Chapter Nineteen
Chapter
Nineteen
“Can you stay for a sec, Reagan?” Wesley asks.
I pause in gathering my things. “What’s up?”
I catch Mona’s gaze; she smirks, then tosses her head toward Shay. Oh, hell. I assume she means they’ll ride together. They follow after Colin and Arthur, who are arguing good-naturedly about a divisive D it’s the same knee-jerk reaction I have to all of his challenges, mirrored on his face. But then he takes a breath and admits, “I do need your help, actually.”
I have the sudden urge to sweep his hair aside and see where he’s hit his head.
“Really?”
“Really, really.” He’s not smiling, but I hear it in his voice all the same. “I want you to play.”
“It’s not enough that I’m already playing one of your games?” I tease despite my flare of curiosity.
“You’re enjoying it, too,” he reminds me. “But no. I want your feedback on this game.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never made a game like this,” he says. “Not since college. And you’re incredible at them.” He stands and curls two fingers around my wrist. “I can’t program like you can, Reagan. You’re a fucking wizard at it.”
I’m staring at his hand on mine, the way his fingertips drum excitedly against my pulse. Can he feel the way it’s picked up? “You never told me that,” I say quietly.
“I never needed to. You knew. You know.”
Sure, I did—I do. But it would have felt good to hear it from him. Back then.
I look away, but Wesley’s grip tightens around my forearm, grounding me in the moment, drawing my attention back to his face.
He dips his chin down to make sure he catches my eye.
“I played your games, Reagan. The Witch Riley ones.” I open my mouth to retort, but he talks over me.
“They’re fantastic. They’re so good. Shay and Colin and Arthur have been helpful with their feedback on my game, but… I want your critique.”
I swallow carefully; I can’t remember when my mouth went dry. “You mentioned a strategy advantageous for both of us,” I remind him.
“Well. For one, you’d get to see what I’m working on, so you’ll have an advantage on at least one competitor. And if you let me play yours…I’ll give you my feedback, too, for whatever it’s worth.” His eyes sparkle with challenge. “Don’t you want to know exactly what you’re up against?” he murmurs.
“Not as much as you do, it seems,” I say dryly.
“Listen. I know things between us are…” We’re both searching for a word for it. Tense? Complicated?
Charged?
We let the silence hang in the air.
Wesley continues. “Maybe this could be…a tentative truce. Until the competition.”
“Until the competition,” I repeat.
He nods, never once breaking eye contact.
Finally, I stick out my hand—the free one—toward him. “Fine. Deal.”
His grin is far too wide. “Deal,” he confirms. “Saturday?”
“Sure. Where?”
Wesley chews at his lower lip. “Colin’s girlfriend is in town this weekend. I suppose you could come to mine, but it just might be a tad cramp—”
“Colin’s what?”
Wesley laughs. “That’s rude, Reagan.”
“No!” I protest. “No, I swear, he’s never mentioned her!”
Wesley is enjoying my discomfort too much. “He’s a very private person.”
“Right. God, well. I suppose—”
I let myself sit with it for a moment. The reflex to protect my space and eject everyone from it is still there.
But underneath that, there’s this soft, tentative desire to let someone in.
I used to love hosting. I miss the way my couch filled up on movie nights, and the all-but-assigned seats my crew had at the gaming table.
Back in college, I’d bristled at Wes coming close enough to see the parts of my home that were the most me—it hurt more than I’ve ever let anyone know when he turned his back on that.
But this is for Afterwards—a game that I daydream about during work, a project that’s captured me in a way nothing else has all year.
Maybe I can trust myself to let him in for that, just a little.
Just enough.
“You can come to mine,” I finally say.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” I take a breath. “So. The skeletons?”
“Right. Colin said there may be more minis stored away. Help me find them?”
Wesley finally lets go of my wrist—I’m not sure either of us had realized he was still holding it—and I follow him down the hallway to the storage closet. He stands aside for me to step in, then pulls on the string dangling from the lightbulb above. The door swings shut behind us.
The light glows weakly, flickering.
“Why is it so fucking dark?” I complain.
“I don’t think they use this closet often; Colin said he’s been meaning to replace the light for a long time.” His mouth quirks. “That was when I first moved here.”
I realize I never asked. “When did you move to New Haven?” If I remember correctly, the Lorekeeper cancellation happened earlier in the summer.
“August,” he says as he leads me toward the back of the closet. I stumble after him, one hand on his elbow.
The light above our heads suddenly whines, flickers warningly, and then goes out completely.
“Really?” I groan. Wesley pulls out his phone and turns on its flashlight beam, illuminating part of the closet.
It’s so stuffed to the brim with oddball collections of nerdy shit—dice, Warhammer figurines, paint, plastic castles, and dozens of board games—it might as well be a Bag of Holding.
