Out of Character

by Annabeth Albert

  “I’m here.” My ability to make sense, however, was not. But what I wanted to say was that this was real, not imagination, and the fact that I was here seemed to be the single most startling thing in my whole life.

  “We’re kind of a mess.” He gave a shaky laugh.

  “Luckily, you like mess.” My grin was probably rather dorky, but I was too happy to care. “And it’s mainly on us, not your bedding or your nine hundred pillows.”

  “Hey, don’t knock my pillows.” Still laughing, Jasper stretched, managing to retrieve a towel from his dresser without leaving the bed. “I like studying in bed. They keep me comfy.”

  “Yeah, well, you have me to cuddle with tonight.” I accepted the towel and followed his lead in cleaning up. “Maybe a few of your stuffed friends could hang out on the chair you’re not going to be using.”

  “Okay, okay.” Jasper tossed two at the chair in the corner, then I did the same, and then we both collapsed in a fit of laughter because it was like a very silly, very naked pillow fight. I took advantage of having a little more room in the bed to tickle him lightly until he was back on top of me, pinning my hands down.

  “You’re mean.” He chuckled and his eyes danced, but my chest tightened.

  “No, I’m not. Not anymore. I don’t want to be mean ever again.”

  His expression sobered before he brushed a soft kiss over my mouth. “I believe you. Even though I probably shouldn’t. But I want to believe that you’ve changed.”

  “I have. I am. Feels like one of those videos where they go from black and white to color to make a point. Like…the old me didn’t even have a clue as to how much he was missing, not really. But now I’ve seen what could be possible, and there’s no way I want to go back to a grayscale life.”

  “It’s not going to be easy.”

  “Nothing worth having ever is.” I echoed one of Bruno’s favorite sayings as my pulse sped up again. Jasper was right. This wasn’t going to be simple. Or easy. I could still end up screwed. And I still had to deal with all the dumb stuff the old me had done. Wanting to change didn’t mean I was going to be able to leave any of that behind. All I could do was hope my past wouldn’t steal my present before I had a chance to enjoy it. But there was also no way I wasn’t going to take this chance. And if I gambled big enough, maybe my future would actually be worth having.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jasper

  “I could get used to you being my alarm clock.” I blinked over my shoulder at Milo. My actual alarm had gone off, too, but Milo’s soft kisses were far more welcome than any chime. We’d fooled around again before sleep, and never had I been so grateful for my attached postage-stamp-sized ancient bathroom. Senior perks and all that. And judging by Milo’s smirk, we’d be needing my pitiful supply of hot water again. Soon.

  He dropped another kiss on my bare shoulder. “It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it.”

  “Well, something’s hard…” I snuggled into him. We really should have slept in clothes in case of something like a dorm-wide fire drill, but Milo was a freaking furnace and I’d barely needed a blanket. Bliss.

  “Dork. Should we get up?” He didn’t seem in any particular hurry, stroking his big palm down my torso, but his voice was also far too alert for the early hour. I hadn’t been up this early on a Sunday in a couple of years.

  “You totally grew up and became an annoying morning person, didn’t you?”

  “Eh. I’m a work-whatever-shift-they-give-me person and a hope-insomnia-finds-someone-else-to-bug-soon person. But I don’t hate mornings.” Milo got a little bolder with his explorations, hand dipping lower. “Especially like this.”

  “This is good.” I made a noise that was somewhere between a squeak and a groan as he pulled me closer.

  “We’re not getting up right now, are we?” He was still chuckling as his mouth found mine for a lengthy kiss.

  “Probably not.” I rolled so that we were face-to-face, me mostly on top of him. I loved how easily he went to his back. He might be bigger, but he had no issues letting me take charge, which was sexy as hell. “Complaining?”

  “Never.” Stretching, he wiggled so he was more directly under me, our torsos aligned, and electricity sparking everywhere our skin touched. “After all, I’m the one who has a lot of lost time to make up for.”

