Chapter 8
ACE
It was a weird feeling, having a full team of eight after spending so long preparing for Clik Games and handpicking the perfect members.
Noah was a wild card, but I knew that when I decided he would be our final member.
It was a risk I’d already accepted, but so far, I felt like maybe it was going to work out.
Something about the little dude made me think he was going to fit in perfectly with the rest of us.
Also maybe it was a good thing he was so tiny.
There hadn’t been any of the usual testosterone-flexing shit from Xavier and Torin.
Instead everyone just wanted to take care of Noah like a little brother.
“How’s the new guy settling in?” Z asked, making himself at home on my office sofa behind me.
I paused the Byte I’d been watching and turned in my swivel chair to glare at his feet up on the arm of the sofa. “You mind?”
A brief moment of indecision crossed his face before he sighed and moved his feet back to the floor. “Sorry.”
I just grunted, because he knew full fucking well that’d piss me off, and he did it anyway. “Noah seems to be settling in okay, don’t you think?”
Z nodded, his expression thoughtful. “Mm-hmm. He’s not happy about the sleeping arrangements, though. What’s up with that? Some precious shit needing privacy?”
“Maybe,” I murmured, rotating back to my desktop to drum my fingertips on Noah’s file, which I’d compiled months earlier.
It was thin. Much thinner than the files I had on August and Minho, our other new-ish members, but that was due to a shocking lack of available information on Noah.
The guy was private as fuck, his digital footprint professionally cleaned, so his reluctance to share a room with Skye shouldn’t have been any great surprise.
“At least him and Skye seem to be getting along,” Z commented, stretching his arms over his head with a yawn. “I thought for sure that was going to blow up in the green room.”
A small smile curved my lips at the memory.
Scrappy kid had looked like he was ready to throw punches at Skye during that first interaction.
I’d kind of expected it, so I’d shuffled the room assignments around deliberately to force them to interact, but it wasn’t necessary.
Skye won Noah over before we even arrived home.
It’d been three days since then, and they now acted like they’d been friends their whole lives.
“As if anyone can resist Skye’s charm,” I said with a chuckle. “He’s a golden retriever in human form. Are you still trying to work out where you recognize Noah from?”
Z huffed a frustrated sound. “Nah, I gave up. I think maybe he looks like a guy I went to school with. Not really important, I guess. What are you thinking for Team Bonding week?” He nodded to my multiple computer screens featuring various Bytes from our competitors.
We had one week between introductions and the actual start of Clik Games, which was now in four days.
The first week for Clik Games was about team bonding, since most teams were not preestablished units.
The challenge would be to prepare a Byte that involved all eight members but didn’t necessarily need to meet any specific genre or niche.
Our problem, though, was how diverse the team specialties were. Again, this was a risk I’d accepted when compiling the team, and although everyone had their distinctly different platforms, they were more versatile than they showed on ClikByte.
“Uh, I’m still undecided,” I admitted, running a hand through my hair. “Initially I’d been leaning toward something…safe. Something on brand for Team Olympus, you know?”
Z nodded. “Shirtless shit, minimal risk with maximum thirst factor.”
I chuckled again. “Yeah. But after seeing the reactions to Noah from the introduction stages…” I clicked into the statistics spreadsheet I’d compiled with all the public responses to our team announcements.
Not just Acolytes—our loyal fan base—but across all social media platforms and all fandoms. They were going feral for Noah’s androgynous, almost feminine appearance, and the rumor mill was working overtime with speculations that his NoFear content was all green-screened— that none of it was legit—because he was so pretty. Like that made any sense at all.
Z sat forward to read my top highlighted comments with an annoyed twist to his lips. “Fucking keyboard warriors.”
“Yeah, but when we rely on public voting, we really need to take the opportunity to squash the doubters, right?” I swapped windows to pull up Noah’s ClikByte profile, then pulled up Skye’s on my second screen.
“Trouble is, that unless you lazy fuckers are hiding a couple hundred skydives under your hats, we can’t do any of the aerial shit these two adrenaline junkies get the most Cliks on. So where does that leave us?”
