before she recovered effortlessly. “I’m sure that would be fine. If Galen thinks that’s what’s best for the client.”

Bob chuckled. “As long as the work gets done and it doesn’t cost more than expected, the client doesn’t care. You and Galen are the same class year, so your billable rate is identical. As long as you two can play nicely together?” He raised a bushy white brow.

I chuckled. Little did he know.

“Of course we can, Bob.” She cut me a suspicious glance. “If Galen would send me credentials for the data room, I’ll get started on my part right away.”

I stood up and readied myself for battle. “Can do. I’m on my way back to my desk now.”

I winked at her—she hated that—and sauntered out of Bob’s office.

She caught up with me right as I ducked back inside my office. I didn’t bother going all the way around my desk to sit down. Instead, I took up a perch on the front of my desk so I could be closer to her and face her head-on.

With a huff, she shut my door, crossed her arms over her perfect tits, and scowled at me. “What are you playing at?”

Today she wore khaki-colored trousers that accentuated her long legs and a black sleeveless blouse thing that showed off her toned arms. Her dark-blonde hair was pulled back in her signature ponytail, and a hint of pink colored her freckled cheeks as it always did when I ruffled her feathers.

And now my entire body was aware of how it felt when those cheeks flushed for a different reason.

God, I was fucked.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t known Abby worked here before I took the job. I followed her on Linkedin (and anywhere else she deigned to have an online presence), and while my goal had always been to return to the city to be closer to home, I hadn’t set out to land quite this close to her.

When I received the job offer, I’d been torn, wondering if I should take a job not only in the same firm but the same practice group as the girl I’ve always wanted but could never have.

Should I save myself the torture, or should I cave to my primal need to have those adorable flushed cheeks back in my life for the foreseeable future?

I hadn’t stayed torn for long.

And to my delight, we’d fallen right back into our old ways. Because I wasn’t able to date her back in school, sparring with her was the way I got her attention. I’d assumed she was still with Michael until I burst in on him accosting her in the middle of a fucking haunted house.

Jesus Christ, what an asshole.

“Galen,” she growled when I didn’t answer her right away. I’d been savoring her ire like a fine wine.

I gifted her with a patronizing sigh. “I thought you wanted this deal, Abigail?”

“I did. I do.” She dropped her arms, placing her hands on the back of one of the chairs as she leaned forward to stare me down.

What a vicious little tiger. I deserved a huge raise and a gold fucking medal for keeping my erection at bay.

“But I wanted to be staffed on this deal because I earned it, not because you’ve had a sudden fit of conscience and decided to be charitable.”

“Don’t be a sore loser, Crossbar. Take the W. Or the half W.”

“This isn’t a game, Galen.”

“Everything is a game, Abigail, and I play to win.”

Her eyes flashed, and her fingertips dug into the fabric of the chair. “I hadn’t forgotten that about you.”

I was two seconds from pressing her up against my door, wrapping my hand around her throat again, and informing her that there were a few other things about me she wasn’t going to forget.

Suddenly, she deflated. With a sad shake of her head, she released the back of the chair and straightened her spine. “You’re right, though. I should take what I can get. Thank you for convincing Bob of the need for two associates at our level on this deal.”

The fire was gone, and all that was left was bitter resignation.

Well, I hated this.

She turned to leave.

“I didn’t like hearing that you’d lost this deal, and probably a few others, because you’d taken leave, Abigail.”

She paused, her hand on the doorknob. With a tentative glance over her shoulder, her striking green gaze met mine. “Who told you?”

“Peters. Is your mom okay?”

She frowned like the question confused her. “Yes. She’s in remission.”

I blew out a breath, and a knot of tension I hadn’t realized I was carrying released. I beamed at her. “Good. I’m glad to hear it.”

Her expression softened as she stared at me, her mouth open like she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. Then she frowned once more and wiped it all away. “Send me everything you have on the deal, please.”

I saluted her. “You got it, Crossbar.”

She groaned and stomped out of my office.

It was going to be a very long week.