Chapter 13
Update: Loch Ness asked me what I was doing when I started writing the rules of our new game in a notebook, and when I said it was for my gaming company it opened a whole can of worms. Because apparently Loch Ness also wanted to start a gaming company but never told me because apparently I’M the idea copyer.
So then there would have been TWO gaming companies with the same games which didn’t make any sense at all. We had no choice but to combine them into one. It’s called DNA Games. Like Dominic and Alice but with an N because playing is in our DNA.
I came up with it and Loch Ness liked it a lot so I guess now we are both CEOs.
Rachel
Drinks at Underbite Thursday @ 7. Going with work people. You’re coming.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I really (really really really reeeeaaaalllyyy) need you to meet my boss.
Scratch that. YOU really (really really really reeeeeaaalllllyyy) need you to meet my boss.
He’s a babe, babe. I swear you’ll love him.
And before you say no, a doctor’s note or proof of paid ticket to a once in a lifetime event (with a comprehensive 1500 word explanation as to why I didn’t get an invite) are about the only two ways I’m letting you out of this.
Ciao. Love you!!
(Wear the red dress)
(The Givenchy mini)
(Please and thank you)
“What’s that?”
I chucked my phone onto the grass and started gathering my hair into a ponytail. “Took you long enough,” I said. “It’s a pillow for your leg. Why?”
“Exactly.” He gently tossed the soccer ball he was holding from one hand to the other and back again. “Why?”
“Because I don’t have a cast or walking boot, so I had to get creative. Come here.”
I tightened my hair, then dropped to my knees, forcing myself not to stare.
He’d changed into a pair of black soccer shorts and a matching tee. It brought back a lot of suppressed, unwanted memories, and I didn’t need the distraction.
“I still need to be able to move, Lice,” he argued, lowering to sit in front of me. I bent the pillow around the lower half of his nondominant leg and instructed him to hold it in place while I spun a generous amount of duct tape around it.
It wasn’t perfect, but it would reduce his speed and dexterity enough to even out the playing field. Somewhat.
“There.” I patted my handiwork with pride.
“You should still be able to run; it’ll just be annoying.
As for the blindfold.” I dangled a strip of white Egyptian cotton in front of him, courtesy of what used to be a spare pillowcase, then wrapped it around his eyes.
“How’s that?” I asked, securing the knot. “Can you see?”
“Barely anything. A faint shadow when you move. That’s it.”
Good enough.
I pushed to my feet, dusting the grass and dirt from my knees. “Okay, let’s do this. No timer. The game ends when I score.”
“Or run out of stamina,” he added. “If you sit, lie down, or take any sort of break, it’s an automatic forfeit. Falling doesn’t count, but only if you get up right away.”
“What if I get injured?”
“Not my problem. Don’t get injured.”
That checked out.
He started bouncing on his feet, getting himself accustomed to the weight and feel of the pillow. “Ready?”
He dropped the ball without waiting for my response. It was trapped under his foot in a split second, teasing right, lolling left.
I sighed, stripping out of the hoodie and chucking it to the side. A happy little smirk was already starting to pull at his plush mouth, and we hadn’t even started.
I’d never played with him before. Not one-on-one. He’d tried to goad me into it a bunch of times, but I’d never taken the bait. I wasn’t willing to give him the satisfaction of beating me at something so easily.
And he would have.
Even with the blindfold and his foot stuffed in a walking boot, he’d have won. He used to be that good.
But it’d been a few years, and it was safe to assume he wasn’t practicing or training at nearly the same level, so there was hope.
I cracked my fingers, stretched my arms, and gave each of my ankles one last warm-up roll. Then I moved.
Dominic flicked the ball behind him right when I reached it, nabbing it again before I could so much as blink. I tried going around, but he pivoted, retaining full control.
I tried tricking him into thinking I was going left, then sprinting right. He pretended to fall for it but tapped the ball away just as my foot grazed it.
“Nice try.”
“Okay, there’s no way you can’t see,” I said, sticking my foot between his legs to get to the ball.
“I don’t need to see. You’re not exactly good at this.”
He gave it a light kick, and we broke into a sprint.
“You seriously expect me to believe you’re not cheating?” I half panted when he sidestepped the ball and nudged it away from me. “Let me see.”
I stepped closer, reached up, pretended to check on his blindfold… and immediately went for the ball.
Dominic saw it coming from a mile away. I huffed, my hands forming fists as I started to chase him again.
He tutted. “I forgot how frustrated you get when you’re bad at something.”
“I’m not frustrated,” I ground out. “I’m focused.”
For one blissful moment, I had him. But only because he let me think I did.
