14. Primary Objective
Chapter fourteen
Primary Objective
Dex
After Ronan’s relationship summit—or family meeting or whatever the fuck we’re calling it—I have approximately nine thousand thoughts fighting for dominance in my head. Apparently my brain rolled initiative without consulting me.
Most of them involve Micah.
He has to work tonight, so I follow him into his room while he gets ready and pretend I’m not waiting for the right moment to talk to him about something that’s been eating at me since the little summit.
Apparently, there isn’t a right moment.
“So, uh… apparently I’m your primary partner.”
Micah looks over at me, a slight twitch to his mouth. “Apparently?”
“I just… I just didn’t know we were doing that… that you were saying that.”
“Are you not okay with it?” His attention suddenly and completely on me.
“That’s not what I’m saying. But most of that was you and Ronan giving us a TED talk while Griffin looked like he wanted laminated handouts, and I just wanted to make sure it’s what you want.”
He gives me a look like I’m being ridiculous, while he digs in a hamper for a hoodie.
“I’m serious, Micah.”
That gets his attention.
“I’m really your primary?”
His brows pull together. “Yes.”
“Not Cami?”
“No, not Cami.”
And fuck.
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
Which is concerning, because usually shutting me up requires either Micah saying my name in that voice or an act of god.
Micah straightens and really looks at me.
“I do love what I have with Cami—what we have with Cami. I don’t want less of it. But what I have with you isn’t the same thing.”
“Because I have a dick? Is it the piercings?”
“Dex.”
“Sorry. Emotional defense mechanism. Continue.”
He steps closer and grabs my hand. “You’re my primary because we’re building a life together, Dex. We have been for a while.”
His fingers wrap around my other hand, and he squeezes both of them. “When I think about the business side of things, I think about you. When I pull into the driveway, you’re the first person I look for. When you’re gone, I miss you.”
Fuck me. No saving throw. Just straight psychic damage.
“I don’t know when exactly that became what we are doing,” he continues. “But it did. Giving it a name didn’t change anything.”
I take a deep breath and gather my thoughts. “Okay, this is going to sound really fucking stupid.”
“Probably.”
“Rude.”
Micah smiles.
I stare down at our hands because looking at him seems like an objectively terrible tactical decision. “I think some part of me still thinks…”
Fuck.
Abort mission. Misty Step. Dimension Door. Fucking Plane Shift. Anything.
Micah waits. Of course he fucking waits.
The words come out fast like I’m trying to stumble over them. “That eventually you’re going to realize you can have someone easier.”
“I don’t want easier.”
I look up and meet those soulful, gray eyes.
“I want you.”
Fantastic. My boyfriend has apparently decided violence takes the shape of emotional honesty today.
Laughing uncomfortably, I naturally deflect. “Fucking hell. Warn a guy before you emotionally disembowel him.”
“I love you, Dex.”
My brain freezes for several seconds.
“You can’t just say that while I’m making a joke.”
“Why not?”
“Because I had a whole emotional avoidance strategy going five seconds ago.”
Micah doesn’t fill the silence. Doesn’t rescue me from it either. He just keeps holding my hands while my brain attempts an emergency reboot.
I look up at him and squeeze his hands. “I love you too.”
Micah smiles again.
“Like... a fucking embarrassing amount.”
“I know.”
“Don’t ruin it.”
He laughs, pulls me closer, and kisses me.
A few nights later, I take Cami on a date.
A real one.
Which apparently is something we’re supposed to be doing, and something Micah has been telling me I should do since approximately forever.
Whatever.
The point is, I have a girlfriend, and I’m taking her out.
And because I’m not Micah, I didn’t make reservations somewhere with cloth napkins or buy tickets to a show.
I’m not Griffin, so there isn’t an itinerary.
And I’m definitely not Ronan, because I’m not about to pretend I’ve carefully orchestrated an evening designed to teach her something profound about herself… or me.
I have a pocket full of quarters, a questionable amount of confidence, and a plan to absolutely destroy her at air hockey.
No reservations. No itinerary. No dungeon map.
It’s romantic as fuck.
“You’re being weird,” Cami says from the passenger seat.
“I am never weird.”
She slowly turns her head and stares at me.
“Fine. I’m always weird. But I’m not being date weird.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Your tone did.”
“My tone said you’re bouncing your leg so hard you’re shaking the whole car.”
I immediately stop.
Fucking traitor leg.
Cami’s mouth curves, but she looks back out the windshield without calling me on it.
Because here’s the thing.