  He laughed, but his words pricked against my otherwise happy bubble. I hated that I cared, hated that it bugged me that I was strung out on hoping he was changing while maybe he was just looking to get lucky for the first time.

  “Is that what this is?” I meant to try for casual, but my voice came out too sharp. Damn it. “Trying things you missed out on?”

  “No.” Eyes solemn, he reached up to kiss the tip of my nose. “I didn’t mean the still-a-virgin sex thing. I meant lost time with you, specifically. Missing out on that.”

  And just like that, my happiness bubble repaired itself. He was getting damn good at saying exactly what I needed to hear.

  “You really missed me?”

  “Yeah,” he said softly, stretching for another kiss, and this time I met his questing lips. There was something magic in how a single kiss could make me all warm and light. “And maybe I didn’t even realize how much until I saw you again. Like, really saw you.”

  “I am cute.” I had to joke or else the rising tide of emotions was going to pull me under. Sweet Milo might be even harder to handle than Sad Milo.

  “And smart. And a good guy. A really, really good guy.” Milo punctuated each of his comments with another kiss.

  “Even though I didn’t sleep on the chair?”

  “Especially since you didn’t sleep on the chair.”

  And then as simple as that we were back to kissing, more purposeful now, until we were both breathless and definitely, positively not leaving bed anytime soon.

  “Jasper.” Milo breathed my name like I truly was the answer he’d been seeking. And his eyes were glassy, but when his gaze met mine, I felt seen in a way I wasn’t sure I’d ever been before. Maybe there was something to what he’d said about seeing me for the first time because I certainly felt like I was seeing him in a whole new light these days too.

  Inspired by his comment on missing out on things, I slithered down his delicious body. He hadn’t been lying about the tattoo—it was a tiny one, an Italian flag, right above his hip bone. Lost a dare, he’d said. Sexy, I’d said, right before I’d kissed it. I did it again.

  “What are you…” He half chuckled and half groaned as I painted his torso with kisses, inching lower. Finally reaching my destination, I took him in my mouth, teasing and showing off my collection of tricks.

  “Oh…do that again. You’re…incredible. That.” I loved how damn responsive and appreciative he was. In fact, while I’d done this before, I’d never done it with someone so unabashedly grateful.

  “Like that?” I asked before redoubling my efforts.

  “Yes. Please… So good… That’s…it. Please.” A steady stream of wonder and praise escaped Milo’s lips before he buried his face in one of my pillows to muffle his moans. Being able to coax that sort of response from him was my new favorite thing, and more than enough to have me tumbling over the edge with him a few moments later. I rested my head on his firm stomach for several long minutes, luxuriating in the way he idly stroked my hair as we both worked to reclaim our breaths.

  “Okay. Wow. That was…” Milo gave me a dopey grin. “Are you gonna chuck a pillow at me if I say I’m not sure how I lived without experiencing that?”

  “I am pretty good.” I pretended to gloat as I finally left bed to search out another towel and some clothes. “Was it worth skipping coffee?”

  “Oh, we’re not skipping coffee. I owe you a doughnut. You pull up the GPS app and start deciphering clues, and I’ll worry about food for us.” Milo sat up in the bed, covers pooling in
his lap. And damn, I could write an ode to his broad, sculpted chest that would make my English lit professor impressed.

  “I’ll walk with you. No sense in you doing the stairs twice.” I sped up getting dressed as Milo climbed out of bed.

  “Quit worrying about my leg.”

  “Can’t help it. I inherited my mom’s genes. It’s what I do. I worry over all my friends.” Now that I didn’t have Milo warming me up, I shivered in the chilly air as I yanked on a shirt. I needed spring to hurry up.

  “Well, if it means I’m a friend…” Milo paused as he pulled up his jeans.

  “A friend who looks damn good naked.” I couldn’t help the leer because he really did.

  Milo’s laugh was deep and musical. “We better find that coffee before you tempt me into saying screw this hunt.”

  “There’s another joke there…”

  “Behave.” He gently walloped me with his sweatshirt before putting it on. “Doughnuts. Now.”

