Lover's Game (South Bay Soundtracks Book 3)

by Amelia Stone

  I pulled her into me. “Let’s not get crazy,” I said. “We can stay up a little longer.”

  She turned wide blue eyes to me. “How can you possibly have the energy right now?”

  I grinned. “You forget, I’ve been sitting on a bar stool all night, conserving my stamina.” I gave her a soft, slow kiss. “Except for that one time I lifted you up. I think I might need some rehab for my knee after that.”

  She shook her head, putting her hands to my chest to push me away. But she smiled, too.

  “Well, hurry up and pee so we can go home and get it over with.”

  I laughed. “You really know how to romance a guy.”

  She shrugged, giving me another gentle shove toward the bathroom. “It’s a gift.”

  I was still chuckling to myself a minute later as I walked down the long hallway that led to the bathrooms. But I looked up when the back door opened, and the warm summer breeze wafted in as Ward came in from the parking lot.

  “Hey,” I said. “I thought you left.”

  He shook his head. “Nah. Just needed to think,” he replied.

  I nodded. “Okay. Well, everyone left. I’m just gonna pee, then I’m heading home, too.”

  He shrugged. “That’s cool. I think I’m done for the night, too.”

  I frowned at his defeated tone. “You okay, man?”

  He fixed me with a glassy-eyed stare that told me he was still drunk. “Like you care?”

  And before I could reply, he disappeared down the hallway and into the bar.

  I did my business as quickly as I could, wondering what the hell Ward’s problem was. Was he mad at me for something? I didn’t think I’d done or said anything to piss him off, but I had been pretty drunk there for a bit. Still felt a little tipsy, in fact.

  I shook my head as I washed my hands, trying to clear out the last vestiges of the alcohol. I’d figure out what was going on with Ward some other time. For now, I needed to get my woman home and tuck her into bed.

  I whistled as I walked down the hallway toward the bar, thinking about how I was going to tuck myself into—

  I stopped short, staring out at the mostly empty bar.

  Empty of everyone but Ward and Krista, who were standing in the middle of the room, kissing each other.

  “What. The. Fuck?”

  My voice sounded unnaturally loud in the still, quiet room. I watched, as though in slow motion, as Krista pushed Ward away. She glared up at him like she was mad, wiping a hand over her mouth. Then she took a step away from him, staggering toward me as though she were the drunk one.

  “Seth-”

  “What the fuck is going on here?” I growled.

  She reached out like she was trying to grab my hands, but I stepped out of her reach, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “Dude-” Ward began.

  “Shut the fuck up,” I barked. If looks could kill, that motherfucker would have been toast. “I will deal with you later. For now, you can get the fuck out of here.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, looking almost angry at me. Which was fucking absurd. He was lucky I hadn’t broken off a beer bottle in his neck. The longer he stood there, in fact, the farther he was pushing his luck. He was only alive right now because I was feeling just clear headed enough to remember what my father had told me a million times.

  A good man uses his wits, not his fists, to solve his problems.

  I didn’t feel particularly witty right now, though. In fact, I felt pretty damn foolish.

  Finally, Ward shook his head, muttering some kind of bullshit under his breath as he pushed through the bar door. There was a ringing silence in his wake, and Krista and I just stared at each other for a moment.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her off with a hand in the air.

  “I don’t want to hear it.” I looked down at her, at those sapphire eyes I loved. The eyes that had betrayed me. “I don’t want to do this with you. I just want you to get the fuck out.”

  “Seth, please.” She took a step forward. “Please just listen to me. I have no idea what just happened. He came out of nowhere and kiss-mugged-”

  “I. Don’t. Want. To. Hear. It.” I pointed to the door. “Leave now.”

  “Seth.” Her voice was pleading, and her eyelids were working overtime. “Please. Please just let me explain.”

  I shook my head. Let me explain sounded an awful lot like let me come up with a plausible lie. And I didn’t want any more of her lies, her half-truths, her cryptic mutterings. I didn’t want any more of her hiding her true self from me.

