Page 25 of The CEO I Hate (The Lockhart Brothers #1)

LIAM

“ W ho’s the best?” I said, holding out the advanced copy of BladeBound Legacy I’d gotten from Connor as Jake swung his apartment door open. He looked up at the game.

“Nice,” he said with a weak half smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

Okay, I’d wanted a little more enthusiasm than that, but the fact Jake reached for the game felt like a small win. He wheeled himself into the living room, sliding the disc into his game console and tossing me a controller.

I flopped down on the couch as he wheeled his chair back next to me. “Remember when we skipped school the Monday GTA III came out and snuck back to your parents’ place to play it all day?”

We’d been fifteen at the time and weren’t even legally allowed to purchase the game ourselves. We’d paid some stoner dude all our lawn mowing money to go into the store and buy it for us.

“You forgot to erase the voicemail when the school called to say you were absent, and your mom realized we’d skipped. ”

Jake snorted at the memory. “Then she came upstairs and ripped the console right out of the wall. You know how many chores I had to do to earn it back?”

“Never got the game back though.”

“Probably still sitting in a box in my parents’ garage.” His shoulders slumped. “The good old days.”

I frowned. I’d been trying to keep things light. I hadn’t meant to make Jake think of everything he’d lost since then. Jake jammed his finger into the button on his controller, and I turned my attention to the game, which had finally loaded.

“You wanna be an elf or a scout this time?” Jake asked. “Actually, wait. This guy is more your style.” A big scowling ogre flashed across the screen.

Jake had always liked video games—we both had—but he’d become a lot more hardcore since the accident. Some days it was the one outlet I could offer him, so I’d been hooking him up with all the latest stuff from Connor as well as the latest releases from every other gaming company too.

“Wow,” I said. “Shots fired.”

“You can’t tell me Connor didn’t base this character off you.

” He laughed at the look on my face, and my thoughts immediately jumped to the picture Mia had bought at the convention, at how excited she’d been at the thought of making it the writers’ room mascot.

As promised, the picture was now in my possession.

She’d been reluctant to let it go, but not that reluctant. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the image of her smiling at me from across the table, the light catching flecks of gold in those brown eyes, her cheeks flushed pink, her lips glossy. My hand tightened around the controller.

“Dude, I was joking,” Jake muttered .

I looked up at the screen only to realize I’d selected the ogre.

“That guy will be slow as hell,” Jake continued. “Look at his stats.”

I changed my selection, and the game started up, thrusting us right into the middle of a battle in the fictional world of Endrith. A woman’s voice echoed over clashing swords. “ Bound by legacy, driven by fate. To wield the blade is to carry a kingdom’s future .”

“So,” Jake said as he chopped a guy’s head off. “I heard you’re having dinner with my parents on Friday.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I was so caught off guard that I didn’t even notice the enemy closing in until my character was run through with a sword.

“Man, you gonna make me heal you this early in the game?” Jake complained, dashing over to revive my character.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, answering his dinner question. I hadn’t expected Mia to tell Jake. We’d decided not to tell her parents in advance. Mia wanted them to be the ones ambushed for a change—so he could only have learned from her.

I tried to get a good look at Jake’s face. He was focused on the screen, firing off flaming arrows at some demon-like bat creature.

Was he pissed that I was going to be Mia’s fake boyfriend for the night?

I couldn’t tell, but the sirens whirring in my head said to explain. Now ! “She was telling me about what a rough time she’s been having with your parents and the weirdos they keep trying to set her up with?—”

Jake waved me off as my heart hammered. “Yeah, I know. Watch those black blades. They’re poisoned. They’ve really doubled down on trying to marry her off. Honestly, I’m glad she’s got you in her corner, but I’m not sure my parents are going to buy the idea of you and Mia together.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, we all know you look at her like a little sister.”

He was too focused on the screen to notice my expression, which was a good thing. It kept him from realizing how wrong he was. I didn’t want him to realize that. Because he might just turn around and throttle me.

“But I figure even if they don’t buy it,” Jake continued, “you being there might be enough to throw them off balance.”

“Right,” I said, slashing through enemies. Why did this have to be so difficult? Why couldn’t I get Mia off my mind?

“I know they’re being extra hard on her, and it’s my fault,” Jake said. “And I feel like shit about it.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said automatically.

