Chapter 10
NOAH
The horses were all locked away for the night, which made perfect sense but didn’t leave me much to do when I eventually found the stables.
The archery range was not far away, but again…
just an empty field with targets at the end of the space.
It only took me a few minutes to get bored and decide I was better off looking for the bonfire listed on our schedule.
Without phones to text one another, I actually had to look for my teammates, which was a little irritating because I kept accidentally making eye contact with strangers.
And apparently eye contact was some sort of blanket consent to start a conversation, which inevitably resulted in questions about the attack.
Was Ace copping the same shit about it? Or just me? In fairness, the comments section on our Bytes had been pretty intense since the attack, too. Jared and Kelly were filtering a lot of it for my benefit, though, which I appreciated. Sometimes I just didn’t need to know.
“Hey, Noah, right?” A pretty blond girl, maybe five inches shorter than me, asked as she approached with a nervous smile.
It reminded me how tall I was as a girl, when I was so fucking short compared to the guys on my own team.
“I’m Kieran. Uh, Team Tiger.” She gestured over her shoulder in the direction of some other girls that must be her team.
I gave what I hoped was a polite smile, keeping my hands tucked firmly inside my hoodie pockets. “Hi.”
“So I know you probably don’t want to talk about the attack on you and Ace, but, um, I think you guys are amazing for coming back to the game after all that.
Someone said you literally died and Torin revived you.
Is that true?” She bit her lip, her eyes huge and sparkling as she waited for my response, and I sighed inwardly.
I was a shitty flirt as a girl, but I was much worse as a boy.
Kieran was barking up the wrong tree if she was trying to hit on me right now.
As subtly as I could, I cast my eyes around to search for my team. “Uh, not to be rude or anything, Kieran, but we aren’t supposed to discuss the incident, as it’s an active investigation.”
She deflated like I’d popped her balloon. “Oh, of course. Sorry. I was being rude. We’re just all really glad to see you guys back in the game.”
I snorted a laugh at that, shaking my head as I refocused my attention on her. “No, you’re not, you liar. I bet you were all hoping Olympus would quit the Games like Cat Kay’s team, opening up the playing field for everyone else.”
Her smile widened, and she shrugged. “Can you blame us? Still, we’re glad you’re all back, even if it’s just for the eye candy.” She dropped a flirty wink, then returned to her team right as I spotted Torin and Z over near the drinks table.
“Do you guys think I could pretend to come down with a cold that makes me lose my voice?” I asked when I approached them, hunching my shoulders like I’d like to disappear inside my huge hoodie. “So that people stop talking to me?”
“They’d still talk to you, Rocky,” Z replied with a grin. “Then they’d stand there and wait while you acted out your answer like charades or some shit. Actually that sounds funny as fuck. Let’s do that!”
I rolled my eyes, accepting the can of soda that Torin offered me. “Thanks, Z. Real helpful.”
“You’re welcome, dude.” He punctuated that statement by ruffling my hair, and I ducked out of his reach. “Hey did Xavier catch up with you earlier? He said he wanted to ask you something.”
I scowled my distaste. “Yeah, we had words. Hey, serious question: Does Godzilla breathe fire? I thought he did.”
Z tipped his head to the side with curiosity as Torin snort--laughed and choked on his drink. “Actual Godzilla? The big lizard?” Z asked, and I nodded. “No, he doesn’t.”
I clicked my tongue, still frowning. “Are you sure? It’s like a blue flame, isn’t it?”
Z confidentially shook his head. “Nope, it’s called atomic breath, and it’s actually concentrated radioactive energy. Supercool, huh? Wait, why do you want to know about Godzilla?”
Torin snickered, wiping his hand over his mouth. “I’m guessing this was a discussion with Xavi?”
“Mm,” I replied with disappointment. “Something like that. Where are the others?”
“Hiding, probably,” Z said with a smirk, then took a long sip of his beer.
Torin rolled his eyes and casually draped his arm over my shoulders. Like bros would do, right? If bros had shared a crazy intense kiss after one bro woke up from a ten--day coma and the other bro confessed romantic feelings, and then both bros just kind of pretended it hadn’t happened. Like that.
