Hate the Game

by Renshaw, Winter

  I wait for him to say something since he’s always ready with the perfect thing to say at the perfect moment, but instead it happens so fast—my back against a brick building wall, his hands in my hair, his body pressed against mine, pinning me with his uncaged desire.

  His mouth claims mine, but to be fair, I’m offering it on a freaking silver platter—his for the taking. He kisses me hard and soft, fast then slow, and through his jeans I feel the outline of his arousal. While part of me wants to resist, wants to put up a fight—the other part of me is deliciously powerless with his touch and loving every minute of it.

  Someone passing behind him yells at us to get a room, but we ignore him.

  “You drive me wild.” Talon’s lips curl into a smile against mine. “And I love every fucking minute of it.”

  Chapter 16

  Talon

  We sit in my idling car in her aunt’s driveway just past midnight. I swear I blinked and the night was over. Now her hand rests reluctantly on the door handle and it’s time to walk her to the door.

  “You have a good time tonight?” I ask. “Better than you expected?”

  Her full mouth lifts into a sleepy smile, all the confirmation I need.

  I climb out of the car and trek to the passenger side, but she’s already let herself out. I’ve never been big on the old-fashioned shit but I thought I needed to pull out all the stops tonight, take her on a date unlike any she’s ever been on.

  Assuming, of course.

  I have no idea what kinds of dates she’s been on. I only know that most guys won’t take the time to plan anything remotely memorable. It just so happened that my father’s namesake art exhibit fell on this weekend and I’m well aware of the fact that Irie’s interests align with that. It also just so happened that the owner of Ultra is a huge PVU Tigers fanatic and all I had to do was make a phone call and he found room for us on the guest list. I wanted our date to be as intimate as it was memorable, and taking her to any old bar wasn’t going to cut it.

  Placing my hand on her lower back, I walk her to the door.

  We stop on the front stoop of her aunt’s bungalow, under the soft glow of a single outside light. Her mouth is still swollen from that kiss we had against that building on 27th Street earlier and I can still taste her on my tongue.

  What I wouldn’t give to take her home with me for the night.

  But judging by the dreamy look in her eyes and the way her teeth bite into her ripe lower lip, I know it’s only a matter of time.

  Reaching for her face, I graze my fingers along her jaw before coming in for a kiss.

  I leave her with something tender this time. I don’t ravish her.

  I need to leave her wanting more of me so when she finally caves it’ll have been worth the wait—for both of us.

  “Goodnight, Irie.” I trail my fingertips down her arm.

  “Goodnight,” she says, eyes bright in the moonlight as she watches me walk away.

  By the time I get back to my car, she’s inside, and before I head back to my apartment, I check my phone for the first time in hours. It’d been going nuts earlier, vibrating every fucking five seconds, and finally I had to shut it off.

  The instant I power it on, I find at least twenty-eight messages … mostly from my roommates, a few of the players, and a handful of acquaintances who are convinced we’re bros.

  DEREK HOTCHKISS: Dude! You took Irie out tonight? Tell me you tapped that!

  MATT STEVENS: Heard you bagged Irie Davenport. About f-ing time, man…

  ALISON SOMERS: Who’s the mystery girl? Someone posted a pic of you and some girl on a date. I thought you didn’t date???

  A handful of people have sent me various iPhone paparazzi style pictures of Irie and I on our date tonight. I guess some bastards have nothing better to do than concern themselves with other people’s shit. Funny, I was so enamored with her all evening, I didn’t even realize people were taking pics.

  I toss my phone in the passenger side seat, crack the windows, tune the satellite radio to a lounge station that plays the kind of underground chill they were spinning at Ultra tonight, and then I back out of the driveway.

  It’s none of anyone’s fucking business, and I don’t need to explain myself.

  Besides, if I were to start bragging about how incredible Irie is, there’ll be a thousand guys beating down her door this time tomorrow. It’s that influencer-generation. Everybody wants what everybody else has.

  But Irie? She’s mine. And I’m keeping her to my damn self.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m home.

  The place is dark and lifeless—all three of my roommates were talking about hitting up some party on the west side tonight.

  Trekking to my room in the back of the apartment, I peel off tonight’s clothes and perch on the edge of the bed, phone in hand as I pull up my email and tap out a message.

  TO: davenport.irie@pvucampusmail.edu

  FROM: gold.talon@pvucampusmail.edu

  SUBJECT: Best. Date. Ever. (If I do say so myself …)

  MESSAGE: Seeing as how I still don’t have your phone number, I’m left with no choice but to email you so I can tell you what a fan-fucking-tastic night I had with you. Let’s it again. Soon. ~Tal

  Chapter 17

  Irie

  “So what you’re saying is, he took you on the best date of your life and it’s basically a one and done thing for you?” Brynn asks as she plops down on my bed Sunday afternoon, belly first. She cups her chin on top of her hands, examining me.

  I shrug. “At the end of the day, he’s still only after that one thing.”

  “So?”

  “So … we had a great time, but it’d be different if he was being genuine about it,” I say. “Underneath it all, he’s a man on a mission, and I’m not naïve enough to believe that’s changed.”