“It is . My parents have always tried to tell us how to live our lives, but it’s been so much worse since the accident. It has them thinking they were right all along.

That’s why they’ve doubled down on Mia. They’d rather her be married to some loser and pop out two-point-five kids instead of following her dreams.”

He grumbled. “I know I should be the one going home with her, but I just can’t deal with them right now. So I appreciate you taking one for the team, man.”

Guilt washed through me. “Of course. Happy to help.” The bitterness in Jake’s tone was uncomfortably familiar. Even the game wasn’t taking the edge off. “Everything else okay?”

Jake shrugged. “I dunno.”

That was always his answer .

“We don’t have to play BladeBound,” I said. “If you wanted to do something else?”

“That’s the problem,” Jake said, sighing as a goblin shoved his character down the side of a cliff. “I don’t know what I want to do next. I’m stuck. In this body. In this chair. In my head. And I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do!”

He was restless and bored, and surely that was something I could fix.

“You could go back to school and retrain,” I suggested.

“There are dozens of other fields. Gaming’s pretty huge right now, and you’d enjoy that, right?

We can get you set up in a nice place close to campus, somewhere accessible.

I could link you up with Connor after graduation. ”

Jake made a face. “Just because I like to play video games doesn’t mean I want to make them. And school? Having to start in a whole new field from square one? No way is my head there yet. Dude, I’m barely getting through PT every week.”

“Okay, maybe that’s too much too soon. We can start smaller. There’s a wheelchair basketball league that meets every?—”

Jake shot me a look. “ You want to explain to my orthopedic surgeon why I’ve got new collision injuries on the leg he just spent eight hours trying to fix?”

I winced. Okay, fair point.

“Why don’t you come down to the studio then? Just…have a look around. See if anything sparks your interest. Maybe there’s a director inside you just waiting to come out.”

Jake tossed his controller onto the couch. “Telling stories is your thing, dude. And Mia’s. It’s never gonna be mine.”

I wished it was. I’d personally throw millions into funding a new production if it would bring Jake’s spark back .

“The problem is I don’t know who I am anymore. That’s what Gabrielle says.”

I shook my head. She wouldn’t have said that.

“I’m not the guy she fell for,” Jake muttered. “She says that sometimes—she doesn’t even recognize me anymore.”

“I don’t think she meant it like that.” Gabrielle had stuck around through the hardest part, through the surgeries and the therapies and the hard conversations with the doctors about the limits of what they could do. She’d been rock-solid through all of it. Why would she say that now?

“We’re always fighting lately,” Jake continued. “I just…it seems like she’s reached her limit. The way she looks at me…It feels like she’s having second thoughts about sticking it out.”

I didn’t want to believe Gabrielle was that kind of person, but I couldn’t deny Jake was struggling, and that took a toll on a partner.

“Whatever,” Jake said, picking up his controller again and re-starting the game. “Try not to die this time.”

I looked at the screen as worry coursed through me: worry for Jake, for Gabrielle, for the future of their relationship. This trip I was planning for them really couldn’t come soon enough. They both needed a reset.

One hour and a bloody battle later, I said goodnight to Jake, promising to call him later in the week.

I meant to head for the elevator, but instead of walking in that direction, my feet carried me down the hall to Mia’s apartment.

I could hear the TV through the door. As I knocked, the TV quieted.

A moment later, the door opened a crack .

“It’s you,” Mia said, standing there in a matching pajama set.

Were those cats all over it? Tiny cats that reminded me a lot of the picture she’d bought.

Her hair was down, her curls tucked behind her ears, and she’d washed her makeup off for the night.

She looked adorable, and I immediately knew coming here had been a mistake because I felt just as drawn to casual Mia as to Mia in a corset.

What the hell was wrong with me? I glanced down at the fuzzy slippers she wore.

“My feet get cold,” she said, defensive before I could say anything. She pulled the door wider, stepping back to let me in. “Hanging out with Jake?”

I nodded. “Brought the new BladeBound game over for him to try.”

Mia’s nose wrinkled.

“I know you don’t like it.”

“Untrue,” she said. “I appreciate the storyline. Hunting magical swords through a fantasy world is very cool. The copious amounts of blood hitting the screen…less cool.”

I laughed. “I will share your feedback with Connor.”

“Good.” Mia headed for the couch.