“Augie and Minho are making notes on where the cameras are in this area and clocking any potential dead zones between feeds. The fact they’re using unmanned cameras and giving us free access to alcohol makes it painfully obvious that they want to catch some scandals on film for the launch of CB: Reality.
” Torin, I noticed, was also drinking a soda, and now that I took a better look, Z’s was a light beer. Smart boys.
Glancing around at some of the other influencers getting loose and dancing together, a little pang of jealousy flickered through my chest. It would be kind of nice to be able to relax and have fun with the guys.
To be able to flirt and dance with Tor and Minnie.
But that triangle was a confusion all on its own.
A confusion made ten times worse for my not being able to tell Minho the truth.
That roadblock, more than anything, was why I hadn’t mentioned the kiss with Torin again. Continuing things with him felt like cheating on Minho, and that made me want to shrivel up and die.
As if summoned by my melancholy thoughts, Minho emerged out of a cluster of dancing girls, smiling politely and shaking his head when they tried to coax him into joining them.
A brief flash of jealousy shot through me when one of the girls laid her hand on his chest and smiled up at him, pure sex written all over her face, but I swallowed it back.
For one thing, it was all kinds of hypocritical of me to get jealous of other women when he didn’t even know I was one. And for another…
“We don’t have to stay long,” Torin said as he leaned down close. To the untrained eye, he was just speaking into my ear, but it was no accident that his lips brushed that sensitive spot beneath my ear, making my breath catch. “I’m more than happy to find an excuse for us all to bail.”
“Hey, Tor, hands off my Chicken,” Minho said in a joking tone as he reached for my hand and pulled me out from under Torin’s arm.
Not seeming to care about how many eyes—-and cameras—-might be on us, he wrapped me up in a warm hug.
“Hi, Chick,” he murmured as he pressed a kiss to my neck, the sneaky affection hidden by my hair.
Or at least I really hoped it was, because I desperately did not need Z asking if there was something going on with us.
“Subtle, Minnie,” Torin remarked drily. “Why don’t you pee on him while you’re at it?”
“How’d you go with cameras?” Z asked, seeming to totally miss the tension that’d just thickened between the three of us.
“Pretty easy,” Minho replied while still hugging me, in absolutely no rush to let go.
Not that I wanted him to, but for the sake of appearances…
Then again, there were enough fans that loved the idea we were actually together, maybe we could get away with it?
“They haven’t hidden them so much as just placed them freaking everywhere.
I’d be super careful of anything we do within the campgrounds. ”
“Ace will probably want to come up with a game plan for how to best utilize the footage opportunities,” Z commented thoughtfully, rubbing his jaw as his gaze swept over the party. “There he is now.”
Minnie released me enough that I could glance in the direction Z was looking.
Sure enough, Ace and Xavier were across the way, talking and laughing with a couple of guys from one of the other teams. It was actually frustrating how charming and enigmatic they were to anyone who didn’t know them both.
Actually, shit. That wasn’t totally true.
Ace had been just as charming right up to the point he discovered I’d been lying.
Then it was a switch that flipped. A shiver ran down my spine remembering how cruel he’d been, throwing cash on my floor and sneering about being a subscriber.
That, more than anything else that’d happened that night, was what had him dead to me.
I was carefully ignoring the way my body reacted when his eyes locked with mine across the party. Just because I was physically attracted to him didn’t change the way he’d treated me. Or the fact that he was okay to support Olympus Corp in blackmailing my participation.
What an asshole.
Drawing a breath, I ripped my gaze away from his and forced a smile for the guys I was with. “I think I might dip out. You guys have got this, right?”
“Yeah, of course,” Z replied with an easy smile before Torin and Minho could disagree. “Good to have you back, Rocky.” He offered up his fist, and I bumped it with my knuckles before slipping away.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed Ace crossing the party toward us, but a moment later Minho jogged to catch up with me.
“I’ll walk back with you,” he said with a sly grin, “just in case of bears.”
“Uh--huh. Nothing to do with avoiding Ace?” I glanced up at him as we walked the path away from the party.