  “Maybe you’re looking at this all wrong. Maybe you should stop thinking about what he wants out of this and start thinking about what you want instead,” she says. “You want to have a good time, right?”

  I nod. “Who doesn’t?”

  “A guy like him is probably dynamite in bed.” She lifts her brows and clucks her tongue. “Isn’t there a part of you that wants to see what he could to do you?” She points a finger at me before I have a chance to respond. “And don’t say no because I won’t believe you.”

  I laugh. “Of course I’m curious. But that’s not the point.”

  “Then maybe it should be.”

  I take a seat at my desk and crack the lid on my laptop to check my email. I’ve never seen Brynn so obsessed with my sex life before—then again, I’m pretty sure she thinks I was some kind of virgin when she met me because it wasn’t the kind of thing I ever discussed with anyone since the events that transpired my senior year of high school.

  I double-click on my inbox and tap the ‘get mail’ button. The screen fills with half a dozen emails, most of which are spam.

  Except one.

  My stomach flutters without permission as I scan his words.

  Let’s do it again. Soon …

  The next thing I know, I’m fighting a grin so wide it makes my cheeks ache.

  “What?” Brynn asks, climbing off the bed. “What are you beaming about over there?”

  Within seconds she’s lurking over my shoulder, eyes scanning Talon’s email.

  “Oh my God. Look at you, Irie. You’re blushing,” she says, nudging my shoulder. “You like him! I knew it.”

  Maybe I do.

  Maybe I don’t.

  Maybe it doesn’t matter.

  I close the laptop lid without responding.

  It doesn’t matter if I had fun last night. It doesn’t matter if my ego relishes in his flattery. It doesn’t matter if I want to let him kiss me again, if I want to see him again and again and again …

  It was a one date deal, and I meant what I said.

  I won’t date him.

  I can’t.

  Chapter 18

  Ta
lon

  Longmire dismisses us five minutes early Monday morning. Irie packs up and I follow her to the hall.

  “You get my email?” I ask.

  “Yes.” Her silky hair curtains the side of her face.

  “And?”

  Irie turns to me, her iridescent gaze penetrating mine. She begins to say something until some douche squeezes past and knocks me into her.

  “Jesus Christ.” I yell after him, “Watch your fucking step, asshole.” Turning to Irie, I say, “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  A couple of girls pass by, staring and whispering. I’m sure they’re looking at Irie and wondering what she has that they don’t. Not that it’s any of their business, but the answer is: everything.

  “So,” I say. “What are you doing this weekend?”

  “Talon.” She exhales, arms crossed and head tilted. “We had a one date agreement. One date and you were going to stop.”

  “But you had a good time, did you not?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “So why can’t we do it again?” I ask.

  A guy and girl point at us in passing the way a tourist would point at a celebrity from the top of a Hollywood tour bus. Why these people give such a shit about my personal life, I’ll never understand. It’s pathetic, honestly.

  “Can we talk about this later?” she asks.

  “When?” I ask. “You won’t even give me your number.”

  “Thursday,” she says. “We’ll talk about it before we study.”

  “You’re going to make me wait three days …”

  She peers over my shoulder, toward the exit. I know my time with her is reduced to seconds, but I’ll be damned if I have to wait three whole days before discussing this with her again.

  “I had a great time. You had a great time,” I say. “All I’m suggesting is that we do it again.”

  Irie drags in a ragged, defeated breath as she adjusts the strap on her shoulder.

  “I know what I said. I know I told you one date and I’d leave you alone if that’s what you wanted,” I say. “So tell me, Irie. Is that what you want? And I want you to think carefully before you answer. I want you to be two hundred percent sure. Because whatever you say right here, right now—"

  “—yes,” she blurts.

  “Yes?” I ask, lips twisting into a buoyant half-smile. “As in yes you want to go on another date or yes you want me to leave you alone?”

  She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, gazing up at me through a fringe of thick lashes. “Yes, I’ll go on another date with you.”

  Sweet Jesus.

  Hooking my hand around the crook of her elbow, I pull her around the corner, to a section of hallway a little less occupied, and when I have her all to myself, I back her against the wall before claiming her cherry lips that curl against mine with the very smile she’d been fighting the past five minutes.

  “I’m going to be late for class,” she says a moment later, her hand pressed against my beating chest. Irie’s full mouth slips into the cutest of smiles that fades in seconds, and then she’s on her way.

  I knew she’d come around …

  Chapter 19

  Irie

  “Let there be light,” Aunt Bette says Thursday night as she lights two ivory-colored pillar candles on the kitchen table while Talon and I finish up our slices of delivery pizza.

  They say it never rains in Southern California, but tonight is an exception. It’s been pouring all day, gray skies and wet streets and air so thick with humidity your lungs begin to drown the instant you step outside. In some ways it reminds me of home, only not in a good way.

  It’s nothing that makes me nostalgic.

  I’m not sure I could ever be nostalgic for a place like that, a place polluted with the worst kinds of memories.

  I tried to call off our study plans, telling Talon we could always quiz each other over the phone, but he insisted—as per usual—that we not call off our face-to-face meeting. He’s aced all of the Friday quizzes so far and he doesn’t want to jinx himself.

