James Games

by Rose, L. A.

  “Take her away,” I tell Mags, and she and Batman haul Iris away as she hollers,

  “They both have wings!”

  And just like that, my only allies are gone and I’m alone in a chicken costume in a yard full of people I barely know.

  Ellie’s been timing it so that one girl walks up, poses, and as soon as the second girl reaches the front of the carpet, the first girl walks back. So there’s a moment in which two girls are together. And when Ellie calls Sigrid’s name, I know I’m next.

  Sigrid saunters up like she spent the last month marathoning ANTM. James has moved closer to the front of the crowd, and she flashes him a heavy-lidded smile. I resist the urge to vomit into my feathers.

  “Fiona Arlett, as a turkey!”

  “Chicken,” I bark as I take my first step onto the carpet. I pretend I’m in the world’s sexiest lingerie and switch my hips, swaggering and shaking my literal tail feathers. The guys love it. And James’s eyes are on me. He’s pushed almost all the way to the front now.

  I do believe I’m managing to turn him on in a chicken costume.

  Everyone’s cheering now. I wink, strut up next to Sigrid, and smack my own feathered ass. Sigrid turns, and a sharp foot hooks around my ankle just as I attempt to take a step forward. I fall hard, my arm twisting beneath me as I try and fail to catch myself, pain shooting up my wrist. My head thunks so hard into the ground that stars explode in a little arc across my vision.

  Sigrid tuts at me from above. “You really should be more careful.”

  I would snap back, except that stupid tears are streaming down my face, the kind of immediate and unstoppable tears that happen when something really hurts. I try to bend my wrist and can’t, although it’s painful enough to split my head in two.

  “Come on, Fiona, you know chickens can’t fly!” Sigrid says loudly. Only a few people are close enough to see that I’m crying, and everyone else laughs, some more than a little meanly. Tears clot together on my chin. I want more than anything else in the world to not be crying, but fuck, that hurts.

  And then someone is gently helping me up from the ground. Steadying me, James inspects my wrist with careful fingers. “Sprained, at least.”

  Sigrid pushes forward. There’s a sway to her step. She’s drunk. “Don’t bother with her, James, she’s probably just molting.”

  “What the fuck is your problem?” His voice is Arctic fire. “She’s hurt. Lay off.”

  Sigrid recoils. Dizzily, I rip a handful of feathers from my stomach and use them to dry my eyes. James keeps his hold on me. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  No, no, no, I don’t want to be rescued from yet another party by James Reid. “Ow—where’s Iris? I want Iris. Or Mags.”

  “Your friends are drunk. I’m taking you.” He’s cool, commanding. I’m about to argue again, but a mega throb of pain silences me.

  “I’ll take her,” Sigrid tries again.

  “I’m the only one at this party not wasted yet.” James raises his voice. “If anyone else is good to drive, by all means.”

  Silence, punctuated by my sniffling.

  “Come on,” James says, taking my uninjured hand. “I’ll take care of you.”

  And I don’t doubt it.

  ~12~

  “It’s a bad sprain, Ms. Arlett, but nothing’s broken. You’ll survive. Keep icing it, keep the wrap on and no lifting anything heavier than a grapefruit with that arm for the next two weeks, okay?”

  “Okay.” I fidget on the white wax paper that doctors make you sit on. The pain pills are kicking in, and the pain has faded from a roar to a dull pulse.

  “You said you hit your head and experienced dizziness afterwards. It’s possible you have a minor concussion. I’d wait a while before going to sleep, and come back immediately if you experience any more symptoms, like lightheadedness, nausea, anything suspicious.”

  “Okay.”

  “And can I ask…” His eyes travel down my chicken costume.

  “No.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I stop at the desk to give them my insurance information and then head to the waiting room. It’s a motley crew—some droopy-eyed freshman, stoned out of his mind, with a cut on his hand, a screaming baby and an exhausted dad, and James Reid. At least one woman has noticed James and is whispering madly to her friend besides the fish tank. When James sees me, he stands up.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Just a sprain. Like you said,” I sigh. “And I might have a concussion so I’m not supposed to sleep or something. I don’t know. Tonight sucks.”

