No Time Like Mardi Gras

by Kimberly Lang

  “That it is.” And with that, her wall went back up, clearly bringing that topic to an end.

  “Any more questions about Callie?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good. Because I’d really rather not think about Callie right now.”

  “Oh, why is that?”

  “Because otherwise it would be a little disturbing when I did this.” He hauled Jamie back into his lap and kissed her. He didn’t want to shine flashlights into dark places in either of their pasts. Nothing good could come of it. Sometimes you just had to let the circus pack its tents and move on for a while. God knew it would come back to town eventually, so why revisit when it wasn’t absolutely necessary?

  Her arms went around his neck without hesitation, massaging the nape as she melted into him. She hummed as his fingers massaged her thighs, and he found that place on the side of her neck that she liked. “This is very nice.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” he answered, slipping his hands under her shirt to release the clasp of her bra.

  They didn’t even make it to the bedroom.

  SEVEN

  You can come home. He misses you. We all do. We’re worried about you.

  Jamie sat on the back deck of Beauregard’s, eating her free post-shift meal as she stared at her phone and the unexpected message. She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She’d once considered Michelle a friend, but Michelle had been one of the first to cut her out as soon as her loyalty to Joey wavered even the tiniest bit, and she’d found out they actually weren’t friends after all. This message had come straight out of nowhere.

  Hell, she wasn’t even sure if she should respond at all.

  She’d admit—but only to herself—that she’d toyed with the idea of going back. This was much harder than she’d expected it to be. Waitressing was keeping her afloat for the time being, but she didn’t enjoy it, she wasn’t very good at it and nothing better seemed to be coming along, no matter how many résumés she sent out.

  She’d met some people at work, made a few friends—not besties, but folks she could hang out with, at least. She wasn’t getting horribly lost every time she set foot outside anymore, and she was even starting to understand the local accents and idioms. The other day she’d discovered her tire was flat and managed to deal with it all by herself. Okay, not totally by herself; she’d knocked on the neighbor’s door and paid him fifteen dollars to help her. But she’d paid very close attention and was pretty sure she’d be able to change it herself next time.

  For the first time in her life, she felt like a fully-functioning adult member of society.

  She didn’t necessarily like it all the time—things like insurance were just a pain in the butt—but by God, she was doing it. It wasn’t anything like her old life, but she was proving Joey and everyone else a little more wrong each day.

  But it was still tempting. Oh, so tempting.

  It was like quitting smoking: every day that she didn’t give in to the temptation was a little victory. She just needed to hold onto her pride.

  Taking a deep breath, she quickly typed, Tell everyone I’m fine. But I’m not coming back.

  She hit send before she could lose her nerve.

  Almost immediately, like a message from the universe that she’d done the right thing, another message pinged to her phone, this time from Colin: Are you coming over tonight?

  Colin was possibly the only thing keeping her sane at the moment, but even that had its own caution lights. She liked him—a lot—but she had to question whether it was smart to get too attached to him. She was well aware of the dangers of rebounding—especially coming off a relationship like hers—and she didn’t want to cling to him for all the wrong reasons.

  It was getting harder to keep him at arm’s length, though; there were moments when she almost said too much, and times when she wanted to say more. But she could tell he was keeping his distance, too. Too many silences, too many conversational curves. She knew what she wasn’t willing to talk about, but she had to wonder what topics he was intentionally avoiding and why.

  Not that she could really ask unless she was ready to spill her own guts as well.

  Mercy. She had to question how healthy this really was for her....

  But her body was already on board, a lovely anticipatory glow crawling up from her toes at the mere thought. It was hard to fight.

  I can’t. Working tonight.

  Come by after?

  What did Colin think she was? Just some kind of a booty call? Other plans made already, she typed. That wasn’t entirely false; a couple of the other waitresses had been after her to go out for a drink after work for a while now. It was time she took them up on it.

  A few minutes later, Colin’s response came back: Okay. See you later.

  Damn it, she’d kill to know the tone behind that. Disappointed? Perfectly fine? Peeved? She was certainly feeling something like disappointment, but it was hard to track where it stemmed from. Was she hoping that he’d try a little harder to convince her? Or should she be glad that he hadn’t?

  It was all very confusing.

  Welcome to my life. Was there anything in it that wasn’t confusing?

  With a sigh, she cleared her table and clocked back in for her next shift. And while she tried to be perky for the sake of her customers, that confused feeling stayed with her all night.

  Figuring she would have to learn to trust herself eventually, she left the restaurant at the end of her shift and found herself at Colin’s door a few minutes later.

  He seemed surprised to see her. “I thought you had other plans tonight.”

  “I sort of did. But I decided I’d rather be with you.” It felt good to say that out loud. And she meant it.

  He grinned and pulled her inside.

  * * *

  “So why are we killing the zombies again?”

  “Because they’re zombies and this is the zombie apocalypse. They’re the bad guys,” Colin explained.

