Denying the Gamer (The Bachelor Brothers #5)

Prologue

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Agony. (Like the song. From that musical.) … *rips shirt*

Kyran

“Step on me, mistress,” I say, kneeling and gazing up at the most beautiful woman I have ever beheld. Raven locks cascade around her soft, round cheeks, accentuating her violent scowl. Her heated glare. Her savage wrinkles.

Otherwise known as: her complete and utter majesty while she peers down her sweet little nose at me as though I am scum. Disdain and disgust harden in her seafoam green eyes…

And, well…

Let’s just say that the hate pouring off her does something dreadful to me.

“Gross,” Morana—my cruel ruler—snaps. “Just put your clothes in the laundry hamper like a normal person.” She frames her hands before her full figure, making it very clear the action I am meant to perform as she first references the black t-shirt I chucked in the center of my room last night, then the empty hamper sitting in my walk-in closet.

“It’s not hard. We’ve been working on this trick for half a year. ”

“Working on” is clearly an artistic liberty.

According to all sane parties and judgments, she has been nagging me about this for half a year. And I do recall all the nagging, quite vividly.

Kyran, pick up your clothes.

Kyran, help me with the dishes.

Kyran, get out of bed.

Kyran, Kyran, Kyran.

She repeats my name constantly.

Yet she expects me not to be in love with her?

Ohh-kay. Sure. Just say my name again, Morana. One more time. I dare you.

Lifting the shirt as I rise, I straighten, ball it up, and feebly toss it toward my closet. It falls a mere yard away from me, far from the basket, and Morana stares at it.

One, two, three…

Her fist wraps in the collar of my shirt, and she drags my face down to her itty bitty height, hissing, “Listen here, e-boy…you’ve got two legs—two—count ’em.”

I drag my gaze down, fully intending to obey my mistress and view my legs, but I get stuck staring at hers. Pretty, plush, soft things, them. All cloaked in dark, worn jeans. Hopefully she won’t notice if I just… “One. Two.” I count hers. So pretty. So perfect.

“Excellent.” She stabs her free hand toward the shirt that is—wow—still in the center of my room. My throwing arm, not great. Or my room, very big.

It’s all in the perspective, I suppose.

“Use your two whole legs to march over there, pick up your shirt, and march it to your hamper, or so help me, I’m pouring juice on your keyboard.”

Joke’s on her. I do that at least once a month, often on stream, in front of thousands. Hurts to learn she doesn’t watch my streams and know that fun fact…but it’s not like I expect her to. What with all the blatant hating of me and such and so forth.

I say, “Ohh noo, I’m soo scared.”

She twists the collar of my shirt so the fabric all but strangles me as her eye twitches.

“This is really turning me on,” I comment.

So she shoves me away and wipes her hand on her perfectly normal and mundane pair of pants.

I, not for the first time this hour even, picture her in a little maid uniform beset with frills.

Her older—by eight minutes—twin sister, Maelin, could easily use her magical seamstress abilities to create such an outfit from nothing more than hope, dreams, and my overflowing Pinterest boards on the topic.

Then, once I’ve managed through nefarious means to con Morana into it, I could take five thousand pictures and wallpaper the black walls of my room with them.

My future could become living eternally beneath the bliss of my mistress’s curled lip.

It would be wonderful. Majestic. All I could ever ask for.

Oh, Morana. If only you understood how lovely we could be—together.

“You’re disgusting,” she mutters, doing quite the opposite of understanding anything, tbh. “I’m your sister.” She says that word very, very slowly, as though maybe this time it’ll sink in.

Spoiler Alert: it won’t.

Crossing her arms across her chest, she huffs. “And you’re being a bad brother.”

Just so every last person in the universe has this clear: she’s only my sister-in-law because my older brother Zakery snatched Maelin up before I could snatch Morana up.

Really unfair, that. But what makes it mega unfair is that Morana is committed to the bit of us being a happy little siblingship when I’d prefer she be my grumpy little wife.

I mean, really. Look at her.

Tiny scowl. Vehement glare. Wittle nose scrunch.

Delicious. I’ll have another. Every day. Always and forever. Thx.

Laborious, I sigh and march my two whole legs up to my shirt, bend, and retrieve the article.

Despondent, I sigh and march the entire abusive length between my present location and my closet hamper.

Pitiful, I sighhh. Then, I turn back, look Morana in the eye, and drop the shirt an inch from the opening.

