Gamed (A Standalone Romance Novel) (Bad Boy Romance) Read online

  She looked perfect – her make-up a little too thick and her lips a little too red, but perfect.

  "Hey, beautiful. Remember how a long time ago you asked me to tell you when you were behaving rotten? I gotta call you out one last time. You knew someone was going to find you. Either your roommate or your sister. What an awful thing to put on someone else. You didn't think of that, did you? You probably had this whole damned funeral planned down to the photographs and flowers. But you didn't think for one second what you'd be doing to other people. She saw you, Sienna. Like that. Makes me glad you're gone. You can't hurt me or Quinn anymore."

  I stepped back and swiped away the angry tears. Across the room, closer than she should have been, Quinn stared at me wide-eyed. I swallowed hard and hoped she did not hear what I had said.

  #

  It was time to go. I turned to make a break for the front door only to bump into a wall of former classmates.

  "Weird high school reunion, huh?" Ben said. He had been the captain of the football team. The same irritated estimation from our teenage years was in his eyes as he looked me over. He still could not understand why Sienna chose me over him.

  Ben was my height with buzzed brown hair. His square jaw and cleft chin could have put him in those mail order sweater catalogs. He'd gone on to college with a football scholarship and had not changed one bit.

  "What are you up to these days?" he asked. "Is there a market for being too cool for school?"

  His cronies, a trio of Ben knock-offs at various heights, laughed.

  "I heard you're still hanging out at arcades or something, right?" the first crony asked.

  "Something like that," I said. I tried to step past them.

  "You were still with Sienna, weren't you?" Ben asked. "That is rough, man, just rough. You doing okay?"

  The actual sincerity of his statement set me back a step. "I think I'm still in shock."

  "No kidding. I could have imagined a dozen other people from our graduating class offing themselves, but not her." Ben scrubbed his cleft chin. "I keep thinking maybe it’s a joke. Like that time you swapped out the science dummies’ insides with lunch meat. Remember? You used food coloring to make the white rats have bloody mouths so it looked like they'd turned zombie or something?"

  "Yeah," I said. "Sienna would never go for a fake-your-death-then-zombie-attack-your-own-funeral kind of joke."

  "See, that's what I'm saying. I could never figure you two out," Ben said. He clapped an arm around my shoulder and forced me to join him on the back porch.

  The yard was full of cliques I remembered from high school. I looked around and could not find one knot of people with a gravitational pull. It was the same when I was actually in high school. I drifted, had plenty of friends, but no one close, and people either thought that was really cool or really weird.

  I played it off then like I was a rebel, but looking at the funeral reception, I did not have the energy. The truth was I did not care. Small talk, schmoozing, and keeping up appearances – that was all Sienna. She made me hit my limit and I could not go back.

  "Shit, this looks miserable. Count me out," I said.

  "So, what? That's it. Sienna dies and you head back to whatever basement you make your money from?" Ben asked. "Yeah, I know all about the gaming thing. Nice gig."

  "Yeah, guess I have a talent for it."

  "You're for real? No wonder Sienna was getting sick of you. She was heading off to be a surgeon and you're playing video games," he said. He unwrapped his arm and gave my shoulder a punch. "This your wake-up call or what?"

  "Wake up to what?" I asked. "Learning to tie a tie and take Daddy's place behind a useless desk at the shipping company?"

  "That's legit, man. A real job. Something my honey is proud of," Ben said. He nodded across the yard to a stick-thin bottle blonde. She waved like a terrier wags its tail. "I don't mean to hit you when you're down, man, but think about it. Maybe now's the time to do something with your life."

  "Funerals bring out the philosophers," I said. "Good luck with all that." I waved to his girlfriend. She gave me a once over and a bright smile. I could hear Ben's teeth grinding.

  "I don't get you, man. I just know you're going nowhere," he said. "Good luck with that." He clapped me on the shoulder one more time and led his trio off the patio into the grass.