  “I don’t want to see your face right now.” I closed my eyes, running a hand through my too-long hair.

  I really needed to get it cut. I had no swagger left. She’d stolen it all with her lies.

  She’d said me a decade ago that she didn’t hate me. But how could I believe that then, when she’d so heartlessly cast me aside? And now, when she’d betrayed me?

  God, had she ever really wanted me? Or was it all a smoke screen to get closer to my ‘buddy?’ Was she just playing with me the whole time?

  She’d never told me about her alleged feelings for me. Not once. But she had expressed interest in Ward. She’d accepted a date with him. And she’d been so angry after the Spring Fling, after he’d broken her heart. And she’d held a grudge for years after.

  But me? She tossed me aside like it was nothing, like I was nothing. She’d walked away from me and never even looked back.

  She stood across from me, still pleading with me to let her exonerate herself. But I was unmoved.

  “Just go,” I barked.

  “But if you would let me explain-”

  “No.”

  I opened my eyes to see her nodding resignedly, and my blood boiled at how easily she’d accepted defeat. How easily she’d let me go.

  Again.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she said. It sounded like a plea. “I’ll come over and we’ll talk.”

  “No,” I rasped. The lump in my throat was hard as a rock, but somehow I swallowed it down. “You won’t.”

  Her eyelids fluttered faster than I’d ever seen them. “Saturday, then?”

  “No.” A shudder ran through me as I took a step backward, then another. “I don’t want to see you on Saturday.”

  “But the wedding-”

  “I don’t care.” I shook my head as I continued to walk backward. “I’m not going to the wedding. I never want to see you again.”

  Then I turned to go, ignoring her continued pleas. My feet picked up their pace, until I was running full tilt for the door. I exploded into the parking lot, the door banging against the wood shingles of the building, the noise like a gunshot in the quiet night.

  She followed me, still trying to appeal her case. But I couldn’t listen, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even look at her. Eventually – I don’t know how long it was – she left. But I stood in that parking lot for a long time after, staring up at the moon and wondering how the fuck I was going to live without her.

  Meetings are what I imagine the Fields of Asphodel to be like. You’re alive, but also dead. You’re free, but also chattel. You can move around, but only to a certain point. You are surrounded by people, but you can’t see, hear, or speak to anyone. You accomplish nothing, day in and day out, again and again, until, if you’re lucky, the gods take pity on you and send you to Elysium – the divine equivalent of early release for good behavior.

  If you’re not lucky, it’s an eternity of wandering in circles, with no purpose and no end in sight. Your only hope is for time to stop, somehow. But it never will.

  At least it’s better than having your liver pecked out, though.

  Kind of.

  Not really.

  I looked around the conference room. Our CFO was complaining about the cost of booth swag, no one was taking notes, and the head of our graphic arts department was asleep. He had a line of drool hanging from his chin and everything.

  I’d p
robably have gone with the liver, if given the choice.

  Still, being stuck in this meeting was better than being in South Bay right now. Jess had been furious that I’d gone into the office the day before the wedding, but I needed to get away from that island. I needed an escape.

  Even if the means of my escape was possibly going to result in me pecking out my own liver for the rest of eternity.

  “This convention is going to be a clusterfuck.”

  My business partner, Mike Weston, was slumped in his seat, his light brown hair uncharacteristically rumpled. Mike was one of those guys who wore a suit to the office every day, even though no one else at Golden Goddess did. He’d always had a neat, almost fussy fashion sense, even in college. It had only gotten worse after Taylor Kusmierski had taken him under her sartorial wing. His former assistant had made him one of the best-dressed and most eligible bachelors in the city.

  I, on the other hand, was currently sporting ten-year-old sweatpants and my Hello Kaylee tee shirt, because Firefly was the pop culture equivalent of comfort food for me. And because real pants were for people who could wake up early enough to fumble with zippers and shimmy into jeans. I could do none of those things. Not today.

  Not with a broken heart.

