WIN THE GAME

by Allison, Ketley

  “I—what?”

  “The photo they’ve uploaded. You’re blond.”

  “And?” I asked carefully. My attention slid to the pharmacy bag he held. “Is that … oh God, what color did Rada’s butler choose for me?”

  “You have to do this,” he said. Theo’s tone had me focusing back on his face.

  “I mean, fine. I have no problems changing my hair.”

  “Good.” His relief was palpable.

  “Did you actually believe I’d fight you on this?”

  “You fight me on everything.”

  I fake-scoffed. “Not for something involving me being caught and arrested in a foreign country.”

  “Are you still sure you want to do this?” he asked, searching.

  I didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”

  “I don’t mean the at-home salon treatment, Scarlet. If you leave now, we can come up with something completely unrelated to my family as to why you’re here. They wouldn’t be able to prove otherwise. Unless—”

  “Kai wouldn’t dole me out,” I cut in.

  “Okay.”

  “Do I have to worry about Rada?” I lifted my chin in the direction of her bedroom.

  “No. Do you want out of this?”

  I shook my head and made for the bag, but he jerked it out of reach. “Answer me honestly.”

  I hope I exuded calm when I said, “Why go to all this trouble then, Sax? Finding me on a yacht, playing pretend-poker with me in the docks, plonking me on a private plane, taking me to the UK. It’s clear you need me for something. Maybe it’s about time you tell me why.”

  After an exhale, Theo let me take the shopping bag. “I need you to play.”

  My fingers grazed his as I hooked the plastic handles, the tension between us amplifying from a zing to a bang.

  “That, I can do.”

  We’d moved closer somehow, this bag of hair dye bringing our lips within inches. He smelled of scotch, a sharp, nutty scent mixing with his woodsy cologne. Theo was the essence of an evening hike up a tree-lined cliff. Fresh air and smoke. Fire and stone.

  God, I had to touch him.

  “Scarlet,” he warned.

  Each shade of pigment in his irises was visible, the dark blue of an ocean bottom, the bright of the sky, the navy of the horizon. A mosaic of blue beauty. His favorite color, and mine.

  I’d moved so my lower lip grazed his. My lids were half-mast, my hand reaching up then sliding down the suit-sleeve of his arm.

  Cold hit much too soon.

  Theo had stepped away. “We don’t have a lot of time.” He gestured to the bag. “Do you need Rada’s help with that or…?”

  I cleared my throat, then had to do it twice, since my heart had nestled in my windpipe. “I can do it.” Trying for a joke, I added, “Do you have any idea what it takes to maintain this unnatural blond shade?”

  Theo didn’t smile.

  I stepped around him. “I’ve been directed to a certain bathroom. I’ll be in there if you need me for anything else.”

  “I don’t.”

  My back stiffened, and I skipped a step, but kept walking.

  “Neither do I,” I said, but it was too quiet for him to hear.

  * * *

  I threw the plastic bag in the cream-marbled sink, gold flowing through the expensive stone like small rivers. This wasn’t an estate that would install shower curtains, so I bent around the glass partition and twisted the monogrammed tap to HOT.

  In a single strip, I was naked and ready for a few moments of gloriousness. I readied to get this gloppy hair dye business over with, because every cell in my five-foot-seven frame was looking forward to that spray. I’d shave my legs while waiting for the color to set—I didn’t care, as long as I could get that rain shower system battering my shoulders like a little marching ant army.

  The steam added a light dew to the bathroom, coating first my mouth, then my lungs, with delicious moisture. I rifled through the plastic that was quickly becoming damp and sticky and pulled out the box.

  When the model’s face flashed up at me, she fell to the ground.

  “No,” I said, then it became a whisper, “no, no, no.”

  I retreated, the backs of my legs hitting the toilet and I tumbled, grappled for the marbled walls but found no resistance and smacked to the floor.

  “No,” I sobbed, pulling my knees close.

  The memory hit anyway.