  “Can’t argue with that.”

  The woman by the fish tank has replaced her whispering with a new fun activity: staring openmouthed at me. She’s joined by the stoner boy, whose eyes are bugging out of his head.

  As we walk past, I whisper to him darkly: “But am I a girl in a chicken costume or a chicken in a girl costume?”

  “Oh, God,” he moans and drops his head into his hands.

  In the car, James says, “So you’re not supposed to sleep?”

  “I read somewhere that if you have a concussion and you go to sleep, you die. Like that.” I snap my fingers. “Which I don’t think I would actually mind at the moment, so take me to the nearest bed, please.”

  “I’ll just have to do my best to keep you awake,” he says, and the not quite G-rated possibilities flood my mind. No. No. No sleeping with James. I swore no more sleeping with James.

  “I can think of a few ideas,” he says.

  No no no no. If I sleep with James, Sigrid and Iris will have a race to see who can kill me first. I have so much to live for. Hot dogs. The second Zoolander movie. Those YouTube videos of goats screaming. “I have ideas too! Great ideas. Like, cupholders for pets. Hats with fans attached that blow in your face so you never get hot. Lots of ideas. I could monetize these.”

  “Relax. I didn’t mean those kinds of ideas. I thought maybe we could cook something. If I’m going to stay up with you all night to make sure you don’t die, I should at least get something good to eat out of it.”

  “Kind of hard to cook with one arm.”

  “I meant more like I could cook something and you could help a little bit. Or you could just sit and drink tea while I make it. What do you want?”

  This is an unexpectedly sweet offer. I say the first thing that comes to mind. “Apple pie. With ice cream and whipped cream.”

  “Apple pie it is.”

  We stop at a 24-hour grocery store. I head for the premade pie crusts, but when I carry one to the cart, James makes a face like I just puked in his spaghetti and tosses it on a pastry sale rack. “Never bring one of these things within a twenty-foot radius of me again.”

  He spends about ten minutes in the organics section picking out the nicest-looking apples, and then we’re on our way.

  “What does Sigrid have against you?” he asks as we drive.

  “Are you for real? What do you think?” I laugh. “I have a passing familiarity with you. Apparently that’s all it takes.”

  “You’re right. That was probably one of the stupider questions I’ve ever asked.” He’s silent for a moment. “I keep causing you trouble.”

  “Correction: You keep getting me out of trouble. Thanks for that, by the way.” I trace the outline of the bandage on my arm. “I didn’t plan on getting saved by you again.”

  He drives to his apartment and opens the door for me. I maneuver up the front steps. I’m pretty sure this chicken suit is a living, growing organism, because the amount of feathers seems to have multiplied in the past hour.

  I stop at the door. “I want to lay out some ground rules before I go inside. We are not sleeping together tonight.”

  “Right.”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Definitely no sex.”

  “I wasn’t going to make a move on you,” he says tersely. “I didn’t bring you here for that. I’m not that kind of guy. You
’re hurt and you shouldn’t be alone tonight and I happen to feel like cooking, that’s all.”

  I’m a little disappointed that he wasn’t planning on making a move, chicken suit or no chicken suit, but more than that, I’m touched.

  He holds the door open for me with his foot and then closes it behind us, switching on a light. I notice what I was too distressed to the first night I was here—his apartment is barren. No pictures on the walls, no plants, no hint of personality. Even the furniture looks like it just came out of the wrapping.

  “Come on,” he says. “I’ll make you some tea.”

  “First, can I borrow something to wear? I’m really afraid I’m going to accidentally make more bird puns.” I lift my non-sprained, feather-covered arm.

  He finds me a long white T-shirt, carrying it out with a guilty expression. “I just sent all my pants except the ones I’m wearing to the dry-cleaners this morning. I’d give you boxers, except I don’t wear them.”

  I already knew that. Even so, my face flames. I grab the shirt. “This’ll do.”

  In the bathroom I realize I’ve vastly overestimated my ability to remove a giant chicken suit with a sprained wrist. I also vastly overestimated Mags’s costume-making abilities. After a few minutes of one-armed groping, I find that she glued the zipper shut.