  Their next stop was Sienna's father. I snorted, remembering the last conversation I had with him before today. It had been remarkably similar to Ben's topic of choice: my lack of career. They just did not understand that my world was not theirs. That was what made people uncomfortable. Succeeding on the screens and high scores of the gaming world was not obvious to the rest of the world, especially to non-gamers, so they assumed I was floundering.

  It drove Sienna insane that my source of income sounded so childish. At parties, she avoided talking about what I did as long as possible. I was not a tested, accepted, and career-tracked college student. In her circles of high achievers, that was impossible to understand. Throw in the whole making money playing video games bit and they looked at Sienna as if she was joking.

  Still, she wanted to be the perfect pre-med package and that included the high school sweetheart. I kept her from having to deal with flirtations and distractions. But after the third campus mixer, she realized I was more a blight on her image than a help. While she made up stories about me traveling or finding consulting work, or whatever other vague label she could slap over me, I became a success.

  I glanced around the funeral reception and shook my head. Even if Sienna and I had stayed together, she would not have cheered my success. The gamer world was prone to mockery, outsiders did not understand it, and Sienna wanted something that was obvious. I always thought she'd end up with a luxury car salesman. Or maybe a real estate agent. Someone subservient to her career but dependable, upstanding, and normal.

  Disgusting.

  I could not help but see an overlay of Dark Flag. Ben would try to gather a clan and it would work, but they would die within days, routed by underlings, cleaned out by thieves, or razed by a ruthless leader that did not care about appearances. It was the kind of world where small talk had burned away in the apocalypse. All that mattered was finding your inborn talents and using them to survive.

  I could not take on any desk job or career track that forced me to mimic rote skills. I could not pretend to be content with a day job. I wanted to use my talents, not store them in bins in the garage for the occasional hobby.

  Maybe if I had explained it better to Sienna, maybe if I'd given her a rundown of my success, she could have come around. Did it matter that we'd end up in the same place, only together? We'd still be at some backyard party with me on my own and nothing to say. Except she might still be alive.

  The thought burned down my throat and into my stomach like a shot of whiskey. I turned to see if there was anything to drink, anything to kill the feeling of guilt. A hired bartender in a crisp white shirt stood behind the counter of the outdoor kitchen.

  He looked bored, mostly pouring iced tea, and I startled him. "Please say you have whiskey."

  "Irish wakes are my specialty," he said. He poured the shot and left the bottle on the counter for me.

  "Can I have a, um, another?" Quinn said. She glanced away from me.

  I watched as the bartender poured her a diet soda, swept the whiskey bottle out of sight to add a splash, then gave her a lime twist. He handed me back the bottle and Quinn watched as I poured myself another shot. I toasted her before I tipped it back neat.

  "Lots of people from high school," I said.

  "At least they remember you," Quinn said. "Sienna always hated that I could not make a better impression at social gatherings." She stood up straight and took a step before her shoulders slumped and she turned back to the bar for support. "She always gave me the best advice and I never took it."

  "And now you think if you had, things might have been different?" I asked. "You can't do that. It doesn't work th
at way."

  "What doesn't?"

  "Life."

  "So, it's not worth thinking about?" Quinn asked. Her chocolate brown eyes took on a hard edge.

  "No, it’s just there are too many answers to 'what if' and none of them can change what happened," I said.

  "Why are people always so wise and philosophical at funerals?" She gulped her drink and held out the glass for another. "This is why I'm done talking with people. I'm not searching for answers or trying to see the silver lining. I'm just trying to survive."

  Quinn thanked the bartender, took her refill, and disappeared into the house. I took two steps to follow her before Mrs. Thomas appeared and blocked my way.

  "Owen Redd, we weren't sure you were coming," she said.

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Thomas. I should have stopped by sooner." I looked longingly at the whiskey bottle but knew it was not a good idea to drink in front of Sienna's mother.