Delirious laughter pours out of her, and she rakes her fingers into her long dark hair. “Fine!” Her hands go flying up, out of her shiny locks. “No clean clothes for you.”

“No, please,” I drawl. “Anything but that. How will I manage? How will I go on?”

She stomps across the white wood floors toward my black door. Everything in my personal bedroom is pure monochrome—including my cat, Ender…who is…surely around here somewhere. I can’t help but think that all Morana’s lovely shades fit so nicely amid the decor…

Which, for the record, is nothing but the white floors and black walls. No other furniture beyond the bed. No other anything outside my closet. For the sake of my mental health at night, when any and all shadows try to eat me, I keep my personal space pristine. Completely and utterly pristine.

Unless, of course, having a crumpled t-shirt in the exact center of the barren floor makes the pretty maid burst a blood vessel.

Then I’ll allow it. I might even encourage it.

I may even be convinced to make putting that crumpled shirt in the center of my floor a task on my to-do list. And I will, most certainly, check it off, too.

Before Morana can toss open my door and leave me all by my lonesome, I say, “What are you saving up for today?”

Her glass-green eyes skid toward me, and I soak in the regret that reflects in them.

She wishes she never told me about her system.

Even though knowing about her system is my favorite thing in the world.

Right this very second, her pockets are filled with task cards that she made for all the chores she must complete here in my home, the Bachelor manor.

Each day, she goes through her complete stack, picks out the ones she needs to do, then moves the completed tasks from one pocket to the other.

When she goes home, she counts up the points she’s earned and either buys a treat from this mysterious store she’s put together or puts the points in a mysterious bank to save up for a treat later.

When begrudgingly relaying the information about her system to me after I caught sight of her pocket cards, she seemed to imply that her store and bank weren’t just lists of items or notes of amounts.

I would kill to see her whole setup. The cards alone are preciously covered in adorable doodles, but I want to know what this store and bank look like.

I want to know what she uses to represent the points she saves if she isn’t just keeping a tally on a notepad.

I want to wander into her bedroom and learn things about her that maybe only her sister knows about. I want all her dirty little secrets.

I want her to be mine.

Hands tucked in my pockets, I hold her gaze, scoop my shirt up between my toes, and dump it in the hamper, showing off my impressive flexibility and dexterity.

Because, surely, this is flirting.

Her eyes roll, and she can’t help herself. She trudges toward me, then past me, toward my hamper, because the points for doing my laundry are just too good to pass up, aren’t they, mistress? You are so easy to read, to play, to adore.

“Well?” I prompt. “Not gonna tell me? I’ll assume you’re saving up to commission Zakery for furry art if you don’t.”

She mutters, “It’s nothing big or important.”

“I love small, insignificant stuff. You’ve seen my gaming room.”

She shudders. “I’d like to never see that place again.”

It’s only a little cluttered. But what can I say? Fans love seeing their fan mail on camera almost as much as they love making remixes with shots of my face cam every time I’ve almost smiled.

The obsession among my viewership is real. And it used to be overwhelming, but now I’ve found peace with it. What I do makes people happy.

I can live with that.

“So?” I prompt yet again.

“Brew Tea. I’m saving up points to splurge at Brew Tea.”

“You’re going to go to Brew Tea by yourself?”

“If I get enough points, I’m upgrading my reward to include getting two desserts, too. Why?” She glares at me. “Got a problem with that?”

Her little store offers upgrades? I’m obsessed.

Leaning against the door jamb of my closet, I say, “Not a single problem with that, no. Are you going to borrow one of Maelin’s parasols and ask her to make a frilly white dress in your size?”

“You wish.”

I do. I do wish. Desperately, even. Her usual blacks really do it for me, though. I scan her loose-fitting shirt spattered in gold constellations. “What are my chances of getting a yes if I ask to go with you?”

“Poor.” She drags my hamper out of my closet and meets my eyes. “Unless, you’re taking your little sister out for tea?”

“Ew.”

“That’s what I thought. Woe is me. Rejected by my very favorite big brother.”

My brows furrow. “I thought Kaleb was your favorite big brother.”

Her eyes roll. Again. They get so much exercise. “Whichever one I’m talking to is my favorite. Don’t you know how little sisters work at all?”

“I guess I don’t. I suppose I’ll have to spend more time with Maelin.”

“Rude.”

“Or Clara. Crisis and Crimson are my big sisters, so they’re practically useless, but Clara?” Clara makes me sandwiches. Clara is where it’s at. “Best little sister around.”