Chapter 24 A Night of Trivial Pursuits #3
Across the table, Penny groaned, dramatic as ever, flopping backward in her seat. “This is clearly rigged. Jazz standards? Who even likes jazz standards?”
Dan slid an arm around her shoulders, smug and shameless. “Face it, Penelope. Arden’s brain crushed you.”
“And Gideon’s brooding,” Penny countered, flicking her gaze toward him. “I’m sorry, is brooding now a trivia strategy?”
“It worked,” Gideon replied, bone-dry, and that earned him a laugh from Arden that she didn’t bother to hide.
She dropped her pen and sighed with a mock flair. “Don’t inflate his ego, Penny. He’ll be unbearable the rest of the night.”
“Please.” Penny sat up straight. “The only thing I care about now is snacks. Snacks are the real prize. Speaking of…” She turned to Dan. “Didn’t you promise me nachos if I lost?”
Dan narrowed his eyes. “I promised nothing. You hallucinated that deal.”
Penny gasped, clutching her heart like a spurned lover. “Wow. Treachery. Betrayal. This is how revolutions start.”
Arden leaned into the back of her chair, laughter easing the tightness in her chest. Across from her, Gideon leaned in, close enough that his arm brushed hers. The touch was subtle, but her body reacted as if it were deliberate. A live wire threaded from his skin to hers.
“Good teamwork,” he said softly.
“Surprised?” she asked, teasing—though her heart thudded like he’d confessed something far more dangerous.
His voice stayed low, rough at the edges. “Not even a little.”
The words sank into her, quiet but heavy, leaving ripples in their wake.
Before she could say anything more, Penny’s voice barreled back in. “Okay, losers, we’re not done until someone buys me dessert. Arden? Back me up here.”
The moment fractured—sharp and sudden.
Arden blinked, startled by how quickly it vanished, and grabbed her bag with a little too much efficiency. “Always, Penny. Nachos and dessert. Let’s make it happen.”
Dan tossed his jacket over his shoulder, smirking. “Lead the way, Penelope. But don’t think I’m paying just because you got smoked.”
Penny sniffed, nose in the air. “I’m a woman of simple desires, Daniel. Just buy me one overpriced slice of cake, and I’ll consider forgiving you.”
As the chaos shifted toward the bar, Arden turned back around.
Gideon sat unmoving, stone-carved and staring straight through her. That devastating smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
“You coming?” she asked, aiming for breezy but failing miserably at casual.
His eyes locked on hers.
“Absolutely.”
One word. But it hit like a promise.
She turned back, forcing her legs to carry her forward, but her heart pounded like it knew what was coming.
The night wasn’t over.
And neither were they.
Laughter followed them into the night, sharp against the bite of cold air. Their boots clicked over rain-slick cobblestones. Penny linked her arm through Arden’s, her hair flashing violet under the streetlamps like a rebellious halo.
“Okay,” Dan announced, slinging an arm around Penny’s shoulders with exaggerated swagger. “Group tattoos. No backing out. Something bold. Possibly unhinged.”
Penny gasped, clapping her hands like he’d just proposed marriage. “Yes! Full chaos. Matching ink. And I’m documenting every moment. This is premium blackmail content.”
Arden’s smirk came easy—the kind that turned heads and made people wonder what she knew that they didn’t.
“Bold of you to assume I don’t have one.”
Dan stopped mid-stride, eyebrows leaping toward his hairline. “Wait. You’re serious?”
Penny clutched at invisible pearls, gasping like Arden had committed a felony. “Arden Rivers, you’re holding out! What is it? A quote? A phoenix? A skull with roses and a tragic backstory?”
Arden tilted her head, letting silence do the heavy lifting. They both stared, visibly itching to ask—and Arden let the silence hang, turning their curiosity into a kind of shield.
Gideon stepped out of the shadow beside the lamppost, posture relaxed, but the look in his eyes anything but.
The city light kissed the angles of his face, catching along the sharp edge of his jaw, the dip at his throat. Controlled. Dangerous. Handsome in a way that didn’t try to be.
His gaze found her—slow, precise, targeted.
“Now that’s provocative,” he said, his voice dark and smooth, like a secret poured neat over ice. “Where exactly is this mystery ink?”
His words draped over her skin like a touch she wasn’t ready for. Heat threaded down her spine, pooling low. For one breathless moment, his fingers were still there, tracing the answer from memory.
But she didn’t blink.
Didn’t flinch.
Instead, she met his eyes, gaze steady and unrepentant.
“That’s classified.”