  Mrs. Thomas had a tendency to overdo everything. She threw herself wholeheartedly into any activity, from chronicling Sienna's successes to redecorating the house to having a few drinks to celebrate her daughter's accomplishments. A few always turned into too many. Or sometimes, it took no drinking at all for her to shift from high speed to sinking ship. Her mood could swing to dire melancholy, and I worried the gentle smile on her lips was a thin facade.

  "You probably knew our daughter best of all and yet no one understands why you two were together." She stared over my shoulder at the bartender until he brought her a glass of white wine. "I used to think of you like the moon, just drifting around her and catching her light. She was the sun, Owen, the bright golden sun." Her breath hitched. "No. A shooting star, I guess."

  "She was golden," I said.

  "I get it, you know," Mrs. Thomas said. "I get how Sienna could go from way up there to way down here." She looked at the ground and swayed. "I feel it too. Everything lifts you up, up, up and then the air is too thin, you can't breathe, and you crash down. She just wasn't supposed to fall. Someone was supposed to be there to catch her."

  She looked up and the flash of hatred was sharp. I pulled back the hand I held out to steady her. Mrs. Thomas blamed me. No wonder Sienna's father had asked me to leave. The longer I stayed, the more people would feel the same way.

  I was supposed to be with Sienna. I was supposed to know how she was doing. I should have seen it coming and stopped her. I should have loved her enough to keep her from it.

  No one knew I wasn't even with Sienna. But it did not matter anymore.

  I dodged past Mrs. Thomas without another word. Anything would set her off. She was hoping I would and followed me inside. I knew Sienna's mother needed a reason for a scene; she was just keeping it together. I slipped down the side hallway and flipped the light on in the guest bathroom as I went. I shut the door and leapt around the corner just as she came after me. Luckily, the door to the basement was cracked open and I was able to slip downstairs without a sound.

  The lights were off except for a bluish glow at the bottom of the stairs. I stepped lightly down and discovered Quinn sitting on the edge of the old leather sofa. She leaned forward as she furiously tapped the video controller. On the large screen television, the world of Dark Flag came into focus.

  I stepped around the corner so I could not be seen from the top of the stairs, but I did not say a word. For just a moment, I wanted to watch Quinn in my world. It was like seeing a stranger on the moon and realizing she had always been there.

  #

  I leaned on the doorframe. It would not be long before Mrs. Thomas decided to look in the basement. I should have gone out the front door. I should have left, but something made me stay. With Sienna gone, I knew once I left that house, I would have no reason to come back. And I wanted a reason.

  It was Quinn. In the darkened basement, I could think about it. Just for a moment. In the bluish light from the video game screen, I allowed myself to look at her.

  Her chestnut brown hair was thick and soft. It fell in waves to the middle of her back, loose and free. It was the kind of hair I wanted to scoop into my hands. It would run through my fingers like silk. Against her black dress, it was warm with streaks of gold.

  The dress was sleeveless, showing the graceful reach of her arms. Quinn was slender and athletic, despite the soft curves of her body. Her arms showed taut muscles as she shifted the controller and tapped in sequences. Long delicate fingers that could have played the piano or performed surgery flew over the controller.

  She leaned forward again, concentrating on the game. In the light from the television screen, I could see her full lips parted. As she focused on a difficult move, her tongue swept across her lower lip. She made me think of ripe strawberries.

  I met her a month after Sienna and I started dating. Her hair was loose, her arms looked too long, and her chocolate brown eyes were so wide. For all her teenage awkwardness, Quinn was confident.

  "You're dating my sister?" she had asked. "Do you play football?"

  "No."

  "Basketball?"

  "No," I had said.

  She had tipped her head, those chestnut waves sweeping over her arm. "What do you do?"

  "I don't know, video games?"

  Quinn had laughed – a free, unpracticed sound. "With Sienna? She hates video games. You must be a good kisser."

  Quinn had always been easy to talk to, despite the gap in our ages. She was a freshman when Sienna and I were seniors in high school. I remembered hearing the other guys talk about Sienna's hot younger sister. It had made my blood boil. They did not know her like I did. Quinn was more than just attractive. She was quick-witted, interesting, and guileless.