  “James?” I stick my head out the bathroom door. “Would you be opposed to cutting this chicken suit off me with a pair of scissors?”

  I sweep my hair off my shoulders and wait. Minutes later he arrives with a red pair of kitchen scissors. Gingerly, he cuts down my back, feather shreds floating to the floor.

  I hadn’t bothered with a bra, figuring the feathers would hide the fact that I even had breasts. As the suit falls away, the fact that I have breasts is no longer conjecture. I cross my arms over my chest, though it shouldn’t matter. He’s seen them before.

  He cuts a clean line to the small of my back and then stops.

  “That should do it,” I say, but neither of us move.

  He touches my back, first with his fingers and then with the flat of his palm. His skin is warm. He leans into me slightly, so that I feel his hungry breath on my ear, and runs his hand up the length of my back and down again. And then lower.

  I feel like I’m sinking into a hot tub, but I yank myself out. “Quit it, you. The ground rules.”

  “Right. Them.” He pulls back, gives his head a little shake, and leaves the bathroom.

  In the mirror, I look myself dead in the eye. “Earth to Fiona. You are not sleeping with James tonight. You are not not not not doing that.”

  It doesn’t matter that the last time I had sex was ages ago. It doesn’t matter that he’s the last person I had sex with. I promised Iris, damn it. I promised myself. I put on the T-shirt and it barely hits mid-thigh, but anything’s better than more feathers.

  In the kitchen, James is already mixing ingredients in a stainless steel bowl. He exhales when he sees my bare legs under his T-shirt, closing his eyes briefly before returning to stirring. There’s mug steaming on the counter, waiting for me. It’s something pepperminty this time.

  “You have the best tea,” I say. “Where do you get it? It’s not boxed.”

  “I order the leaves and blend it myself. Sometimes I grow them. That mint I dried myself.” He cracks an egg into the bowl.

  “Where did you pick up tea-blending and cooking as hobbies?”

  “Everyone needs their distractions.”

  I force myself not to ask him what he needs to be distracted from. “So what do you know about Sigrid? She’s in the senior class with you and I’d love some tips on avoiding getting killed by her.”

  “I know nothing about her. She hits on me, I don’t reciprocate.”

  “Why not? She’s hot.” I am so impressively casual.

  “She’s not my type.”

  “What’s your type?”

  “Not the type of person who laughs at someone when they’re down.” He pulls out the lump of dough and starts rolling it into a circle. I gain a brand new appreciation for rolling pins and the way they force a boy’s muscles to move. The powerful ripple travels up his arms and down his back.

  “That doesn’t answer my question.” I prop my chin on my hands.

  “I don’t have a type.”

  “Everyone has a type.”

  “I don’t have a type because I’m not interested in a relationship. Not now, and not ever.”

  I try to inhabit the mind of someone who is utterly and completely unaffected by this information. “Not ever is kind of drastic, don’t you think? I’m not interested in a relationship right now either, but that doesn’t mean I won’t ever want one. You can’t be sure about the future.”

  “I’m sure.” He presses too hard on the pin and tears a hole in the crust. He looks at it for a moment before folding it over and starting anew. “I’m not the kind of person anyone should rely on.”

  “I’ve relied on you twice since I met you, and I didn’t even want to.”

  “Doing one or two things right does not make up for a lifetime of fucking up. Would you peel those apples? I have a peeler that you can crank with one arm. Stop if it’s too much for you.”

  He sets up the peeler, which clamps to the counter, and spikes an apple on the little metal spiral. I turn the crank with my good arm and it spins the apple against the sharp edge, peeling it. “But you’ll fall in love someday, obviously.”

  “No. I won’t.”

  “Don’t be an idiot.” I crank a little harder than necessary. “I’m no relationship expert, but love is like, the meaning of life.”

  “I don’t believe life has a meaning, remember?” He takes my peeled apple and slices it to bits. “It’s just life. You do the best you can and then you die. There’s nothing inherently special or meaningful about it.”