  Brunette hair tangles in the wind, strands spat out with laughter because she can’t keep her mouth closed, can’t stop talking, about the school’s new running back while sitting on the high school’s lawn, her sundress hiked up enough to tan her legs and kicking out at my shins when I throw pieces of my sandwich at her.

  At first, I didn’t feel the waft of cool air against my shins. I’d burrowed into my legs, the barrier offering meager protection to the battering, endless remembrance.

  She’d only been alive for seventeen years, and yet Cassie would stay with me forever.

  Light footsteps sounded, but I didn’t look up, barely cared, how Rada or any of her staff would see me. Too immersed in self-pity, grief, fear, it was a state that didn’t—couldn’t—happen often anymore, but when it did, it hit like a bear. Limbs quaked, sounds escaped, but if they were from me, I couldn’t tell.

  Weight fell across my shoulders and pulled me against fabric. Large hands spread out on my bare back and stoked.

  I lifted my forehead from my knees, squinting through the steam. A black lapel brushed against my nose, and as I looked up, the mist parted and cleared against the sheer concern on Theo’s face.

  “It’s okay,” Theo said, still stroking. He studied every aspect of me that he could, grazing for wounds, blood, anything to indicate why I was curled up on the floor in a cloud of fog.

  He’d unbuttoned his shirt, the collar flayed open to expose his clavicle, beating rapidly as it assisted pumping to his brain, his heart, his very lifeblood pulsing in the center of my vision.

  Why I fixated on this was unknown, but I lifted two fingers anyway and pressed down on his neck.

  “Scarlet, what’s going on? I can’t help you if I don’t know.”

  The beats hit my fingers, his adrenaline making it harder, faster. Alive.

  “Sweetheart, you’re crying.”

  His thumb scraped across my cheekbone, and he spoke. “What’s happening here?”

  My hand found his wrist, squeezed. “I don’t … I can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  I swallowed. “The…”

  He followed my gaze, his hand never leaving my face, cupping my cheek, stroking my jaw. “The hair dye?”

  “It’s brown,” I said, as if that contained all the answers he needed.

  He settled back into his crouch. I still gripped his wrist. He said, with the way of trying to understand where a baby’s pain is coming from, “You don’t like the color?”

  Against every internal warning, my eyes welled. “I haven’t been brunette since…”

  Realization dawned. “Ah, shit.”

  Theo’s curse was like an ice cube being thrown at my nose. I shook him off, let him go. “It’s—stupid, I know. I can do it. I’m being a child.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  Theo’s cadence, the pureness of its meaning, made me want to bawl in his arms. But, crying didn’t make it better. Wouldn’t bring Cassie back.

  “I had a moment. I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t apologize.”

  “Sometimes it hits me out of nowhere,” I said over his words. “Stopping at an intersection, waiting for a light to change. My head hitting the pillow at night. Raking through clothes racks. Staring out a goddamned window.” Theo’s thumb was stroking at the crook of my arm, but I barely noticed, shame replacing sorrow. “Looking at a box of fucking hair dye.”

  “It’s not the hair dye.”

  I bit down on the inside of my cheek.

  “You don’t want to look like her.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t want to see her. Not like this. Now that I’ve turned into everything she hated, I…”

  “Come here.”

  He pulled me to him, but I said, “No. I’m fine—”

  “You’re not.”

  Theo was strong, and if I actually resisted, he’d let go, back off, stand in stone and allow me the time to get myself together. But…

  Oh, but…

  I didn’t want to.

  I fell into him, his blazer cloaking over me, my nakedness so exposed yet protected. I sighed into his neck, allowing the tears to come.

  Theo rocked us on the ground, easy, massaging the tightness, combing back my hair, kissing the top of my head, and while the steam escaped, the heat didn’t.

  My grip turned into a clutch on his arms, and I burrowed deeper, uncaring if I ugly cried. In a sudden, brutal yank, I missed my sister desperately. Needed, wanted her here, or where we would’ve been, back in Westchester or in Manhattan, college roomies, sibling rivals, loving friends. She’d work in theater, would’ve gotten a job manning backstage at a Broadway musical, readying for the chance at her big break. I’d be enrolled in engineering, or biochemistry, destined for a science background, the way I was able to move numbers and probabilities around in my head by the age of seven. She’d be here, I’d be there for her, the way I’d never been when she was alive. Too into my books, studying, ostracized from making any friends and dismissing my sister’s friendship.

