Page 162 of Let the Game Begin

Alyssa had been by Logan’s side every day during his hospital stay, and their bond had only gotten stronger.

“Checkmate!” Chloe exclaimed, sitting on the rug in front of the glass coffee table in the center of the room. Matt, on the other side of the table, snorted and rubbed his meticulously groomed beard.

“Sheesh, you really are good,” he grumbled to himself, but the little exchange between the two of them didn’t pull Mia’s attention from her son and Alyssa.

“Yes, Mrs. Lindhom,” Alyssa answered finally, picking back up her conversation with Mia.

I glanced at Logan: he was smiling, pleased with his girlfriend’s presence. His face still showed evidence of the accident—he wore a couple of bandages over some injuries on his brow ridge—but none of that seemed to temper his happiness. Alyssa cuddled next to him, resting her head against his chest, breathing in his smell. I thought about how lovely they were together and then felt sad.

It was then that I realized there was something else that was different after our return to the house, and that was Neil’s attitude. Mr. Disaster had gone back to being cold and unfriendly. He barely paid me any attention, only greeting me brusquely whenever went ran into each other around the house and he felt he had to. He hadn’t kissed me or touched me or attempted to get close to me.

I often thought about how it might have been between us if he had been willing to let me into his life. If he had trusted me enough to let me know him and stripped himself of more than just his clothes. I also often thought about whether or not he’d started sleeping with Jennifer again or if he’d started seeing new blonds I didn’t even know existed.

In any case, I would always bear with me that storm he’d made inside me when his lips touched mine in those carnal kisses that froze all words and thoughts. Automatically, I pinched my lower lip between my thumb and index finger, as though I could still taste tobacco on my tongue, the essence of him on my palate.

“I heard Neil’s voice…” Logan’s words disrupted the flow of my memories, bringing my attention back to him. Someone must have asked himabout the coma. “It was the only lifeline I had to hold on to in all that darkness,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper, staring at an indistinct point in front of him. Even Matt and Chloe had stopped their game to turn and listen to him.

“I could feel his hand warm on mine. He talked to me and I remember everything he said to me. Every word was like an electric shock to my chest.” He smiled and looked at Mia, who swiftly wiped a tear from her cheek.

“I really thought I wasn’t going to make it; I was so scared. But his determination helped me keep from losing hope.” The thoughtful silence that fell over us was impressive: no one uttered so much as a sound as we all concentrated on what Logan was saying.

“So I kept my promise and—”

An intense baritone overlapped with his voice. “You came back to me.”

Neil was leaning one shoulder against the doorframe in a way looking like he’d just returned from parts unknown, the keys to his Maserati dangling from the pocket of his dark jeans. His lips were curved into a smile that was entirely for Logan.

“Just like you always came back to me,” Logan answered, though none of the rest of us quite understood what he meant.

That’s when Neil shifted his gaze to me, and I gasped as though I’d been burned. It was extremely difficult to conceal the effect his eyes had on me, and he surely noticed it because he let his stare dip down from my thin sweater to my dark pants, before slowly crawling back up to my face. He’d stopped smiling and was instead biting the inside of his cheek pensively. Yet again, I couldn’t tell if he liked what he saw or found something about me lacking, probably the way I looked. Maybe my hair didn’t look good loose and wavy or maybe he thought I should be wearing makeup.

Then, he met my eyes, and with a nearly imperceptible jerk of his chin, he gestured toward the door. I frowned and examined his face. Neil turned then and walked toward the kitchen. Clearly, he meant for me to follow him.

I glanced around to make sure we weren’t making anyone suspicious but everyone else had gone back to chatting with each other again. Everyone except for Logan, who was looking at me with something like concern in his face.

He was, after all, the only member of the family who knew about us, besides Anna.

I ignored him, crossed the living room, and slipped into the kitchen, all the while feeling his hazel eyes boring into my back. When I got into the kitchen, I realized that Neil wasn’t there, so I went out the French doors into the garden. Immediately, I wrapped my arms around my torso as a blast of cold air hit me, making me shiver.

I strolled at a slow pace under a sky filled with stars as I searched for the damaged boy who couldn’t stop stealing pieces of my soul. I spotted him not too far away, swaying in a hammock.

I took a deep breath and felt my knees wobbling as I approached him. Like always, I was completely taken in by his charm.

“Come here,” he said, even as he continued to stare up into the darkened sky like the only things he cared about were the stars above him and the cloud of smoke dissipating in front of him.

I took a few steps toward him and paused to consider: Where was I supposed to sit? There wasn’t enough room for me in the hammock and asking him to sit up would be embarrassing.

“There’s room for both of us,” he added, turning to look my way. That ability he had to know what I was thinking was always disarming. Slowly and carefully, I climbed into the hammock alongside him.

Neil lifted up his arm, and I stared at him in shock because I wasn’t expecting that kind of gesture from him. Did he want me to lie down next to him? Or…hughim?

I decided not to irritate him with either question and situated myself next to him. I stretched out my legs and rested my cheek against his chest. I felt one of his arms reach up to wrap around my shoulders. I breathed in his good, familiar scent and reveled in his warmth against the cold of the night.

“‘Selene’ means ‘moon,’ right?” He brushed my arms with just the fingertips of his right hand while holding his cigarette in his left and stared up at the sky. It was the first time he’d asked me a personal question like that, and a spontaneous smile perked up the corners of my mouth.

“Mom teaches classical literature, and she’s passionate about Greekmythology. Around the time she discovered she was pregnant, she’d been reading a myth about the goddess Selene, so she decided to name me after her,” I explained with a shy smile as I looked up at the moon, glowing all alone up in the sky. There was a deep feeling of peace in the air, a pleasant solitude and a brisk chill that slapped against the bulwark of human heat our bodies had created.

“She’s usually depicted as a beautiful woman with a pale, delicate face. And in Greek mythology, she was said to have many lovers due to her indisputable allure.” I blushed as I related this detail, even though it was only the truth. I certainly didn’t consider myself a goddess or even a very beautiful woman, but I was still honored to share her name.