  “Okay, okay.” I grabbed my stuff and led the way back downstairs, slowing my pace for Milo. “And I’m freezing, so we’ll take the car.”

  “All right.” Milo grimaced and I couldn’t tell whether it was leg pain or frustration with my thinly veiled attempt to spare him the long walk to the doughnut place.

  But my plan didn’t entirely work because I couldn’t find parking near Lee’s Bakery. Milo ended up hopping out to wait in line while I circled the block. When I returned, he had a white box and two steaming cups.

  “Yours is hot chocolate. No soda before noon.” Laughing, he settled back in the passenger seat. “And I got you your favorite again, so try not to die of chocolate overload.”

  “I’ll try.” I ended up driving us back to campus and parking in the lot near the library so we could enjoy the food.

  “Now tell me how this works, anyway,” Milo said as he grabbed a second doughnut.

  “So, like the public geocaching sites, you’re hunting hiding spots. These are even more secretive, with hidden lairs that you have to decipher clues to find, and themed caches. This site is all devoted to Odyssey, so if we can follow the clues, then there might, might be a card we can trade for inside. I’ve got the rare I won, plus two other ultra rares to try to equal the value.”

  Milo frowned at that. “I don’t want you to have to use your personal stash of cards.”

  “Eh. I found these the old-fashioned way, cracking packs.” Shrugging, I looked away. Honestly, I’d gone from resentful that Milo needed my help to being rather invested in his quest. I wanted him happy and wanted him to have a chance to redeem himself with Bruno. And helping him, having what he needed, made me feel twenty feet tall. “I got super lucky with finding the cards, but I haven’t found the right deck for them yet. I don’t mind using them to help you.”

  “Well, I appreciate it.” Milo glanced around the parking lot before giving me a fast kiss on the cheek.

  “Thanks.” My skin heated as I pulled out my phone and navigated to the site I’d bookmarked. “Let’s look at the first clue.”

  Milo quirked his lips as he looked down at my phone with me. “It’s a lineup of Odyssey cards?”

  “Yeah, but it’s a puzzle. Why these cards? Why this order?” Thinking hard, I tapped my fingers against my thigh, mulling over possibilities.

  “Is this where we call your friends?”

  “Chill. Let me think.” I could have called someone, of course, but I desperately wanted to solve the puzzle myself, wanted to be that kind of hero for Milo.

  “Does it maybe have to do with the drawings?” Milo pulled out his sketchbook. “Like, they each have a human character in the foreground and a different building in the background.”

  “I love it when you talk art to me,” I quipped as I helped him run through possibilities. Names of buildings in the pictures. What they represented. First letters. Our food was long finished, and the air in the car was frosty, but nothing was triggering a clue worth heading out into the cold for.

  “Maybe we’re overthinking it.” Setting his pencil aside, Milo frowned. “I mean, they are all brick buildings. Not that we’ve got any shortage of those here—”

  “Brick. Of course.” Grinning broadly, I all but crowed as I opened the car door. “The Brick family donated an obscene amount of money for the Brick Science Hall, like, a century ago. Now, why four cards?”

  “Are there four floors?” he asked as he followed me out of the car.

  “Are we sure I’m the genius one in this operation?” I matched my strides to his as we made our way past the library to the old science hall. “Let’s head to the fourth floor. And Boy Wonder, how about you figure out why it’s those four characters.”

  We took a creaky elevator up to the fourth floor while debating what the characters represented on the card could mean.

  “An archer, a gravedigger, some sort of chicken farmer, and a goth-looking chick walk into a bar…” Milo cracked.

  “The farmer is raising a falcon army. And she’s a reaper,” I corrected automatically as I racked my brain, trying to make sense of the clues. “Which is sort of like an angel of death in the game.”

  “Well, there’s enough dead creatures up here.” Milo gestured at the glass cases of taxidermy creatures lining the wide hall.

  Thinking of the gravedigger part of the clue, I crouched low to the floor, looking under the cases. “Perfect starting point. Look for a little hidden cache that will have our next clue.”