  “I don’t think we can go that far-”

  “No one asked you, Kalisha.” Mike’s irritable bark was my third clue that today was going to suck.

  My second clue had been the emails, texts, voicemails, and intraoffice IMs I’d received at six-thirty that morning, all demanding my physical presence at an emergency planning meeting.

  My first clue had been waking up on the floor of my attic hideaway in last night’s clothes, a game controller still clutched in my hand and my hair plastered to my neck.

  Oh, and I’d awoken alone. Because Seth never wanted to see me again.

  “Excuse me?” My head of design, Kalisha Sanders, glared at Mike. “I believe my job title means that my opinion on our product offerings is always necessary,” she shot back.

  “But we’re not talking about our product offerings,” Mike argued. “We’re talking about our marketing strategy for E3.”

  “Which is dependent on our product offerings,” Kalisha insisted.

  “Well, you’re right about one thing, anyway. But if Order of Alexander isn’t ready in time, we have nothing to debut, and-”

  “It’ll be ready,” Kalisha interrupted. “Our betas have been raving about it, and we’re almost finished working out the bugs. Another couple of days-”

  “We can’t afford another couple of days!” Mike thundered. “E3 is in eleven days, Kalisha. Eleven. Days. We don’t have until the last minute here.”

  Kalisha opened her mouth to argue, but I tuned her out. I didn’t care about this pointless argument. I didn’t care about E3 or any of the things I should be worrying about.

  Not anymore. Because Seth never wanted to see me again.

  So I sat numbly, watching the verbal pyrotechnics unfold in front of me with a detachment that probably should have frightened me. I lost track of the conversation, lost track of time, and definitely lost track of my sanity. Until a voice whispered in my ear.

  “They need to just fuck and get it over with, am I right?”

  I blinked, staring at Mike and Kalisha, who were still arguing. Mike’s face was red, his tie askew, and his hair was even messier than before, as though he’d run his hands through it a few times. His glare was still directed at Kalisha, but his hazel eyes were dark and hazy in a way I recognized immediately.

  He looked like he wanted to have sex with her, preferably right here on the conference table. I knew because he used to have sex with me. He was the first – and only – guy I’d ever had sex with, in fact.

  Until Seth. But I didn’t want to think about sex with Seth, because that would just remind me that I would never have sex with Seth again. Because he never wanted to see me again.

  My gaze bounced instead to Kalisha, who looked decidedly heated, too. Her dark skin was flushed, and there was a line of sweat across her brow that hadn’t been there when the meeting started.

  Huh. I wondered how long that had been going on. Why hadn’t I noticed that my ex-boyfriend wanted to fuck my right-hand woman?

  Well, good for them. Kalisha was awesome. And Mike deserved someone good, after the messy break-up we’d had a year and a half ago.

  You know, when he’d accused me of never giving my whole heart to him – because I was still in love with Seth.

  “Or maybe they already are.”

  I turned my head to look at the man who’d whispered in my ear: my assistant, Teno Mendoza. He was grinning at me, his dark eyes glittering with intrigue. He just loved gossip and drama and all that mess. He was kind of a voyeur, in a way, always the first to settle in, popcorn in hand, when things went to Hades. And then, because he was the best at his job, he picked up the pieces and put out the fires and cleaned up all the messes, making it look and feel as though nothing had ever happened.

  His impish smile fell as he took in my no-doubt pale and puffy face.

  “Oh honey, no.” His hand sneaked under the table, squeezing my hand. “What happened?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to get into it with him. He would want all the gory details, and I didn’t have the strength right now to talk about the proverbial spear that had been driven through my heart last night.

  Being numb was good. It was better, easier. Being numb meant I didn’t have to face just how broken my heart – my soul – was. How incomplete I was without the other half of myself.

  Teno snuck a glance at the room. The foreplay meeting was still going full tilt, and everyone else was avidly watching the show. No one was paying attention to our end of the table.