  I failed. Had the chance at a full life with her and I blew it.

  The stubble of Theo’s cheek scraped against my temple. If I could evaporate into his scent, I would. I could become the air, forget…

  You’re going to fail him, too. Betray him.

  “I can do it,” I said.

  “What?” Theo tipped me back to hear better.

  “The … I can change my hair color to brunette.”

  “We can get you a different color. Black maybe. Hell, pink, if it would stop making you feel so limp in my arms. I won’t do this to you, Scarlet.”

  “There’s no time.” I forced my voice to be stronger. “We’ve already … how long have I been in here?”

  Theo hesitated. “Something close to forty-five minutes.”

  “Jesus. We really have no time. Okay.” I inhaled and loosened from his hold, though I wished I could stay. “Just give me, like, twenty minutes. Or thirty.” I calculated the time to use the hair dryer. “Forty. An hour.”

  “You think I’m leaving you?” Theo uncoiled from his crouch. If comforting me on the ground brought him any stiffness, he didn’t reveal the pain.

  “You want to stay?” I asked. “While I…?”

  He picked up the box. “I want to help.”

  Theo set the box on the counter and pulled out a plush stool that had been hidden under the vanity. He then reached around me, his mouth dangerously close again, and pulled a towel off the rack.

  Gently, he wrapped it across my torso, stroking under my chin for a moment, our eyes locking, before he broke the contact and led me to the stool.

  “Sit.”

  I sank, reuniting our gazes in the mirror. Theo lifted the hair off my shoulders, smoothing it back. Tingles hit my collarbone as his fingers played their notes. My spine felt him next, his touch grazing across my skin, before he leaned over and became nothing but scrutiny as he read the directions.

  “First time coloring a lady’s hair?” I tried to joke.

  His focus didn’t stray. “I need to wear gloves? Chemicals that can burn through skin? What the fuck are people putting into their hair?”

  Laughter danced in my ears, my own, unexpected and genuine. I helped by opening the box and pulling out latex-free clear gloves. I put them on his hands, and dubiously, he took out the rest of the bottles and went about shaking and mixing. Theo didn’t fumble, make faces, or comment on the smell. As he treated all tasks, he took this one seriously, and it was with true somberness that he applied thick brown paint over my sunny blond locks.

  The silence was killing me. “Have you always preferred blondes?” I asked him.

  He glanced at me in the mirror, then went back to spreading the dye. “I prefer the rainbow.”

  I said with a wry smile, “That hasn’t been my color of choice for a long while.”

  Unwillingly, I went back to my reflection, watching my hair turn darker, the brown setting off the blue in my eyes, the natural rouge of my cheeks that wouldn’t go away no matter how little sleep I allowed myself. His dark-haired Scottish princesses, my dad had always called us.

  All I had to do was smile, see a flicker of dimple on my left cheek, and I’d be Cassie.

  Theo lifted a panel of hair, his gloved hands crinkling gently in my ear. “Tell me how you learned poker so quickly. How you became so good at it during my time away.”

  “As if you didn’t know,” I said, adjusting the towel around myself. “The House always knows.”

  “Maybe you were a distraction,” he said. “And I wasn’t as keen as I usually claim to be.”

  “I was always good at numbers,” I admitted. “By eight, my favorite subject was math. I never thought to apply it to card games, though—”

  A chunk of my hair landed against my neck and shoulder with a wet thwack. “Poker is not simply a card game.”

  “Which I quickly realized as soon as I started serving your patrons in lingerie,” I said. “And watched. Learned. When I met your resident dealer—”

  “Fucking Kai. That narc.”

  “Can I finish answering your original question?”

  Theo went back to painting. “Yes. Fine. Go.”

