Page 1 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

THE PROSOCIAL ELEMENTS

Alix

Have you ever had one of those loud-talking boyfriends? The kind that has everybody in the restaurant turning and staring and possibly complaining to their server, but that you’re not allowed to shush?

This wasn’t my boyfriend, fortunately. Or maybe unfortunately, because the guy was my fiancé Ned’s CEO, and suffice it to say that Ned was never going to be shushing him. At the moment, Brian Goshawk, The Man Who Thought He Was Everything, was talking about their company’s newest video game.

“Revolutionary,” he was saying. “Dystopian? Yes. Mythical creatures? Yes. Invisible mythical creatures, until you figure out how to light them up. But it’s about building alliances, not just battling enemies.

That’s the brilliance of it. Everybody gets to be the good guy, and it’s all about teamwork.

That’s all I’ll say, because … loose lips, you know.

It’s still secret, but I have a feeling it’s going to hit big. We’ve already got buzz.”

Brian’s new girlfriend, Sabrina, said, “That sounds so exciting. And new,” she hastened to add.

“It definitely sounds new.” She didn’t seem put off by the loud talking, or Brian’s hand gestures, either, or even the way he’d flung off his brand-new leather jacket—navy blue suede lined with shearling, and costing, he’d informed us, over twelve hundred dollars—as if he were too busy and too important to wait a moment for anything, even at a restaurant that was almost as important as he was.

“So a strand game, in other words,” I said.

My fiancé, Ned, said, “It’s very innovative.” Quietly, but I’d always liked that Ned was reserved. He was the CFO, and those guys tended that way anyway. Which was good. Great, in fact. That was my life now. Disciplined. Focused. All the way to the top.

“How?” I asked Brian, not Ned. Ned wasn’t going to tell me. Ned, my rebellious inner self whispered, probably didn’t know.

“I could explain,” Brian said, “but like I said—secret. And it would mean getting into the weeds. I didn’t realize you were a video game expert. Trust me, it’s new.”

“I worked on your last round of funding, remember?” I said. “The investors want to know what they’re buying into.”

“As a summer intern,” Brian said. “But since you asked, and, after all, we’re all insiders here …

” And there we went. More hand gestures, another refill of the wine glass, and Brian got louder.

I mean, more animated. “So you see,” he finally finished, “that’s where the innovation is.

The prosocial elements. Women play video games, too, you realize.

They love that shit, even if the main character’s a guy.

And young men want to make real connections, blah, blah.

Though the consultants say they actually do.

Want to make connections, that is. I never cared that much.

It’s really about the game, right? You’re playing to win. That’s the point.”

“You don’t say,” I murmured into my wine glass.

Ned didn’t actually kick me under the table, but his elbow did nudge my side a bit.

Which meant that I did not move on to discuss recent patterns in women’s gaming—like that the numbers were now nearly 50/50, but only thirty percent of main characters were female.

This Bay Area-success-track thing put a real damper on your self-expression.

“Tell me about the wedding plans,” Sabrina said, probably to change the subject.

“Just three more weeks! Are you excited? Is your dress ready? You don’t hear much about Christmas weddings, but I don’t know why.

I can just imagine how beautiful it will be.

I can’t wait. Is it going to be, like, royal? ”

I laughed, but she looked hurt, so I stopped. “It’s at St. Ignatius,” I said, “not Westminster Abbey. Big pipe organ, looks like a church, but you know … it’s San Francisco.”

“If you’re going to talk about weddings,” Brian said, “talk quietly. I’ll talk basketball to Ned. UConn’s going to repeat this year. You know it.”

“You’re probably right,” Ned said. He and Brian were across from each other, while I was across from Sabrina.

The table wasn’t that big, but if Brian had been loud before …

This was a trendy place, which normally meant “hearing damage,” but they had some sound baffling going on as well as low lights, and Brian’s voice was really ringing out, probably to drown out discussion of weddings.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, for some reason. “I see Alabama outperforming.”

“Alabama?” Brian laughed. “Have you seen their record? Final Four last year was a fluke.”