An annoyed growl crawled out of my chest when the ball slipped out from under my foot, my cheeks flaming. And I was so annoyed with the slick slipperiness and speed of Dominic’s footwork that I didn’t realize he was chuckling.
As soon as it registered, my “focus” was gone.
I kept glancing up between my failed attempts at retrieving the ball, catching glimpses of his easy, lopsided smile. It wasn’t hard to see why a housekeeper’s son had ruled in a private school filled with some of the most status-obsessed and scathingly hypercritical teenagers on the planet.
Michelangelo would’ve taken a hammer to David if he’d ever laid eyes on Dom. It was very upsetting.
A small giggle burst out of me when he grabbed my arm, tugging me to the side when my proximity to the ball got too close for his comfort.
“That’s not cheating?!” I exclaimed, failing to keep the laughter out of my voice. I meant to sound outraged. Or snarky.
I meant to call foul, stop the game, and sarcastically thank him for giving me the win. I meant to stay the course.
Instead, I grabbed him by the bicep, pulled him back, and kicked the ball. My pulse fluttered when he laughed in my ear, hooking an arm around my waist and lifting me off the ground before I could start running.
“That’s how you wanna play this?” I demanded, wiggling out of his hold as soon as my feet were back on the ground. He was still trying to figure out which direction the ball had gone, so I had a two-step head start in the sprint.
Just until his fingers curled around my wrist, forcing me to tug him along.
I was laughing so hard it was making me clumsy. My vision was blurring, my lungs were working overtime, and my ponytail had already started to fall out. “Holdonholdonholdon, time-out.”
He paused right away, no questions asked, waiting with his foot on the ball as my shaky fingers worked to quickly rebunch my hair. I opted for an extra loop with the elastic this time, making sure it was nice and tight before my hands dropped. “Okay. Go.”
I almost tripped over my own leg when he bounced the ball up. First with his foot, then once with each knee, before he bent down to my eye level. The ball landed on his upper back, and he grinned. Right in my face.
Show-off.
I swallowed my smile, reaching over his left shoulder. He dodged it, his blinding smile growing more lopsided and arrogant by the second. I swung right; he dodged it. Left again; he dodged it.
So I went for the throat.
He crumbled to the ground with a choked laugh the second my fingers wriggled into the side of his neck, his entire body bending into itself to make it stop. “Fuck.”
The ball landed a foot to his left, and had he not immediately snatched hold of my leg, the game would’ve been over right then and there. The two bright orange cups depicting the makeshift goalposts were the last thing I saw before I hit the ground.
We started scrambling, trying to get up while simultaneously keeping the other person down. I crawled, I jabbed, I shoved, and I fought with everything I had while dying of laughter. But he was stronger.
“Where did it go? Which way?” he demanded, pinning my wrists to the grass as we both struggled to catch our breaths. He had one knee braced on either side of my hips, his damp hair starting to curl.
“Relative to what?” I panted.
“Us. Let’s say our heads are pointing at twelve.”
“Are you serious? You think The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills covers reading analogue?”
He gave me a heart-shattering half smile. “I deserved that. But we both know you’re not actually daft, so tell me where it went while I’m still asking nicely.”
“Why? What’re you going to do? Waterboard it out of me with your dripping sweat?”
He released one of my hands so he could wipe his face with the lower half of his shirt.
If abs could kill…
I tickled them.
Of course I did.
It was the perfect opportunity.
He inhaled sharply, curling away from me like a dying spider. I scurried to my feet, my heart jolting when I felt his fingers graze my ankle. He missed.
I grinned when the top of my foot connected with the ball, borderline giddy when it tumbled between the two makeshift posts.
“Hah! I win!”
Dominic sat up, tugging his blindfold off. His eyes were shimmering, his skin flushed as he nodded. “Yeah. All right. Good game.”
And that—that right there—was Dominic’s one redeeming quality. He’d never been a sore loser. Not even with me.
I gave a dramatic bow, then ran past him to get my stuff.
“What are you doing?”
“Going home. See ya.”
“Leave the hoodie.”
I stopped in my tracks, my smile fading a touch as I turned back around. “What? Why?”
He started ripping the tape off his leg. “You don’t need it anymore. No uniform. You won.”
My nails dug into the worn and faded fabric, my mind racing. “Technically, the uniform you provided is buried under two feet of dirt in the garden.”
“Exactly. So give me that one.”
My teeth clenched, and no matter how much I tried to talk my fingers into releasing the hoodie, they wouldn’t budge. I stood there, fighting with myself for so long that Dominic stopped what he was doing to quirk an eyebrow at me.
Then he got up, kicked the pillow to the side, and walked up to me with his hand outstretched. We locked eyes, an undercurrent of something somber and dense passing between us.
I let go.
Turned around.
Walked away without another word.