  Where Sienna always had an agenda, an angle, or a desired outcome, Quinn was different. She was genuinely interested in people, not for what they could do for her but because she liked them. She was friends with everyone. Sienna had an exclusive list of people she would be seen with, but Quinn was more like me. Not loners, just not defined by the tight clans of high school territory.

  "She's driving me crazy," Sienna had said many times. "I mean, she went to the movies with this nerdy guy. She could have gone out with the first baseman of the baseball team."

  "Not into the whole dating thing?" I had asked Quinn when she was a freshman in high school. We sat on the worn leather sofa in her parents' basement playing video games while Sienna did her make-up for a pep rally.

  Quinn had shrugged. "Sienna makes it sound like a competition. I'd rather just sit here and beat you at Mario Kart."

  I did not tell her then, but I preferred the same thing. There had been too many nights when all I wanted to do was hang out with Quinn. I leaned on the doorframe and called myself a coward.

  She must have heard my heavy sigh. "Owen? How long have you been standing there?"

  "Long enough to be impressed with your use of the frost sword," I said.

  Quinn paused the game. "Yeah, right. An expert like you. I probably did one hundred things wrong back in that glen."

  "Well, there is a secret passage in one of the trees, but you were a little busy with that ogre." I slipped onto the couch next to her.

  "Is it wrong that all I wanted to do all day was escape down here?" Quinn asked.

  I resisted the urge to brush her chestnut curls off her bare shoulder. "I don't think anyone would judge you for that. It’s surreal up there."

  "All the almost crying but not actually, because women don't want their mascara to run. All the cheery stories about Sienna, even from people who called her the b-word to her face," Quinn said. "Perfect pictures, perfect flowers, perfect conversations – I'm not sure I'd call that reality."

  "Sienna would have loved it."

  Quinn gave a short laugh that ended on a jagged sigh. "She would be so mad about me hiding out here. I should be trolling the guests for a good date."

  "'I don't need a date; we're good,'" I quoted her.

  "Every time Sienna caught us down here playing video games." Quinn gave a
ghost of a smile.

  "You know, I was being honest. You're getting pretty good," I said. I picked up the second controller and tossed it between my hands.

  "You don't need to lie to me," she said.

  "And you look beautiful in that dress and your hair looks great long," I said. I nudged her with my shoulder. "Now can I compliment your playing or should I keep going about you?"

  Quinn never believed me when I told her she was beautiful. It had almost turned into a game. I wondered if she heard compliments so rarely that she never knew what to do. Sienna got the compliments, the praise, and the bragging stories from their parents.

  I told myself it was good for Quinn. Really, it was just a way to say what was on my mind. I would have gone crazy if I could not have told her somehow.

  "Compared to you, I'm just stumbling around Dark Flag," Quinn said.

  "On great legs," I said. It took a moment before I could tear my eyes off them.

  "Oh, shut up, Owen. Tell me where that secret passage is. I'm heading back to the glen."

  I slumped back on the couch and started the second controller. Within seconds, my avatar was with her in the glen. "I'll fend off the ogre, you look for the secret passage. I'm not just giving away secrets for free."

  "Oh my God, where are all these people coming from?" Quinn asked. Multiple players appeared on the screen.

  "My clan. I rallied some of the best players I ran across and we've made a good team," I said.

  "Yeah, I read about you. Nice cover shot," Quinn said. "No pimples, extra weight, or worm-like pallor. You're changing the face of gaming."

  "Hey, I'm not taking a compliment if you can't," I said.

  "It sounded like the journalist was smitten," Quinn nudged me with her elbow. "She described you as having the shoulders and muscle tone of Captain America and the skills of an extreme gamer."

  "At least someone noticed."

  "Looks like a lot of people have noticed. I've never played with a clan before. So, are you a professional gamer now?" Quinn asked.