  “Right, I forgot about your nihilism. Don’t sneeze on me. I heard it’s contagious.”

  “You’re angry,” he observes.

  “Because it’s a stupid viewpoint! What’s the point of living if you’re just going through the motions? Life has meaning. Everyone just needs to discover what that meaning is for themselves.”

  “Did you get that from a Hallmark card?”

  “No wonder you have no friends,” I snap at him and instantly feel terrible.

  All he says is, “Fair enough.”

  “Oh hell,” I say after a few minutes of silence. “I’m sorry, okay? I—”

  But I spun around so fast to apologize to him that I knocked over my tea. It goes flying, spraying its contents all over my shirt and plastering the now see-through fabric to certain sticking-out parts of me.

  James swears. “You okay? Are you burned?”

  “No. It cooled off.” I hold my sore wrist away from my dripping shirt. “I’m cursed tonight.”

  “I’ll get you a new shirt.”

  The new one he brings is a silk button-down. He carries it into the kitchen and stops as he gets a eyeful of my full-frontal dilemma. He breathes in and out. You have to feel bad for the guy.

  “I’ll go change,” I apologize.

  I’ve slept with him twice and I’ve already borrowed two of his shirts. And they’re getting progressively shorter. This one barely grazes the bottoms of my thighs.

  The moment I return to the kitchen, he notices. The muscles in his neck grow taut and he turns away sharply, slicing apples so quickly that the filling is done in a matter of minutes. He packs the pie, cinches the edges, and slides it into the oven, doing everything so expertly that I’m left with nothing to do but watch.

  Not that I’m complaining.

  Nihilist or not, he’s still damn sexy. He rolls his sleeves back, exposing his forearms. Thanks to the oven, and one other thing, the kitchen heats up. A bead of sweat travels down his forehead and he wipes it away.

  “How’s your arm and head?” he asks me.

  “Horny. I mean, hurting. Hurting! Not that much, though. Just a little.” I smile coquettishly to
cover up the fact that I am a complete fucking idiot.

  His eyes drop to my thighs again and he swallows, turning away again.

  I promised Iris I wouldn’t sleep with him. Does it still count against things if he sleeps with me? If he’s the one to make the move? Those are two totally different things, right? So if I happen to accidentally turn him on and he makes a move, it’s not like I’m actively trying to sleep with him, right?

  “You did the cooking, so relax and I’ll clean.” I reach for the stirring spool and totally unintentionally knock it to the ground. “Wow. I am such a klutz.”

  I bend to get it, presenting him with a lovely view of my ass.

  When I straighten, he’s gone rock still, staring at me. “Fiona. That was not subtle.”

  “Subtlety isn’t my strong suit,” I sigh. So much for my secret plan.

  His jaw is tight. “I thought you said you didn’t want anything to happen between us tonight.”

  Immediately, I feel like a jerk. I told him no and here I am, waving my ass in his face in the hopes that he’ll make a move anyway. Talk about mixed signals. But I’m too horny to feel too guilty about it. Horniness is pretty much the antidote to guilt. “Well, technically I said that we couldn’t sleep together tonight. There’s lots of things that fall between the category of anything and sleeping together.”

  “Yeah?” he says quietly. “What might some of those things be?”

  I step over the fallen spoon, the silk swishing over my thighs. “Let’s find out.”

  I dip my finger in the filling bowl, pop the sugary cinnamon sauce into my mouth and kiss him. The sweetness mingles with the warm, soft taste of him. Don’t worry, Iris. I won’t sleep with him. I just need a little taste.

  He responds hungrily, pulling me close and spinning me around so that the counter presses into my back, though he’s careful to avoid jostling my arm. His hands dust flour through my hair. I slip my tongue into his mouth and he groans and bites my lip.

  I slide my hands under his shirt and feel him, his hard flat stomach, the curves of his abs, the rise of his hip bones. His body is mine to explore. Mine. I dip lower, trailing my tongue down his neck and into the nook of his collarbone. He breathes heavily, letting his head fall back, as I pull down the collar of his shirt far enough to kiss my way down his chest before letting it snap back into place.