  “I’m sending Ellie an SOS,” he whispered. “If you won’t talk to me, you should at least talk to her.”

  I shook my head. “It’s Friday.”

  Ellie always came for lunch on Tuesdays. Every Tuesday at twelve-thirty on the dot. She and I were both too busy during the rest of the week to get together, so it had always been Tuesdays.

  “Please. She’ll make an exception,” he scoffed. He pulled his phone from his pocket, and I wondered how he could fit so much as a breath mint in there, let alone an iPhone. That’s how skinny his purple skinny jeans were.

  I watched as he shot off a text, and a half second later he got a reply. He nodded once, firmly, as he read the message.

  “It’s all set. She’ll be here at 12:30. You want me to order the usual from Shwartz’s?”

  I nodded, but then I caught myself. “No, get me the garden salad. Oil and vinegar.”

  My life may have gone to Tartarus in a handbasket, but Jess’s wedding was still happening tomorrow, whether I was in the mood or not. I still had to fit into that damn maid-of-honor gown.

  Teno shook his head. “Yeah, no.” He pressed a fingertip to my cheek. “You need some color, honey, and a garden salad ain’t gonna cut it.” He pulled up the note app that basically controlled his life, and by extension, mine. “One Rueben, extra kraut, coming right up.”

  Reluctantly, I huffed in agreement. “And a side of pickles.”

  He laid a hand on his chest. “Must you continually insult your best employee?”

  I muttered an apology, because he really was my best employee. He was reliable, organized, and efficient, and he took excellent care of me. He deserved so much better than to put out my fires.

  I added ‘underappreciating my assistant’ to the list of things I’d be atoning for when I finally stood before the Underworld judges.

  Right alongside breaking the heart of the boy I loved. Twice.

  A couple of hours later, I was working on a bug that caused the Macedonian cavalry to ride through the middle of a siege tower, but I was interrupted by Teno knocking softly on my closed office door. Then he pushed it open anyway without waiting for the okay from me.

  “You have a visitor,” he teased, that playful sm
ile firmly in place as he walked toward my desk.

  I frowned, wondering why he’d come to my office. Usually he sent me an IM to notify me of visitors, a sort of pre-screening technique that I greatly appreciated. If I was busy, or just not up to people-ing, I could tell him to shoo whoever-it-was without being overheard.

  A glance at the clock only furthered my confusion. “It’s too early for Ellie.”

  One of the things I liked about my best friend was that she was always punctual, as in, to the exact second. And since she wasn’t due in my office for another twenty-five minutes, the person waiting in the lobby for me probably wasn’t her.

  Teno nodded. “I know. It’s a guy,” he stage-whispered. “A hot one.”

  A little balloon of hope inflated inside me at his words. A hot guy, come to see me? Could it possibly be…

  Oh gods.

  Teno gave me a theatrical wink. “I’ll show him in,” he said. “But I call dibs if you don’t want him.” He headed to the door with a jaunt in his step. “You know I have a thing for blonds.”

  The balloon collapsed, as I should have known it would. A blond guy.

  A blond, not-Seth guy.

  But then, who was it?

  My question was answered a moment later when Teno ushered Ward freaking Hopkins into my office.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” The words were out of my mouth before I even realized I’d thought them. I was up and out of my seat, stepping backward until my ass bumped the window. The blinds rattled behind me, echoing the shaking of my knees.

  Teno froze, his gaze darting to Ward, then to me. He moved a few feet to the left, subtly inserting himself between me and my ‘visitor.’

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded. “And how did you even know where to find me?”

  Ward shrugged. “Facebook.”

  “I’m not on Facebook,” I shot back.

  “No, but your mom is. She told me where you worked.”

  I closed my eyes. By the gods of Olympus, I vowed to take away that woman’s Facebook access the second I got back to South Bay. She obviously couldn’t be trusted with either my personal data or recipes for chocolate braided bread.

  “Do I need to call Bruiser?” Teno asked, either not picking up on the fact that Ward and I knew each other, or not caring.