Page 23 of Let the Game Begin

I got wasted like an idiot, even though I knew perfectly well that I was only hurting myself. I’d lost track of the number of drinks I’d downed, but I did notice that I was struggling to pronounce familiar words. In fact, I could barely recall my own name.

“Wesh… We should…stop,” I said to Julie, who wasn’t in much better shape. She mumbled something unintelligible while I laughed like a lunatic.

“Mav… Maffey… Maybe you’re right…”

I slumped against the bar and blinked several times. My vision was no clearer than my mind.

“Girls…” someone said. It was probably Logan’s voice. I turned to check. Yeah, it was him. But wait a minute…just how many Logans were there?

“Hello to every Logan present!” I waved a hand in greeting to all the Logans, even if the reproachful looks on their faces didn’t bode particularly well.

“Are you drunk, Selene?” I heard his words as a distant echo. I felt completely unmoored from reality, so I just nodded and wrapped my arm around his shoulders. I couldn’t stand it, and if I tried to walk, I would trip over my own feet.

Less than an hour later, I found myself back at home with Logan, who had also dropped off Alyssa and Julie along the way.

“D’ya know why the ladybugs are red, Logan?” I rhapsodized on the front stoop before stopping to closely examine the exterior wall.

“No, Selene,” he sighed, opening the front door.

“Because, in ancient times, red was the color of good fortune,” I continued, holding forth like I was some great expert on the subject.

Logan, by contrast, was tired of my ramblings. “That doesn’t explain why they’re red,” he grumbled, propping me up wearily.

We got into the house, and he dragged me toward the stairs. Fortunately, everyone else was already in bed, and Logan navigated us skillfully through the darkened house to make sure that no one would hear us.

“Explains why they’re good luck, though,” I argued after a few moments. He was no match for my incredible deductive reasoning.

“Yeah, yeah, okay. I think you’ve talked enough, and it’s time for us both to go to sleep,” he huffed and guided me slowly up the stairs. Every now and then my legs would give out and I’d hit my knees like a sack of potatoes, but Logan was always there to get me back on my feet.

He brought me into my room and helped me stretch out on the bed, pulling off my shoes. I muttered a subdued “thank you” and followed his shape with my eyes as he disappeared out the door of my room. I could feel my head throbbing and my stomach getting tight. I’d already thrown up on the ride home, but the nauseous feeling still lingered.

I tried to close my eyes. Sleep might have made me feel better, but the sounds coming from the next room were keeping me awake. I knew it was Neil getting his rocks off with some girl, and I decided that I wasn’t going to let him get to me tonight.

I stumbled out of bed and toward the door. I tossed furtive glances up and down the empty hallway before making my way to his room, one hand on the wall next to me for stability. The walls kept rotating and the floorlooked like an ocean of marble, rocked by invisible waves. I blinked and refocused on my goal.

I pounded insistently on his door until Neil appeared, in the flesh, wearing just a pair of track pants with his torso bared. I examined the well-defined lines of his solid musculature, including those sculpted pecs that I would have happily stroked before forcing myself to look back up and meet those eyes, gleaming like gold. He had a confused expression on his face, but I was determined not to let his perfect body distract me this time.

I cleared my throat and started in on him. “What are you doing? You want to knock it off with all this noise? And don’t tell me you have someone over tonight, because I need to sleep!” I shoved him aside and forced my way into his room. I looked at the king-sized bed and was surprised to find no one in it. There was just a punching bag, swinging from a hook mounted on the ceiling and the scent of amber and tobacco in the air.

“Are you crazy? What do you want? I’m not fucking anyone; I was just training.” He brushed past me irritably, and I looked first at the contours of his sweaty back then at the powerful muscles in his arms before I finally noticed the white wrappings around his hands and wrists.

I kept silent, aware that I had screwed up, while Neil bent down to grab a bottle of whiskey. I tilted my head and stared intently at him. His eyes were glassy, and his cheeks were flushed. Suddenly, there was a flare of understanding on both of our faces.

“Are you drunk?” we asked each other in unison. I was suddenly very aware of the danger in this moment because, with neither of us sober, there was no one to keep the situation under control.

“I-I-I’d better get back to my room.” I went to leave but stopped in the doorway and turned back. “I apologize. That I thought you were… I mean, that I came over here because…” I didn’t know what to say, I had screwed up, and it would have been better to just apologize and then walk away. But my body remained motionless. Waiting. For what, even I didn’t know.

Neil set the now-empty bottle on the floor and walked over to me. He was covered in sweat; it turned his skin into polished amber stretched over the clean lines of his body. For a second, my eyes caught on the Maori-styletattoo on his right bicep, and I wanted to ask him why he’d chosen that particular design.

I quickly snapped out of my silly thoughts, however, when I felt his big, warm hand touching my cheek. I wanted to squirm away from the gesture. I wanted to feel disgust. I wanted it to be an unwanted advance. Instead, it just reignited those sensations in me that I had now learned to recognize as lust, fear, and confusion.

“You’re very beautiful. Do you know that?” He seemed to be murmuring it more to himself than to me. I stared at his lips and wondered what it would feel like to taste them again. I hadn’t forgotten how soft they were and how skillfully they moved against mine. Those lips could scramble a woman’s brain.

“So are you,” I answered.

It suddenly seemed to me that the two of us standing there together, saying what we were thinking, just might be the most right thing in the world. Why did I have to be so attracted to someone so far removed from who I was? In that moment, I didn’t even care. Neil and I were just two young people trying to figure ourselves out against every rule and all good advice.

“Why’d you get drunk?” He brushed my lower lip with his thumb, and I opened my mouth breathlessly, feeling the rough texture of his fingertip.