  “Kai’s tutorials, coupled with the patterns I was noticing on the felt, brought out a hidden talent. But you know all that.” I shook my head, then remembered Theo was still tugging on the strands. “Sorry. So, when you left … I don’t know, keeping up with the game, helped.”

  “With what?”

  I met his eyes again. “Don’t make me explain that part, Sax.”

  The idea of detailing my heartache to the very man who broke it was something I never envisioned I’d do. But it was the explanation of working for the FBI I was eager to gloss over and pretend wasn’t real. Theo didn’t know the deal I made, even though he knew about Kai. Which come to think of it…

  “Did you think I betrayed you? By continuing to hang out with Kai?” I asked.

  Theo thought about this. “Kai and I had a close relationship, FBI or not. As evidenced by my contacting him to contain your ass when it was becoming clear you were throwing yourself into situations where you weren’t thinking first.”

  “I was fine.”

  “No. You weren’t. Aren’t.”

  “Which means you still care about me,” I deflected. “What made you come back, Sax? That night in the hospital … I never thought I’d see you again.”

  It was as if the atoms in the air hardened, or sucked up all the oxygen, or simply popped into vivid, thick existence.

  “I said I’d protect you,” Theo said, in the darkest tone I’d heard him speak. “I don’t break my promises. You’re done.”

  “Huh?” Dread collected like tiny, metal magnets in my gut.

  Theo settled his hands on my shoulders. “I’m finished.”

  “I see.” I breathed in fresh, lightened air. “As evidenced by you staining my skin.”

  Abruptly, he lifted off. “Oh. Sorry,” he said, and peeled off the gloves.

  “It’s fine.” I stood. “It’ll wash off. How long did it say I had to wait?”

  “You don’t have to. You’ve surpassed the time suggested.”

  “I have?”

  Theo shrugged, offhand, but I detected the strategy behind his expression.

  “I’ve been done putting this glop on your hair for a while,” he said.

  “You wanted to keep me talking.” I said, softer, “Keep me distracted.”

  Again, a one-shouldered shrug. “I sort of just … pulled. On your hair. Pretending application.”


  “Thank you.”

  He looked me dead in the eye. “You’re welcome.”

  “So I’ll head in then.” I indicated behind him, where he was blocking the entrance to the shower. At some point, he’d turned it off, maybe as soon as he came in and saw my crumpled form. I’d only just noticed it, which gave me pause. Normally I was much more observant.

  “Let me come in with you,” he said.

  I faltered, my hand pausing in midair.

  “I’ll help you wash it off.”

  “That’s not necessary.” I stepped forward, but his touch stopped me from moving farther.

  “No,” he allowed, “it’s crucial.”

  Now would’ve been a good time to gulp. But I wasn’t a fan of facial tells, audible or visual. “I thought I told you in the car that it wasn’t going to happen again.”

  “I want you naked.”

  Crap. I didn’t contain the catch in my throat. Theo used the moment of weakness to hook my towel and peel it off, his fingers trailing across the exposed skin of my chest slowly, delicately.

  So enthralled with the moment, my body priming for him—nipples hardening, blood rushing, clitoris dancing, that my brain stayed five seconds behind. Turned out, those seconds would become crucial, because in peeling off the towel, all steam dissipated, bathroom lights bright, he could see everything.

  All of me.

  “Christ,” he whispered, and there, right then, is where my brain caught up.

  He delicately brushed against my scar.

  “Oh, I—no.” I bent down to retrieve the towel, fumbled in wrapping it back around.

  “I knew it would be bad,” he muttered, still focused on the spot even though thick cotton now covered it.

  “It’s not, really.” As usual, I tried to brush it off. The recovery, the phantom pains, the random tightness from skin so stretched thin it would forever be a dark reddish mar against my pale beige coloring. “As you can see, I’m fine—”

  “Don’t.”

  I faltered at the look on his face, my fingers still clutching the towel as some sort of protective barrier.

  “Don’t play it off, pretend like it’s all right. I did that to you.” He pointed at my torso. “Right there. That’s me.”

  “It’s not,” I said quietly. “It was your brother, not you.”