  Though if you ask me, it’s just another excuse of his to milk his time with me.

  After class this past Monday, he cornered me, asking me out on another date.

  It was easy to ignore his email all day Sunday, easy to convince myself that I could be strong and hold firm in my decision not to take this beyond the first date—but everything changes when I’m with him.

  One look at his dimpled smirk, one inhalation of his clean scent and he dismantles my heart with the skill and ease of a practiced bomb technician.

  “Aren’t you going to eat with us?” I ask Bette as she shuffles around the kitchen in her slippers and robe.

  “Of course not. Wheel is on,” she says. But I know her better. Bette loves her some Wheel of Fortune, but she’s got other motives tonight. A few seconds later, she’s setting up shop in her recliner, eating her pizza from a TV tray as Pat Sajak’s face fills the screen on the other side of the room.

  Talon and I exchanged amused chuffs as he dabs his mouth with a paper napkin. The glow of the candle flickers between us and rain beads soft on the window beside us.

  As soon as we’re finished, I grab my notebook and start quizzing him on the week’s lecture. We’re halfway finished when Aunt Bette shuffles in with her empty plate as a Norwegian cruise lines commercial plays from the next room.

  “How’s the studying going?” Bette asks.

  “It’s going …” I say.

  “You know, Irie, I was going to say, now that the two of you are dating, you should invite Talon to your cousin’s wedding next month!” Aunt Bette claps her hands together.

  I cannot believe she’s doing this.

  No, wait. Actually I can.

  I never should have told her I agreed to a second date with him because now she thinks we’re officially dating.

  Talon’s gaze snaps to mine but his expression is blank. I can imagine the last thing he wants to do is go to some stranger’s wedding in BFE, Missouri.

  “You should come with us,” Bette says to him. “It’s the weekend before spring break. We’re going up Friday and coming back Sunday so you’ll still get to enjoy your week off. You ever been to Missouri?”

  “No, ma’am, can’t say that I have,” he answers, though he’s still looking at me, trying to gauge my reaction in real-time. “Though I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “Liar,” I mouth to him, my back to Aunt Bette.

  He cracks a smile. “No, really. I think it could be fun.”

  “What are you doing?” I ask him, voice low.

  “I don’t want to invite myself along or anything,” he says, “but if you need a date …”

  “Of course she needs a date,” Bette says. “You know her ex-boyfriend will probably be there and last time she went home, the son of a bitch wouldn’t leave her alone for two seconds.”

  Great.

  Let’s bring he-who-shall-remain-nameless into this.

  Thanks a lot, Aunt Bette …

  “He’s a real asshole,” she says. “Personally, I can’t stand the prick.”

  Talon tries not to laugh at Aunt Bette, hiding his face behind his napkin. And I get it. It’s kind of hilarious watching a sweet, pint-sized, little old lady swear like a sailor. It took a solid year for that novelty to wear off for me.

  “He could use a big guy like you to put him in his place,” she says.

  “Aunt Bette, I’m sorry but we’re trying to study,” I say.

  “Ah, that’s right. Got carried away there for a second,” she says, giving us a wink as she shuffles back toward the living room. “Just pretend I’m not here. And I mean that. Seriously.”

  As soon as she’s out of earshot, I apologize to Talon. “She shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that. By no means would I ever expect you to go to my cousin’s wedding.”

  “What if I want to go?”

  Leaning back in my chair, I cross my arms and peer at him thr
ough the flowing candlelight that fills the space between us. “Then I’d say you’re crazy. Certifiably.”

  “Why?” Talon shrugs. “I love meeting new people. And I bet your family would love me.”

  I almost choke on my spit. “My family doesn’t even love themselves. They’re just a bunch of perfectionistic, miserable jerks who think the only way to get the devil out of you is to handle some snakes and speak in tongues and if that doesn’t work, they take you out back and beat him out of you.”

  He laughs.

  If only I were joking.

  “Seriously, you do not have to go,” I say. “I don’t even want to go. Only reason I am is because Bette needs my help. She can’t travel on her own anymore.”

  “Take me with you. I’ll be your buffer. I’ll be your excuse when you need one. Your escape from the chaos. You can show me where you grew up, where you went to high school …” he says. “I think it’d be fun.”

  “It’s your last spring break. Ever. I’m sure you can find something more exciting to do. Aren’t your friends going somewhere? Cabo or Palm Beach or something?”

  “Of course.” Talon places his hand over mine. “But I’d rather be in Missouri with you than lazing out by some pool with a bunch of drunk idiots.”

  I have to admit, it’d be nice having a buffer there. A reason to sneak away. A distraction.

  “My aunt and uncle are going to make you stay at a hotel,” I say.

  “That’s fine.”

  “They’re not warm and fuzzy,” I say.

  He sniffs, unfazed. “Neither am I, so already we have that in common.”

  “I can’t believe you want to do this.”

  His hand is still cupped over mine, the melting candle flickering between us.

  “You’re crazy,” I say, hiding my smile behind my fingers as I shake my head at him.

  Talon reaches for my hand, pulling it away before he leans in, letting his lips graze mine.

  “Crazy about you,” he says.