“Yep,” I said, in a way my mother would not have approved. “I’ve also seen how they lifted for the big games last season. I think they can take it. North Carolina State’s looking good too,” I added in a true burst of recklessness. “That’s my outside pick.”

“North Carolina State,” Brian said, and shook his head.

“ Well, if you’ve got money on that, I guess it’s yours to lose.

Wait, though. Aren’t you still in college?

Oldest college senior ever, or something?

You’re probably not doing much spending.

Oh, wait. Your family has money, right? If you’re going to gamble, I guess it’s better to do it with somebody else’s money. ”

I waited for Ned to say something. When he didn’t, I said, “I do all right on my own, thanks.”

“Right,” Brian said. “With your internship and all.” He laughed.

He’d drunk a bottle of that wine all by himself, I was pretty sure.

That was why he was being such a tool. He’d also pointed out in a would-be subtle way that it was ninety-eight dollars a bottle.

Ned said Brian was only that way around me, that I was intimidating, but I sincerely doubted my ability to turn sensible men into raging assholes.

I was a college student. At twenty-nine!

Sabrina said, “Dress?” And smiled apologetically. “I’m so jealous of your figure. You’re so fit, with those toned arms and all. Did you go mermaid?”

“Your figure’s fine, Sabrina,” Brian interrupted himself to say. “Why are women so insecure? You’re thin. I told you, men like thin. Just stay away from the dessert menu.”

The guy at the table next to ours looked up, and not for the first time.

There’d been a couple of women with him earlier, of the decorative type, but they were gone, so it was just him.

He did not look impressed. He also didn’t look like this was his type of place, because his shirt was plaid.

In fact, I was pretty sure it was flannel.

His eyes slid over me for the briefest second—I probably looked like I wanted to slug somebody, and one guess who.

One side of his mouth ticked up as he raised his brows, and then he looked away again.

He was one of those hard-looking guys, the kind with firm jaws and assessing stares.

And he had yellow eyes. Startling, was what those eyes were. A bright, vivid amber, and framed by coal-black lashes. He looked like a wolf, and I actually got a shiver down my spine, but I couldn’t look away.

“Uh, what?” I asked Sabrina, and did look away.

“Dress,” she said. “Tell me it’s a mermaid one, with one of those semicircular trains. You’d look spectacular in that.”

“Uh …” I said. “I’m not sure what the style’s called. Slim but not tight? Kind of plain? Oh, yeah. Sheath. It’s a sheath. My mother picked it out. She enjoys weddings, and I’m not into them much.”

She blinked at me out of her turquoise eyes. “Your mother?”

“I’d have been stumped otherwise,” I tried to explain. “No wedding daydreams growing up. She doesn’t trust me to do it right. She didn’t much like this dress, for example.”

“But it’s gorgeous,” Sabrina said.

“I know, right?” I said, liking her. “My grandmother was my approver on this one, and she’s a whole different story.

” I ignored Brian telling Ned how much he had on UConn winning the title, and giving Ned all his picks for the pool.

In detail. No way Iowa State was beating North Carolina State this year, though. I’m just saying.

Sebastian

I was outside waiting for my Uber when the four of them came through the doors. The asshole was still talking. I didn’t want to look, because I didn’t need more aggravation in my life, and then I did.

It was the brunette. Well, the brunette and the dress.

I’d noticed her during dinner, because she had one of those old-fashioned faces.

All kinds of forehead, huge brown eyes, long straight nose, kissable mouth.

She looked soft and sweet and classy, like a portrait in an art gallery of some aristocratic lady, except for the sardonic expression I’d caught on her earlier. Mismatch there.

And the dress? The dress was deep red, long-sleeved, and high-necked, but it was made of stretchy stuff, and now that I could see all of it, I was noticing the sort of gathering it had, right there at the hips, coming together at the crotch.

I mean, the crotch. Then she turned around, and it was gathered like that at the back, too.

She wasn’t real big either up top or down below, but she still had a great ass, and that defined waist that says “woman” all the way.

I may have stared a little, not least because she was wearing red suede shoes with the kind of catch-my-breath heels a man appreciated, and the woman had legs.

Well, calves, because I couldn’t see her thighs.

But I wouldn’t have minded. I wasn’t really in the market, but still.