Z didn’t take offense to my insult, instead grinning as he reached for my mouse to select a Byte. “Let’s watch a few of the top Bytes on both and see what’s doable.”
For the next few hours, with Xavier joining us some time later, we browsed through both Noah’s and Skye’s platforms and brainstormed how we could incorporate the whole team into one Byte.
It was harder than I’d anticipated…but I saw plenty of great potential for future Bytes, so it wasn’t totally wasted time.
“My brain fucking hurts,” Xavier admitted eventually, voicing what I’d already been thinking. “Can we break for dinner? Torin and August said they’d cook.”
My stomach rumbled at that idea. The two of them were fantastic cooks. “Fuck yes. We still have four days, maybe we just need to marinate on this for a bit.”
The three of us left my office and headed for the kitchen, where music was playing loudly while Torin and August no doubt created a huge mess. They were excellent cooks, but fucking awful at cleaning up after themselves.
Minho was there with them, sitting on the edge of the island with a beer in hand and being absolutely no help at all in the creation of dinner, while Torin and August tossed ingredients around like they were on a variety show.
“Where are the little dudes?” Xavier asked, glancing around our enormous kitchen.
Minho pointed upstairs. “Noah got a call from his manager and went to take it somewhere quieter. Skye, I’m pretty sure, went to eavesdrop.”
My brows rose in surprise. “And you didn’t think to tell him that’s a bad idea?”
He just shrugged one shoulder and sipped his drink. “Why would I?”
Sometimes I genuinely thought Minho lit fires just for the joy of watching them burn. The guy needed a hobby. I saved my breath trying to explain why we didn’t want to start fights with our newest member three days into our arrangement and headed upstairs to find Skye.
Sure enough, I found him outside his and Noah’s shared bedroom with his ear against the door. Fucking hell, he wasn’t even attempting subtlety.
“Skye!” I hissed, keeping my voice low as I approached, but he still flinched so hard he nearly fell flat on his ass. Probably would have if I didn’t grab his upper arm to steady his balance.
“Ace, what the fuck?” he whispered back, eyes wide with shock. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. What were you thinking, sneaking up on me like that?”
“Me?” I replied, shaking my head in bemusement. “What were you thinking?” I gave a pointed look at the closed bedroom door and noted Noah’s quiet but clearly irate voice on the other side.
Skye gave a guilty glance at the door, then bit his lip and swiped a hand through his messy gold blond hair. “Uh, I just wanted to get some socks, but Noah’s on the phone with his manager. I was just waiting until he’s done.”
I quirked a brow, glancing down at his feet. At his socks, more specifically. “Oh? What’s wrong with those?”
Skye looked down at his own feet and hummed. “I don’t like the stripes.”
“Uh-huh,” I drawled, folding my arms over my chest. “So… you weren’t trying to hear what Noah was talking to his manager about?”
His big blue eyes narrowed, and his brow furrowed. “I just wanted to know why he seems to have such an issue sharing a room. I thought we were cool but like…maybe he still thought I’m a copycat, like I’m just using him for ideas.”
I tilted my head at his phrasing. “Past tense, so I assume you got your answers?”
Skye blushed. Hard. “Yeah, I guess that’s not what it was.”
Curiosity clawed at me, and I damn near asked what he’d heard.
But that would make me no better than him for listening in the first place.
It’d be a gross invasion of Noah’s privacy, and despite whatever strong-arm tactics our company used to make him join the team, I wanted him to feel safe here. I wanted him to trust us.
“Okay. So if you got what you wanted, why are you still listening?” I leveled him with my best disapproving glare, and the adorable little asshole hung his head in shame.
“No good reason,” he mumbled.
Just then the door jerked open behind Skye, and I locked gazes with a very flustered Noah, whose eyes widened dramatically when he saw us there.
“What are you guys doing?” he asked in a shaking voice, glancing from me to Skye and back again with a frown.
“Were you listening to my conversation?” The edge of panic in that question made me even more desperate to know what’d been said.
What had put that odd, shifty look on Skye’s face and the brow-sweating kind of stress on Noah as he tried to work out what we’d heard?
Skye said nothing, just glanced up at me with a wince. He’d make a fucking terrible spy.
