CHAPTER 19
SIERRA
My brain fumbled from the lack of sleep as an exhausted yawn left my lips.
It was around seven in the evening when game day finally came to a close—we played three matches today, two warm-ups and one actual match.
And we won all three as if it were a breeze in the park.
I couldn’t wait for the next rounds, where we would only have to play one match per game day and be done with it.
All my running around from the past couple of weeks was catching up to me. I was training all night with the team, then staying up in the morning to keep up pretenses as both Sierra and Luna.
I was dead tired.
My body hurt even thinking of the long wait for an Uber that I had to catch and escape traffic back to Matty’s. It felt like hell to even think about it.
My exhaustion wasn’t the only problem riddling my body. It was also a weird kind of sadness laced with confusion. Every tenth second, my thoughts drifted back to the memory of Matty’s breath fanning across my skin like a hot whisper, his lips so close to mine that without even touching mine, they scorched me alive.
I had no idea what to make of it. He didn’t call it a mistake, yet he said something like that wouldn’t happen again.
But it didn’t change the truth, right?
The truth that Matty Evans wanted to kiss me.
Or maybe it was just another hormonal chemical reaction.
“Si, you can stay with us, you know?” Tin’s question tugged me away from my thoughts.
I yawned into my palms once again.
“You can go back in the morning…or you can hang out with me and the gang.” He shrugged.
That did sound like a good suggestion.
Could I really stay with my friends without drawing much suspicion?
Matty wouldn’t tell on me to my parents, would he?
If he did, Mom would be on the next call wanting detailed descriptions of the address I was staying along with the said friend’s phone number, and she would definitely connect the dots if I mentioned Tin.
“Nah.” I waved a hand, peering at him through my heavy lids. “I’ll manage.”
Tin lost some of his smile, but he nodded.
“Of course she’s not going to stay with us,” Kiki added with a pout. “I wouldn’t either if I got to stay at a swanky apartment in the city.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “It’s not really that swanky. It’s just a regular old apartment.”
“I doubt that,” Kiki mumbled. “You never invite us.”
Thankfully, Ken said something to distract her.
“So, uhm…” Tin flashed me a smile. “What are you up to next week?”
No sleep. Cooking. Training. Pretending, among other things.
“Nothing much,” I mumbled instead as he walked beside me, matching my slow steps as we trailed the team, who were bickering about something.
We gamers were always the last to leave. Thankfully, the crowd had thinned.
“If you’re free, can we meet up in the city for lunch or something?” Tin eyed me expectantly, his hands digging inside his pockets.
I didn’t want to disappoint him by saying no. I guess I could make time when I was sneaking out to the gaming café. I was just about to say sure when Kiki, Freddy, and Ken halted abruptly.
“Am I seeing this right?” Kiki muttered in shock.
I caught myself just an inch away from her back, almost face-planting myself onto her.
“What…?” My words died at the sight in front of me, and all the weariness dissipated from my body.
My blood rushed to my feet in a whoosh, and my heart galloped to my throat.
It felt like I was on the brink of a heavy daze that was trying to knock me out, cold.
“Sierra,” he simply said, his voice conveying no emotions. “Or should I say Luna?”
I took a step back, one after another, while my friends snapped their questioning eyes at me.
But I had no answer for them.
Standing there in his tall, brooding presence was Matty Evans, his pale green eyes scrutinizing me with a vacant gaze—a gaze that held something else, something I couldn’t comprehend.
Every lie I told, every painstaking ruse I created crumbled like a firewall under a hacker’s hand.
I was screwed, wasn’t I?
Panic flooded my blood, and it felt like my whole world was crashing down on me right then, but I still stumbled toward him.
A hand stopped me cold in my tracks. “Si?” Tin asked, frowning as his eyes volleyed between Matty and me. “How does he know your name?” If I heard correctly, I’d say I heard a bit of disdain in his voice.
“None of your business.” A calm, collected voice reached us before I could say a thing.
My eyes drifted to Matty, who still had the same expression on his face, apart from the thin line on his jaw, his eyes were soley focused on Tin’s fingers wrapped around my wrist.
The tension in the air grew thick, laden with murky energy with each passing second.
Tin stiffened and started to take a step forward, but I stopped him.
“Tin, it’s fine,” I said softly, releasing my hand from his hold. “I actually know Matty. It’s a long story, but I’ll explain later, okay?”
I didn’t wait for his answer as I hurried away.
I could hear Tin calling out my name, but I gripped Matty’s hand and tugged him far, far away from the concourse.
The entire time, I did not meet his eyes, while my mind ran wild with a thousand thoughts.
What was I going to do now?