  “Like a falcon?” Coming to a stop in front of a case with a large black bird in it, Milo joined me in stooping low. The displays were creepy, and I wanted to find our clue fast.

  “There.” I ran my hand along a decorative arrow on the front of the case, and right below it, on the underside of the case, I found a tiny box that held a code to type into the app.

  “Oh, hell, this clue is all math.” Peering over my shoulder at my phone, Milo frowned.

  “I have you.” Finally, a chance to look smart. “It’s a recursive function. Professor Tuttle teaches a whole honors seminar on them. And he’s well known as an Odyssey player all over campus, thanks to the vlog. I bet the clue has something to do with him. Maybe we should walk toward the math building while I try to figure out the problem part.”

  “You do that.” Milo’s awed expression made me warm all over. I liked impressing him, probably more than I should have, both in bed and out, liked having skills he needed. Being the person to rescue him made me bound ahead toward the elevator until I remembered his leg and returned to his side.

  “We make a good team.” I switched my phone to my scientific calculator app as we exited the building.

  “We really do. I can’t believe we found that clue.”

  “We’ll find the next one too,” I promised as we huffed our way across the frigid campus. God, I hoped I wasn’t about to let him down. I wanted Milo to have the cards, but more than that, I wanted Milo to have a reason to stay changed. Because I’d seen a glimmer of who he could be—the artist, the wannabe cook, the sensitive person who kissed me like his life depended on it—and I wanted that person to stick around. And somehow the cards seemed to be key. Now we both needed that clue. And fast.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Milo

  Jasper made math sexy. I liked how his tongue snaked out when he thought hard about something, liked how his long fingers flew over the screen of his phone, liked how he bounced on his feet as if his whole body were powering that beautiful brain of his. Heck, I even liked how he said big words like recursive function like they were nothing at all. The math building was like him—impressive and shiny with a wide, welcoming layout. It was a far cry from the ancient and stuffy science hall, and I enjoyed wandering around as Jasper wrestled with the math problem in the building’s large atrium. After taking in various sculptures, I moved on to the line of bulletin boards near the hallway with
faculty offices where Jasper stood.

  “Maybe I could get down with math if it means scoring sweet deals like these.” I gestured at the collection of homemade ads for everything from used laptops to bikes to rooms for rent. I stilled my fingers over a colorful piece of paper advertising a cheap room close to campus. “Join us!” it proclaimed, but it was the little rainbow in the corner that held my attention. It had a row of tags along the bottom with a name and phone number. The rent was slightly more than I paid James and Luther, but maybe…

  Jasper glanced up from his phone. “Oh, that? It’s not just a math major thing. There are flyers all over campus for people renting rooms to students.”

  “Students.” I moved my hand away. Not for me, and I should have known better than to unleash my hopes, even a little. “Not like a college dropout working at the online packing facility.”

  “Wait.” Stepping closer, Jasper put a hand on my arm. “You’re thinking of moving?”

  “Nah. It was just a thought. Probably not possible.” I tried to keep my voice even, but somehow my resignation came out more. I couldn’t seem to hide my deepest wishes and the worst of my truths from Jasper. “Most places want a credit check and have that have-you-ever-been-arrested question. Stupid of me to think—”

  “No, no, it’s a good thought.” Jasper’s tone was too bright, words coming too fast. However, his enthusiasm was cute, not fake. “And yeah, these sorts of deals tend to want students. But…” His tongue darted out again, as if he was back to doing hard math. “An aspiring art student with a steady part-time job at the packing place might work as well as a math major.”

  Oh. I exhaled hard because I’d never thought about being a student again. I’d assumed I’d lost my shot at college, hadn’t dared let myself dream of anything else. Frankly, I hadn’t thought I deserved it, but the light in Jasper’s eyes and his voice made me want to dream again, made those hopes surge.

  “I need to hire you to be my hype person.” I laughed nervously. “You really think I could do something with art?”