  Jamie was seated next to him on the bed, wearing nothing but one of his old T-shirts, his laptop in her lap and a mouse on a book beside her, her forehead wrinkled as she stared at the screen, where zombies shuffled down Bourbon Street. A half-naked girl, a bottle of wine and a computer game in his bed at the same time had to rate high on any geek’s ultimate wish list, but he wasn’t entirely sure why he’d agreed to appease her curiosity about No Quarter at three in the morning instead of finding something better to occupy them. In fact, he’d never been less interested in a game in his life than he was at this moment.

  “Isn’t zombie killing more of a job for law enforcement?” she asked. “Or maybe the military? I mean, they have much better weapons than just a baseball bat.”

  “Well, you can earn better weapons, and the military isn’t going to help—”

  “Wait,” she interrupted, “so you’re telling me there’s no military after the zombie apocalypse? Has our entire system of government collapsed as well?”

  “Well...” He started to try to explain, realized he couldn’t, and just said, “They’re busy somewhere else.”

  “In that case, then maybe it would be smarter to just hole up indoors and wait?” Jamie gestured at the screen, where a zombie had just tripped and fallen. “I mean, they’re zombies, not a pack of Einsteins. A good lock should stymie them until help arrives.”

  “That rather defeats the entire purpose of the game.”

  She shot a sideways glance at him, then frowned at the screen again. “Well, I’m not sure I’m sold on that whole purpose anyway.”

  He let that slide. “Now, your mouse lets you look around—”

  “Whoa, motion sickness much?” She moved the mouse slowly this time, turning her avatar in a circle to see her surroundings. “This is amazing, Colin. You really designed all of this yourse
lf?”

  “Well, Eric, too. And a few other folks. It started off as a project we played with when we were still in high school—only back then it was aliens invading—and then we expanded on it while we were in college. We were studying programming, so we’d apply what we learned to the game. Eventually we changed the aliens to zombies and invited others to play. It got popular and grew from there, and we’ve been playing catch-up ever since.”

  “But making this...I just can’t imagine. Not just the programming either, but also the concept, the story, all of it.” She grinned at him. “You are really smart. Like genius smart.”

  There was just enough surprise in her voice to tell him that she’d never given games a thought before, but there was also an admiration that wasn’t at all faked. It was quite flattering. “Maybe not genius...”

  “Well, you’re definitely the smartest guy I’ve ever been with.” Then she pointed to the avatars in the upper corner of her screen. “Who are all of those people?”

  Now he was both pleased he’d showed her the game and still regretting it at the same time. His brain was having a hard time holding both emotions simultaneously. “They are the other players currently online.”

  “I’m supposed to play with other people?”

  “If you want. You don’t have to, but it’s called a massively multiplayer online game for a reason.”

  “Oh, okay.” She cracked her knuckles. “Let’s do this. Who goes first?”

  “No one goes first. It’s not that kind of game. If you joined them, you’d work together as a team to fight the zombies.”

  She looked at him strangely. “So how do you win this game, then?”

  “You don’t. You can accomplish your objectives, secure areas and complete missions, but the game itself never ends. There are always more zombies.”

  Jamie rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s just ridiculous. What’s the point?”

  He’d never thought about it. That’s just how it was. “The point of games isn’t necessarily to win.”

  “Actually, it is. That’s why they’re called games.”

  “The fun is in the playing,” he stressed.

  “And in the winning,” she stressed just as earnestly.

  “Look, people pay me money to play this game. I want them to continue playing indefinitely.”

  “Okay, that makes sense.” She leaned back and reached for her drink. “I’ll confess I don’t really see the attraction, though.”

  “You’re not my target audience.”

  “Very true.” She moved the laptop to the floor, giving him a lovely view of her thighs and butt, before flopping back on the pillows with a dramatic sigh. “How is that satisfying, though? An unending catastrophe and no way to ever win? We get enough of that in real life, thanks very much. The zombies are just added suckitude.”

  “Oh, but there is satisfaction. You clear an area, secure it against future attacks...”

  “But the zombies keep coming.”

  He shrugged. “I get great satisfaction from killing zombies.”

  “I think I’d prefer something where I had a bit more control. I’ve got enough uncontrollable stuff in my real life, thanks very much.”

  “Ah, but you forget—I do have control. It’s my game. I made it.” He rolled to his back, arms spread wide. “I am the ultimate supreme power in that universe,” he declared in his best supervillain voice, throwing in an evil laugh for good measure. “Even the zombies bend to my will.”

  “Somebody’s on a power trip.”

  He wasn’t going to deny it. That power was what had attracted him to games in the first place. No matter how crazy things got with his mother, he could always lose himself in a game where the bad guys were obvious and bested by skill. Even the most complicated-seeming games were nothing but code and scripted actions, predictable and constant. It didn’t take a psychology degree to figure out that he had started building worlds where he was God in response to the fact that the real world was way out of his control. Hell, he freely admitted it. He turned his head to grin at Jamie. “Jealous?”