Cami and I have done a lot together. We’ve lived together for months. I’ve seen her sick, pissed off, half-asleep, laughing until she snorts, and standing barefoot in the kitchen eating shredded cheese directly from the bag like some kind of feral dairy goblin.
We’ve also had sex.
Very memorable sex.
But we’ve never done this.
Just Dex and Cami. No party. No NPCs. No Micah beside me making everything feel easier.
Apparently that’s enough to make my fucking leg bounce.
And after all the discussion the other night about relationships being different—not better, not more important, just ours—I can’t stop thinking about the fact that Cami and I deserve an ours of our own.
“So where are we going?” she asks.
“Can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a surprise.”
Her eyes narrow. “Did Ronan help you plan this?”
I gasp. “Take that back.”
Her laughter gets louder as I turn into the parking lot and gesture triumphantly toward the arcade.
Cami looks at the building.
Then at me.
Then back at the building.
A grin slowly spreads across her face. “Oh, you’re going down.”
Every nervous thought in my head disappears. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
“Dollface, I brought you here because I love watching you lose.”
She unbuckles her seat belt. “You better have brought your credit card, because you’re about to spend a lot of money learning some things about me.”
Grinning, I climb out of the car. “Is that a promise?”
I learn two things within the first fifteen minutes.
One: Cami is a fucking menace at air hockey.
Two: I’m apparently dating a cheater.
“That was three,” she says, holding up three fingers like I can’t count.
“The first one didn’t count.”
“You said the second one was double or nothing.”
“Which mathematically cancels out one of your wins.”
Her eyes narrow. “That’s not how math works.”
“Prove it,” I challenge.
She laughs and walks away from the table, leaving me to follow her because, unfortunately, she’s cute when she’s insufferable.
The date only gets more competitive from there.
We start making bets—winner picks the next game, loser buys drinks, winner gets control of the TV when we get home.
I manage to recover some dignity at skee-ball, lose it again when Cami somehow pulls a stuffed dragon out of a claw machine on her second fucking try, then restore all of it and more when we find Dance Dance Revolution.
Cami stops walking.
“Oh, yes,” I mutter.
She looks from me to the machine. “You?”
The disrespect.
“Get on.”
She shakes her head. “I am not doing this with you.”
“Scared?”
The challenge does it.
Three minutes later, she’s laughing so hard she can barely stay on her side of the machine while I execute a nearly flawless performance beside her.
“Stop laughing and dance.”
“I can’t.” She misses another step. “Why are you so good at this?”
“Natural athleticism.”
“You almost fell down the stairs on the way to the car.”
“Unrelated.”
A kid waiting behind us snorts.
I point at him without missing a step. “Don’t start.”
“Dex.” Cami is practically wheezing now. “He’s like twelve.”
“He knows what he did.”
By the time we finally leave the arcade, my original plan for dinner has been completely abandoned because we stayed too long, Cami is carrying her dragon under one arm, and I have a photo strip tucked safely in my wallet that consists of one decent picture, two progressively more unhinged ones, and one of me kissing her.
It’s all honestly better than anything I could’ve planned.
We end up at a diner, crammed into the same side of the booth because Cami apparently needs access to my fries despite having ordered her own.
Yeah, that’s the reason.
“You know,” she says, stealing another one, “this was a really good date.”
I smile at her.
Her shoulder bumps mine. “You look surprised.”
“I’m not surprised. I’m basking.”
“In what?”
“My overwhelming success as a boyfriend.”
She hums thoughtfully. “I’d give you a solid seven.”
I turn to stare at her. “Out of seven?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Ten.”
“Take it back.”
She laughs, and fuck, I like this.
I like her.
I mean, obviously, I like her. We’ve been doing whatever the hell this is for months. But sitting here with her tucked against my side feels different somehow.
There isn’t another voice cutting in. Nobody stealing the joke before I can make it. No Micah across from us giving me that little smile when one of us says something ridiculous.
It’s just her shoulder against mine. Her hand stealing my fries. Her laugh that belongs entirely to whatever stupid thing I just said.
I like having something that’s ours.
“You still owe me a question,” Cami says.
Fuck.
I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to that bet.
“I was hoping the deep-fried cheese would make you forget.”
“You underestimated me.”
“Clearly. Fine. Hit me.”
She doesn’t even have to think about it.
“Why were you nervous about tonight?”
My mouth opens.
Closes.
Goddammit.
“Who said I was nervous?”
She tips her head. “Dex.”
Apparently everyone in the house has learned that saying my name like that is an effective interrogation technique.
I drag a fry through ketchup while I calculate how badly I want to violate the terms of our agreement.
Unfortunately, Past Dex was very specific about the honesty clause.
Fuck that guy.