What good excuse could I ever come up with?
But first of all, how the hell did he find me?
My panic only increased tenfold at the thought that he could call Mom, who would have my head when she found out.
But before that, what the hell was he thinking?
Matty just found out I tricked him, lied to him, and kept secrets from him.
He was the most honest, trustworthy, and real man I’d ever met, and all he’d ever been was nice to me, but here I was, quite the opposite of that.
Embarrassment trickled its way up my veins.
Why couldn’t I just, for once, be normal?
But it was already too late to ponder that.
I stopped just as we rounded to an empty corner and took a deep breath before I met his eyes.
“How much do you know?” I mumbled.
His impassive face and his neutral eyes told me everything I needed to know.
I was so screwed, wasn’t I?
Matty wasn’t even going to send me back to Iona like a pretty packaged parcel. I was going to be flung on my mother’s doorstep like a lowly community flier.
“I’ll explain everything, okay.” I waved a frantic hand, wide-eyed. “First of all, I didn’t mean to lie to you. Second of all, I don’t have a lying bone in my body, okay? I know that might sound contrary to all the lies and secrets I’ve been keeping, but can you blame me? I had no other choice. Like really, no choice. My mom wants me to become a doctor. A doctor ,” I hissed in disbelief, pointing at myself. “The last person in the universe that should become a doctor is me, I mean, if I held a scalpel, there was going to be more dead bodies at the hospital than on a freeway. I know nothing about science, Matty. That’s not really my thing.”
“I think I got that,” he replied dryly, his expression giving nothing away.
A faint flush burned my cheeks. “Gaming is all I know…all that I’m good at,” I muttered. “It’s everything to me, and my mom doesn’t understand, not now at least. It’s not something she would take seriously unless I show her the proof. So I needed an opportunity, and what better way than winning a tournament, right?” My words tumbled out in a breathless laugh. “I was going to join the tournament anyway, but when Raphy brought you home, I thought, what better way to go to New York than to be in New York itself? I swear I didn’t plan it or anything,” I rambled. “It just happened, and here I am. And I swear I had no idea you played Fantasy Legends till I saw you. Trust me, I didn’t intend to trick you at all, but when you said I was your favorite, I just couldn’t help it. I wanted to play with you, so I gave you a request, and here we are. I just… I like playing games with you. I’ve also been pretending to go to classes when all I’ve been doing is going to the gaming café fifteen blocks from the apartment. That’s it. I haven’t told another lie.”
I almost had to catch my breath as I finished.
His gaze was still fixed on me with such intent that my nerves fired with an invisible shiver.
I swallowed, thinking of the biggest secret. “Wait, there’s one more.” I took a step toward him, and his eyes followed my motion without blinking. “I’m a fangirl. Like your fangirl, like obsessed with you kind of fangirl to the point I call myself your number-one fan. I don’t like J.J., Mikey, or Landon. I like you. You’re my favorite celebrity, and I know everything about you that there’s to know, and I listen to your music all the time, especially your instrumentals. I can’t game without it,” I spewed. “That’s it. That’s all, no more secrets…I don’t have any more secrets.”
A beat passed as he just stared at me, piercing me with his green eyes that smoldered the blood pulsing through my veins.
“Are you finished?” he asked.
“Yes, I think so,” I said, nodding frantically. “I don’t have anything else to say. Or do I? I don’t know. Do white lies count? If you think maybe I’ve lied some, I think, I don’t know…”
His lips twitched, but it didn’t just stop there. They curved into a faint whisper of a smile.
“You’re smiling,” I blurted.
His smile widened, and my heart skipped a beat.
Matty Evans was smiling at me .
“You’re smiling,” I repeated, astonished. “And you never smile. I’d never seen you smile before…”
“Sierra,” he commanded, his eyes glinting.
“Hmm?”
“Shut the fuck up,” he mumbled before his lips swooped in and caught mine.
A gasp left my mouth, but he swallowed it as his tongue brushed across my lips in soft, deliberate strokes along the depths of my mouth, tasting and sucking every inch of me.
I leaped onto the balls of my feet and wrapped my arms around him, my finger weaving around the back of his neck as I breathed deeper into his mouth.
It was a gentle exploration at first, but when his hand circled my body, pulling me closer to him, his warmth seeped into me like molten honey, covering my body completely. A moan slipped past my lips as the kiss turned intense, lighting a low flame in my core, burning brighter and faster with each second.
It was exhilaratingly delirious and all-consuming.
My breath labored in fast rasps when we came up for air.
A soft chilly breeze washed over our heated skin, and it took me a moment to realize what had just happened.
Matty Evans just kissed me.
Me.