  “Of someone who has ultimate godlike powers over the fates of thousands of people’s virtual lives? Absolutely. I’d love that kind of control.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yep.” In a flash, she’d straddled him, knees braced on either side of his hips. She put her hands on his biceps, gently pinning him to the mattress. “Not only would I love it, I’d totally get off on it,” she purred, leaning down to press her lips to his chest. In slow, tantalizing movements, Jamie brushed her breasts across his torso, letting him feel hard nipples covered only in thin cotton. Her hips rocked gently back against his groin, teasing him and causing him to buck in response.

  A slow, sexy smile spread across Jamie’s face, and she released the pressure on his arms long enough to sweep the T-shirt she wore up and off. Then she reached for his arms and pressed them up over his head.

  She was getting off on the control, but then so was he. She slid up his body, letting him feel every inch of her skin, and brushed a nipple across his lips. “I’d be a benevolent ruler, you know. Keep everyone happy. I’d get rid of the zombies, the violence, and make it Mardi Gras in the Quarter all the time. Just music and parades and this.” She brushed the other nipple across his lips but pulled back when he tried to capture it, sliding back down to press a hot kiss against his neck.

  “You want the power?” She lifted her head. “The total control?” He waited for her nod, then flipped her to her back, reversing their positions and capturing her wrists in his hands above her head. Jamie’s mouth opened in a little O of shock. “Design your own game. The zombies stay.”

  Jamie stuck out her tongue and he kissed her long and hard. She sighed into his mouth. And though he released her wrists to free his hands for another exploration of that creamy skin, she kept them where they were, wrapping her fingers around the slats of his headboard.

  Shortly thereafter, Jamie began to whimper, arching against his hands and mouth. A few minutes later, she was screaming his name.

  As he moved over her again, she released the headboard and raked her fingers through his hair. “I may have been wrong earlier.”

  “About what?”

  “There’s quite a bit of fun in the playing, too.”

  * * *

  Two days later, they actually went out for the first time. Colin rang the doorbell to her apartment, and when Jamie opened the door, his tongue nearly hit his shoes. A silky red dress hugged her curves, managing to show both generous cleavage and leg, and offset her creamy skin. Oh, it begged to be peeled off of her. Her hair was pulled up again in a complicated sexy twist off her neck, and her eyes were darkly lined and smoky. “I...you...um...”

  Jamie grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment. And you look very ‘I...you...um...’ as well.” She grabbed a wrap and a tiny purse, but then paused. “I hope this is okay. I’ve never been to a real jazz club before.”

  Damn him and his stupid idea to take her out. He had to search to find his voice. “It’s perfect. I’ll be the envy of every guy in the place.”

  She rose up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

  The club wasn’t far and the air not too muggy tonight, so they walked. They’d only gone a block when Jamie slid her hand into his. “So how are things in the Dungeons today?”

  “Pretty exciting, actually.”

  “Troll uprising?” she teased.

  “Not exactly.

  She looked at him sideways. “Will I have a clue what you’re talking about if I ask what?”

  “Maybe. I just signed a very lucrative contract today to license the engine we built for the new game.”

  “I doubt engine means what I think it means, but licensing I do understand. That�
��s awesome. Especially if it’s lucrative.” She squeezed his hand and pulled his arm in close to her. “I’m glad we’re going out tonight. We can celebrate.”

  “You are in an awfully good mood.”

  She shot him a look of mock offense. “Are you saying I’m not always a glorious ray of sunshine?”

  “I’m just saying you’re sunnier than usual.”

  “It’s because I am in a good mood. I think I’m at a tipping point.”

  “For...?”

  “It just feels like things are starting to settle—in a good way. That stuff I wrote for Callie’s blog is getting tons of hits and great comments, so my ego’s getting a bit of a stroking right now. And I got a callback for a second interview at a place I’m really excited about.”

  “That’s great. Where?”

  “Roth and Howe. They’re an interior design firm and their work is simply beautiful. It’s just a receptionist and general office job right now, but design and decor are really up my alley and there’s a chance for advancement down the road.” Jamie sounded giddy. “So think good thoughts for me Friday, okay?”

  He could do more than that. He’d gone to school with Kate Roth. She’d overseen all of the renovations to Rainstorm’s offices, and he’d done troubleshooting on her computers when she’d first started her business. He’d send her an email later tonight. “My fingers are crossed.”

  “So I’ve had a great couple of days, I’m really optimistic about the future, and I’m out for a fabulous night with a really great guy. My life does not suck right now.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  The club was only a few steps away, and the music floated out the open door. Jamie stopped and pulled him aside. “I know we got a weird start and I’ve been all over the place mentally, but you put up with me and I appreciate that.”

  He ran a hand down the soft skin of her arm. “It wasn’t purely altruistic on my part, you know.”

  Jamie toyed with the lapel of his jacket and looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Good.” Then her hand tightened and she pulled him close for a kiss that, once again, had him regretting they’d left the house.