Chapter Four #2
Aaron moves past me. He leaps up onto the same bench Marlow was on and gives the kind of speech I’ve heard dozens of times before. About greatness, victory, the hope of a new season; we’ve all heard shit like this before, but it still serves to get everyone appropriately pumped up.
By the time he ends with “Let’s suit up and kick some Gorgon ass!” we burst into Hellhound barks, hooting and woofing, a rising well of energy.
No one gives me sideways looks. No one jostles me unnecessarily in that dumbass macho threat way.
It’s unity.
It claws at me, and I let it in, let it burrow deep into my chest and drag me with it.
This isn’t the Chimeras.
This is a fresh start. Maybe not every aspect of a fresh start like I’d wanted, but it’s a start all the same, and when we go out there, it’s not wheels spinning. It’s not a repeat.
It’s a beginning.
Marlow is a nightmare to defend.
Not least because she’s on such a high, but because she’s half mermaid, and I might as well be a gods-damned boulder for all the buoyancy I exude by comparison.
Our plays in water-based situations rely on wizards or bards like Darian throwing swim spells on those of us who need them, but a few well-placed counterspells from the Gorgons and I all too frequently find myself miserably doggy-paddling toward one of the sand islands.
Marlow zips and dives and pirouettes through the water, and while I do manage a few blocks for her, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t need any assistance. She gets the ball and she’s gone, and even the Gorgons’ best defenses have trouble containing all the grit that is our rookie.
The bright side of how fully consumed I am in the game is that I don’t have the time—or oxygen, when I’m sinking post-counterspell—to glance at the sidelines, where the cheerleaders perform.
Riprak pulls me after a particularly gnarly interaction where a Gorgon bard played a song that pinned my arms to my chest so I couldn’t swim.
It didn’t feel like any of my team purposefully let the spell slip through, and Darian took the attack so personally that he’s currently locked in a riff-off with that bard while I hack water out of my lungs on the player benches.
As entertaining as it is to watch Darian rip on his guitar, my eyes drift to the right.
The stadium’s packed with Hellhound and Gorgon fans alike, and over the buzz of cheering, a song kicks on that has the cheerleaders dropping into a routine.
I can only see the backs of them from here, so I grab my water bottle, take a gulp, and peek up at one of the projection screens over the stadium.
The image pans across all the performers, catching them as they expertly do the same series of thrusts, spins, and twirls.
There’s Alexo.
He’s in a Hellhounds cheerleading uniform.
I mean, of course he is.
But.
He’s in a cheerleading uniform.
I blink up at the screen, certain my mouth is hanging open, but hopefully my teammates blame it on me catching my breath.
Cheerleading. Uniform.
It’s skintight. Because why not.
For home games, it’s black with orange trim, and from the looks of the other dancers, they all have a sleeveless top but can choose whether their lower half is a pleated skirt or impossibly small booty shorts.
He chose the booty shorts.
His is the only uniform top with a small symbol for Urzoth stitched on it, right above the snarling Hellhounds demon dog.
I look back down at the live show, spotting Alexo’s pink hair now.
His pom-poms flash in tandem with the rest of the cheerleaders’, and though they’re all supposed to be in sync, I can’t help but note the difference in how he’s dancing.
Or maybe it’s that I’m only looking at him, so I clock the fluidity in his arches, the extra pop in his spine when he snaps upright, the way he shimmies his ass in those painted-on fucking shorts.
“Monroe! Back in!”
I empty the rest of my water bottle straight onto my already drenched face and bolt off the bench.
Focus.
I’m here to play.
And my teammates are, too. We operate in tandem, and when I get hit by the Gorgons again, healers like Phei are right there to patch up any injuries, which keeps the plays fluid.
It silences the blip of me that constantly wonders, Did someone on my team let this happen to me?
We’re all working our hearts out, lifted by Marlow’s chaotic energy, and by the time the game wraps at 28–17 in our favor, we’re downright giddy.
Every rawball team plays seventeen games a season, and the two teams who pull in the most wins go head-to-head after the new year to take home the rawball championship trophy.
Starting this season with a W—especially on a new team, where we played so fucking well—sets a mood that has me soaring so high I almost don’t need our team’s wizards to help me out of the water.
Emphasis on almost.
Why’d it have to be water?
Dripping and far too graceless, I congregate on the side of the field with the rest of my waterlogged team as the crowd roars out a Hellhounds bark.