He swept a hand through his hair, giving a short chuckle.
“Nothing to do with Ace, and everything to do with you, Chicken. Here, I wanna show you something.” He took a fork in the path away from our cabin and gestured for me to follow as he led the way into the denser forest, away from the light and sound of the party.
I didn’t even think to ask questions as we walked along the path, until Minho stopped and looked around.
“Uh, are we lost?” I asked with a grin.
His answering smile was dazzling enough to make my breath catch as he shook his head. “Nope, I was just looking for an exact spot. Right”—-he took a few steps off the path and gestured for me to join him behind a particularly large tree trunk—-“here.”
Before I could admit that I was no less confused than I was a minute ago, he cupped the back of my head, tilted my face up, and kissed me.
Stars erupted in my mind, and my heart rate tripled as his lips caressed mine ever so softly, making me gasp aloud with how utterly intense the moment was. But then, just as fast as it’d started, my dopamine evaporated in a snap as I remembered where we were. Who we were.
“Min, we can’t,” I protested weakly, pulling back only a short distance. My hand was still on his waist, somehow having found a scorching strip of bare skin beneath his T--shirt, and the way he bit his lip nearly made me forget my better judgment.
He didn’t seem worried at all. “That’s why I wanted to bring you to this exact spot, Chicken. It’s a blind spot from the cameras. There’s probably loads of them, but I spotted this one while we were scouting them out earlier.”
“Oh,” I said, blinking stupidly as I processed that information. “Why didn’t you lead with that?”
He chuckled, then pulled me back in to kiss me more forcefully than before, wiping my head of all coherent thought. The way his lips moved and his tongue tangled with mine was pure artistry, like the most meticulously choreographed dance and we were both in tune.
The looming danger wasn’t just the cameras, though. There were dozens of ClikByte producers in the camp, not to mention the other teams…and our own team, for that matter.
Shit.
Guilt filled my chest so fast I nearly choked on it as I pulled away from Minho’s perfect kiss once more.
“I can’t,” I blurted in a pained voice, licking my puffy lips. “We can’t. This isn’t fair on you when I’m hiding so many things that would totally change how you feel, and I can’t even tell you because—-”
“Is this about Tor?” Minho cut me off as his fingers twisted in the loose strands of my hair, tugging gently and causing my pulse to flutter. “I know he kissed you at the hospital.”
“Um, what?” I swallowed hard, processing this. He knew? How? “Tor told you?”
Minnie shrugged, shaking his head slightly. “No, Skye did. But to be clear, that doesn’t change how I feel about you…assuming it hasn’t changed how you feel about me?”
Holy fuck, what the hell was I supposed to say to that? I shook my head dumbly, words failing me. Then again, I should have known he’d react like that because it was Minho. He was insanely well--adjusted and emotionally open. Definitely not what I was used to.
“Good,” he murmured, accepting my wordless response. “We should get back before anyone comes looking for us anyway. I just really missed you, Chicken.”
Fuck. My heart. “I saw you a few days ago,” I whispered even as my fingers flexed on his waist to pull him closer. I couldn’t help it; he was irresistible. Magnetic. Addictive.
“Not like this. I missed your kisses,” he confessed before dipping his face back down to mine and reminding me just how much that feeling was mutual.
Somehow I found my back against the rough bark of the tree as we kissed like we had all the time in the damn world.
I trailed my fingers over the tight muscles of Minnie’s abs, following the curve of his body to his waistband until—-
“Shit!” I gasped, jerking my hand away like I’d been burned as I realized just how close I’d been to taking things a big step further. A step that would very quickly reveal that I lacked certain “features” if he tried to reciprocate. “Sorry. Um, we should get back.”
Minho’s gaze was heavy and dark, full of desire as he held eye contact for a heated moment. Then he blew out a sigh and nodded. “Yeah, we should. This week is going to be hell, Chicken,” he said with a groan when we stepped back out onto the path.
I 100 percent echoed that feeling, but for myriad other reasons, not the least of which being our shared bunk dorm and the serious lack of privacy associated—-or the fact that I’d have to deal with Ace sooner or later.