“No, of course not. Skye wanted to show me something, but we didn’t want to interrupt. We didn’t hear anything. Right?” I nudged Skye, and he nodded silently.
Why was he acting so strange? Normally when he was trying to lie, he would talk at a million miles an hour, trying to deflect from the main question.
Noah seemed just as confused as me, folding his arms in the oversized hoodie he wore as he squinted at Skye. “Sorry if I shut you out. I just…needed to clear up a few things with my manager.”
Skye gave a tight shrug. “You’re fine. It’s your room too.” Again. Weird vibe from him.
“Torin and August are cooking dinner,” I said, changing the subject to break the tension. “They’re actually good cooks, before you worry. I think I smelled chicken curry when I passed through earlier.”
Noah nodded slowly, still seeming uncomfortable. “Uh, are the crew here or…?”
That explained a lot. He was worried about the camera crew that filmed the weekly Mount Olympus episodes.
Despite what the guys had said at the introduction filming, we weren’t being filmed every minute of every day.
But yeah, there had been a heavy dose of content in the last three days because our producers knew that Noah’s arrival would be good for ratings.
Not that it was hard filming. They’d just asked him to spend time with each of the members while working on content, to get to know each other better.
I was pretty sure Noah even fell asleep on the floor while Torin was working on a new pottery vase.
Weirdly, I was the only one he hadn’t spent any one-on-one time with.
But that was okay, since I’d managed to find an excuse to drop in on all of the other guys’ times for one reason or other.
“Nope, not tonight,” I reassured him. “August and Torin probably have the cameras on in the kitchen, but that’s because their cooking content is entertaining as shit. Steer clear of the mess and you’ll be fine.”
Noah’s shoulders lowered noticeably with relief, and he flashed me a quick smile. “Okay, good. That I can handle.” He started along the hallway, then paused and looked back at us when we didn’t follow. “Are you coming?”
I glanced at Skye, confused about the dramatic shift in his mood. His face blushed at the question and he rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding eye contact.
“Yeah, um, yeah…” he mumbled.
I shook my head with a short sigh. “You go ahead, Noah. Skye still needs to show me that thing.” I grabbed my youngest team member by the scruff of his neck and directed him into the bedroom before he could act any stranger than he already was.
Noah shrugged and continued as I closed the door between us and leveled Skye with a hard look. “Whatever you overheard—”
“Ace, I think—”
“Nope!” I cut him off, shaking my head firmly. “Whatever you overheard, you shouldn’t have. I don’t want to know, and you have no right to know. Being on our team does not nullify Noah’s right to privacy, and you just violated it. That’s not okay, Skye, and you know it.”
His eyes widened, and his lips twisted in remorse. “You’re right.”
I studied him for a moment, curiosity clawing at the insides of my skull. “Does what you heard put any of our team in danger?” Because that was the only way I’d accept breaking Noah’s privacy.
Indecision tripped across Skye’s face as he chewed the corner of his lip, his mind clearly going a million miles an hour.
Then he sighed and shook his head. “No. It’s nothing like that.
It’s none of anyone else’s business, and I had no right eavesdropping.
I’ll just…” He trailed off with a pained wince, shrugging.
“You’ll pretend this never happened and forget everything you heard Noah discussing with his manager.” I said it firmly, not offering any room for debate.
Skye nodded his understanding, his shoulders hunched. “Yes. That.”
I frowned at him, debating whether I needed to reprimand him any further. If it were literally any of the others, it’d be an unquestionable yes. But Skye was a good kid. He knew he’d done the wrong thing, and he wouldn’t make it worse by gossiping.
“Are you good?” I asked, clapping my hand on his shoulder to give him a little shake. “Do I need to swap roommate assignments?”
Skye vehemently shook his head at that. “No, definitely not. No, we’re good. Totally fine. This never happened, and I know nothing.” Offering up a lopsided grin, he opened the bedroom door once more. “I’m hungry.”
I followed, my stomach also rumbling, but made a mental note to keep an eye on Skye and Noah’s relationship. Lovable little dickhead just had to go snooping and make things weird, didn’t he?