It’s a madhouse of backslaps and excited leaps and congratulatory cheers, and press swarm the area, pursuing individual players and recording our celebrations.
Marlow’s instantly set upon by half a dozen reporters.
I rip off my helmet, toss it on a bench, and turn away from a few other reporters who clearly want to talk. I’m not searching for someone, but I’m not not searching for someone—
A cluster of people separates a few paces ahead, and Alexo’s there, being guided through the bedlam by a publicist who quickly ducks away once I’m in sight.
I don’t move.
I should, I think. But I didn’t get briefed on what we’re supposed to do beyond interact. Or maybe I didn’t let my brain absorb any of the details about our interactions because I don’t trust myself not to spiral wildly at the slightest provocation.
Which is great right now, considering Alexo’s crossing the grassy sideline toward me, still in that skimpy cheerleading uniform that makes saliva fill my mouth.
It hugs every inch of his slender, cut body, his exposed skin glistening with sweat and more of that glitter.
I swallow, aware I’m dripping saltwater like a giant drowned rat, but when I meet Alexo’s eyes, he gives me a small, encouraging grin with his glossy lips.
Alexo: PR stunt.
Alexo: PR stunt.
Hug him or something. That’s all this moment is. A shot for the cameras around us. So … hug him. That’s easy.
He stops in front of me. The stadium is thunderous and my teammates aren’t any better, so when he speaks, I have to angle down to hear him, close enough to smell his apple scent, a hint of his sweat.
“Congratulations,” he tells me. “You were amazing.”
He’s wearing makeup again, smoky gray around his eyes and mascara thick on his lashes.
“No, you were amazing,” I say. “You look like you’ve been dancing your whole life. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”
Real smooth.
But I can’t regret it. Not with the way Alexo smiles, dimples popping. “Yeah?”
“I hope it was everything you wanted it to be? That it made you happy? You look happy.”
The way he’s staring at me becomes a relentless knot I couldn’t untie if I wanted to. The pause that follows is just as tangled, teeth fixed on his lip, a question building in his eyes.
“I don’t, uh—” I swallow again, and where there’d been way too much saliva in my mouth, I’m now dry. “I’m not sure what more we’re supposed to—”
He lifts up onto his toes and presses his lips to mine.
It doesn’t progress beyond exactly what the PDA list detailed. Kissing, no tongue. But that mundane description failed to note what it does include.
Like Alexo’s body, crushed to mine.
My arms around his hips.
His fingers scratching at my short, wet hair.
The glide of his gloss on my lips, the heat of his breath as I open to inhale, the taste of him like a shot thrown across my tongue, fruity and effervescent and eye-poppingly delicious.
Except my eyes are pinched shut, desire streaking down my spine and out across my arms where I’m clinging to him, and I know, I know, that for all the time I spent plunging into deep, dark waters today, this is deeper, this is darker.
He’s mine.
Seb was mine. He was my friend, and then Camp Merethyl’s sadism made it so we had no one but each other, and he became my everything.
That’s the feeling eating at me now, the feeling I’ve spent a lifetime trying to keep caged, because I know how ruinous it can be, how dangerous.
It made sense I’d feel that way with Seb, after what we went through, but with Alexo? I barely know him. I barely know him.
I break the kiss, the innocent, no-tongue kiss, and brace my forehead against his. I picked him up at some point, but he’s holding on to me just as firmly, and we’re both gasping, which makes sense. I played a game; he danced for hours. We’re out of breath from that. Nothing else.
“C-congratulations,” he says again, a stutter. I feel it on my sensitive lips.
“Thanks,” I tell him. And instinctively hug him tighter, because—I don’t know why.
“Orok Monroe!” A reporter shoves her way over, microphone out, a cameraman following. “And—” She checks her notes. “Alexo Warden?”
I set him down, my skin prickling with a combination of annoyance that she didn’t automatically know him—who could not know him—and fury that he’s the center of so much attention.
It isn’t safe, and I tuck him into my side but make sure to angle my body in front of him so I take the brunt of the focus.
The reporter gives a coy grin. “You two are adorable. Mr. Monroe, how are you feeling after your first time playing as a Hellhound?”
My brows go up, startled by her normal question. I expected something about me and Alexo, but I look out over the crowd, at my teammates, and I smile.