Finally, he finds a few shelves that seem reserved for D I notice it only because his teeth flash in the dimness. “He must know you well, to make a pit stop for you two at a game store.”
The nostalgia aches between my ribs like an unhealed wound. “He would have gone anyway,” I say with some distant fondness. “He’s the one who introduced us to gaming.”
“Really?”
I nod. “When I was a kid, we’d spend every holiday playing something.
” Holidays were the only times he was ever home for more than just a handful of days.
“He’d help Mom do the dishes on Thanksgiving just so he could clear the table and set up a mini campaign for me and Mona.
At Christmas, our presents under the tree were always games.
” I pause, then laugh a little. “He would like Blood of the Tyrant. He’s really competitive. ”
“Suppose you had to get it from somewhere, right?”
“Hey, now.” I turn to face him and lean back against the shelf, crossing my arms over my chest.
He runs his tongue over his front teeth as he grins. “Am I wrong?”
“No, but—”
“Here they are.”
Wesley steps close enough that his chest brushes against mine.
He winks at me before his gaze slides over the top of my head to the mess of clear plastic containers clustered on the top shelf behind me.
The sleeve of his knit sweater brushes my cheek as he reaches past my face to grab the box of figurines.
When he draws back, he does so slowly, but I can hear the figures clatter against one another.
And then we’re standing nose to nose, and his dark eyes stutter around my face. His breathing slows, his throat bobs as he swallows, and his gaze slips lower—
As I brace my elbow on the shelf—I need to steady myself, need to feel grounded so I don’t let myself fall forward—I knock his phone from where he placed it to cast a weak bubble of light around us.
It tumbles to the (thankfully) carpeted floor, landing flashlight side down, smothering us in darkness.
Wesley doesn’t move to pick up the phone—he doesn’t move away at all. I can’t see him, but I heard his inhale of surprise as it fell, and I still feel the lingering warmth of his breath against my cheek. My lungs are full of his citrus-and-amber smell.
“You okay?” he asks. I don’t know why he’s whispering. It’s not like we’re hiding. The low, husky tone of his voice has the small hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
“Yes,” I breathe back, just as quiet.
Tentatively, I press my palms flat against Wesley’s chest, if for no other reason than to assure myself of exactly where he stands.
There’s something about being wrapped in this darkness that feels…
freeing. I can’t see his expression, can’t read the thoughts in his eyes.
I can only feel the carefully measured rise and fall of his breathing under my fingertips and hear the way he inhales a little more deeply when my head brushes against his cheekbone.
It makes me want to lean closer, to do things I wouldn’t be brave enough to do in the light.
I can almost pretend that we’re in a separate world entirely, one where we don’t have to think about our history, or our motivations, or our competition.
Or the consequences.
Wesley lowers his hand until his fingertips brush the crown of my head, and his knuckles experimentally trace down my jaw and neckline in the dark. His skin feels feverish against mine, leaving a burning trail in its wake.
His fingers flex, and then he settles his thumb and forefinger on either side of my chin.
I suck in a small breath. Hold it.
“Please.”
The word is barely exhaled from Wesley’s lips, yet it comes out ragged with need, his breath hot against my cheek.
I dip my head in a tiny, shallow nod.
We both make the decision at the same time. Our lips meet, and I swear the darkness fills with stars.
Wesley steps forward firmly, guiding me back until the base of my spine presses into the shelf behind me.
He slides the hand circling my jaw back into my hair, biting back a groan against my mouth as he tangles his fingers in my curls.
Heat spikes in my chest as want pools low in my stomach, and I gasp at the intensity of it.
In a rush, I fist my hands in the thick knit of his sweater and glide my tongue against his, drawing him farther down.
We communicate without words, but it goes as all our conversations do: we interrupt each other constantly, like we’re racing to finish our sentences, to make ourselves heard before reality hits and one of us changes the subject.
Wesley knocks his shin loudly on the shelf, and when he parts my knees with his thigh, I feel him firm against my leg.
I bite back a moan as I rock my hips forward along his, arching my back against the shelf.
I take his full lower lip between my teeth and bite, and he hisses into my mouth and digs his fingernails into the skin along my ribs.
“Wes,” I say against the corner of his lips.
“Mm?”
“Could I—” I’m sliding my fingertips under the hem of his sweater when I hear the familiar chorus of screeching eagles.
Something about Colin’s unmistakable laugh, even as it echoes all the way from upstairs, sends me hurtling back down to earth—and at that exact moment, the light above us shudders back to life.
My mouth is stuck open as I flick my gaze from the shelves to the flickering bulb, then to Wesley’s disheveled golden hair and his dumbstruck grin.
At my stunned expression, his smile drops. As if he were handling a skittish animal, he slowly extends his hand toward me, setting it gently on my elbow. “Reagan,” he says carefully, “don’t—”
“I should go.”
“Listen—”
There’s really no good way to put it: I flee.