Gideon’s mouth curved—half smirk, half mystery. Deeper.
“Something that matters?” he asked, voice low and even, just enough to stir the butterflies in her belly. “You don’t exactly seem like the cutesy ink type.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Her tone was light, but the edge in it was deliberate.
His eyes lingered for a second, dropping to her mouth like a thought he hadn’t decided against yet.
“I would.”
Two words, low and razor-smooth, landed between them with the weight of inevitability.
The world tilted.
Their friends moved around them, laughing and talking. But the sound was muffled by the hum rising in her ears.
His stare tethered her.
Unflinching. Unapologetic.
The space between them shrank—no touch, no move—only tension, thick enough to taste.
Arden’s breath caught in her throat. Her heart thundered. He hadn’t touched her, but her skin ached like he had.
Penny groaned. Loud. Theatrical. The moment cracked like glass.
“Okay, fine! Arden has secrets, probably etched in some very inconvenient location. But what about you, Blackwell?”
Dan grinned. “Yeah, come on. Family crest? Latin motto? Something moody and painfully elite?”
Gideon didn’t move. Didn’t break eye contact with Arden. But his smile turned sly. “I think I’ll leave the ink to the rest of you.”
Penny gasped like it was a personal betrayal. “Unforgivable. Do you know how iconic you’d be with some dramatic ink across that chest?”
Arden didn’t miss a beat.
Her voice turned syrupy-sweet, laced with steel.
“He doesn’t need ink. He’s already brooding incarnate.”
Gideon’s laugh was low, worn at the edges, unfiltered. His gaze lingered. “Good to know I’ve earned your approval.”
Their group’s laughter rose around them again, but the heat between them hadn’t dissipated.
The feeling lingered.
A steady burn under her skin.
A hum in his veins.
As they walked, Penny and Dan bantered ahead, their silhouettes full of chaos and delight. But Arden felt Gideon’s eyes on her, sharp and steady.
Watching her.
Reading her.
Wanting her.
And when she glanced back, just once, he didn’t look away.
Not even a little.
A promise flickered behind his expression, quiet, unspoken, and utterly certain.
One she wasn’t ready to name.
But she felt it all the same.
And when it came?
It was going to undo her.
From his corner of hell, he watched them play pretend.
A borrowed night. A borrowed table. Laughter that didn’t belong to them, especially not to her.
Arden moved through the haze of clinking glasses and half-drunken banter like she’d forgotten.
Forgotten him.
He lingered in the shadows just beyond the reach of the lights, the warm pulse of the brewery brushing his skin like an insult.
Hidden, but not distant. Close enough to hear the shape of her laugh.
To see the way Gideon leaned in like he had staked his claim.
Every glance. Every unearned touch. Every look that lasted too long.
They didn’t deserve to breathe the same air she did, let alone touch her.
That smug bastard sat there like he had a right to her, like expensive clothes and a family name were enough to protect her. To claim her.
As if watching her smile, hearing her voice, meant something.
But it didn’t.
Because Arden wasn’t theirs.
She was his.
Dan’s theatrics were forgettable. Penny’s glitter-coated charm was just noise.
But Gideon?
Gideon was the rot. Slick with confidence. All control and shadows and lingering looks, pretending that gave him power.
Pretending he could keep her safe.
He couldn’t.
No one could.
When she laughed, he shattered inside.
Her laugh—his laugh—rising from her like smoke through stained glass, almost otherworldly.
God, how she glowed.
Even here, surrounded by dull-eyed people who didn’t see her the way he did, she radiated that heat. That burn.
And still… she let them touch her. Let them fold her into their shallow world.
It made him sick.
Because they didn’t know the truth of her. The damage she carried. The sharp, jagged edges she kept hidden beneath her calm. The fire beneath her skin didn’t flicker. It waited.
He knew.
He had studied her like scripture.
The way she worried her lip when she wasn’t sure how much to reveal.
The glance over her shoulder, automatic, every time she left a building.
The slight tension in her jaw when someone got too close.
Gideon didn’t see those things. He wasn’t paying attention.
But he always paid attention.
And now? He waited.
The trap was set.
They hadn’t heard it snap yet.
They thought this was a game.
They were wrong.
She wasn’t theirs to parade around in lace and leather and smug conversation. She wasn’t some prize to be won in a bar game or some mystery to be solved by a man like Blackwell.
She was fire. His Little Fire.
And soon, she wouldn’t just see it, she’d feel it.
Some fires don’t go out. They come home.
And he’d be waiting.