Hate the Game

by Rose, Callie

  “Hey, why’s everybody in the kitchen? Party’s out here,” Sawyer’s voice floated over the crowd.

  “There’s a girl in here!” Levi shouted back.

  “There’s pizza out here.”

  Everybody but Damian stampeded out of the kitchen at the mention of pizza. Damian was watching me intensely.

  “Hi,” I said, putting my professional face on. “Damian, right?”

  “That’s right. You’re the journalist.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well.” He cleared his throat and took a few steps into the kitchen. “We should talk.”

  Excitement fluttered in my chest. This was it. I was finally going to get a lead on Sawyer’s secrets.

  15

  Addison

  Three hours later, I was beginning to give up hope of getting anything useful out of Damian. According to him, Sawyer was probably gay, Sawyer’s dad was probably a billionaire, and Sawyer had a secret wife—or three—back home.

  He showed me his evidence for all of it. It was, in a word, lacking.

  “You get it, I can tell,” Damian said smugly. “There’s no way a guy like Sawyer rises to the top like that without some help. He’s not even that good at the game. His parents pulled all the strings. He bought his way onto the team.”

  “That’s the first thing you’ve said that’s made any sense at all,” I said irritably. “Tell me, what makes you think he bought his way onto the team?”

  Damian blinked at me. “Because his dad is a billionaire.”

  “And you’ve based this on the fact that one of the men on the Forbes list is named Dawson, and that his picture isn’t anywhere to be found online.”

  “Exactly! If he wasn’t attached to a famous person, why would he hide his face?”

  “I don’t know, to protect against assassination attempts?”

  “Who would want to assassinate a billionaire?” Damian, to his credit, looked legitimately confused.

  I sighed as I watched the last shred of hope I had to pin Sawyer with something disappear. I rubbed my face in exasperation.

  “Tell me about Sawyer’s party days,” I said desperately. “Is he still doing any of that?”

  “No. He never was. He staged all of those pictures. It was a publicity stunt.” Damian said it with such confidence that if he hadn’t just spewed all of those baseless conspiracy theories, I would have taken him seriously. As it was, I regarded him suspiciously.

  “Okay, explain.”

  Damian shrugged. “Look at how it turned out! He has one picture taken of him with his face in a puddle of puke, and next thing you know he’s all anyone is talking about. He gets himself all these women… he paid them, by the way… and his face is plastered all over magazines from here to Japan. Of course it was a publicity stunt. Nobody gets that sober that fast unless they were faking it in the first place.” He scoffed in disgust.

  I shook my head. Nothing, he had nothing. He had clearly developed some sort of jealousy-based obsession with Sawyer, and had built the situation up so far in his head that he couldn’t even think clearly.

  “Do you think Sawyer deserves his place on the team?” I asked, knowing what his answer would be.

  “No. Absolutely not. He’s just in it for the fame. Some of us are married to the game. He’s not. Someone who is should be in his place.”

  “He studies the opposition for hours on his own time. He trains constantly, in all kinds of innovative ways. Wouldn’t you call that being married to the game?”

  Damian scowled. “Innovative ways? Like what, taking bubble baths? Dancing ballet? That’s not proof of anything except the fact that Sawyer wishes he was born a woman.”

  My brows rose. “Now he’s transgender? I thought you said he was secretly gay?”

  “Pick one,” Damian said bitterly. “He’s obviously compensating for something with all those girls.”

  “You said he paid them for the photo op.”

  “Exactly,” Damian said, nodding adamantly. “He paid them to prove he was a womanizer, and to get on the front page of the magazines. He’s diabolical.”

  “You sound jealous.”

  “You sound like you’ve got the hots for him. Don’t waste your time. If I’m right, you’re not his type. If I’m wrong, you’re not exactly special, if you know what I mean.”

  “When was the last time you saw him with a woman?” Hot bristles were running up my spine at his assumptions, but I was doing my best to keep the focus on Sawyer.

  “You mean, before you? I don’t know, six, eight months ago? The last time it was printed anywhere, at least. He and I don’t hang out.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Damian raised his brows. “That’s the interesting thing. Chase called me, see, and told me if I didn’t show up to this party thing, he and Sawyer would make sure I was benched all season. He’s setting me up for something, I can feel it.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “No he’s not.”

  “You don’t know him,” Damian said. “He pulls stunts like this all the time. He’s tricky.”

  “Yes. Yes he is. You aren’t wrong about him pulling a fast one, Damian, you’re just wrong about the target.” Kicking myself for wasting so much time on a dead end, I stood up from the concrete bench I’d been sitting on for the last three hours and stretched the knots out of my body. I glanced at my notebook full of useless notes and shook my head. So much wasted time. Damian was watching me, baffled. I smiled at him.

  “Thanks for the interview. Enjoy the party.”

  “But wait, I wasn’t done!”

  “I am.” I marched inside, intent on finding Sawyer and chewing him out. Suspicions flared in my mind as I walked. He was keeping me distracted so he could get drunk, I thought furiously. Or worse. I went into the house through the kitchen in search of him. I blinked as I stepped into the main hall. The random clutter suddenly made sense. Someone had turned off the overhead lighting and turned on purple, blue, and black lights in its place, transforming the downstairs into a labyrinthine arcade.

  Everywhere I looked, hockey players were crowded around various machines and tables, playing games. They were having as much fun as a bunch of twelve-year-olds would’ve been having. It didn’t alleviate my suspicions at all, but it was amusing to witness. I finally found Sawyer at the ping-pong table, laughing and sweating as he beat the pants off Chase.

  “Thirty to two! How’s that taste?”

  “Like a big fat cheater,” Chase shot back good-naturedly. “Let’s go again, come on.”

  “Nah, I’m done. That’s enough glory for one day.” Sawyer stretched, grinning.

  “What are you, scared?”

  “Of what, developing tennis elbow from beating you so badly?” Sawyer tossed his paddle on the table. “Come on, I’ll let you kick my ass at pool. Oh, nope! Looks like I have a lady to entertain, sorry.” He winked at me as he rounded the table.

  “Excuses, excuses,” Chase said. “Heya, Addison. Enjoying yourself?”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m having a great time. Damian’s been telling me some lovely bedtime stories.”

  Chase and Sawyer shared a meaningful look, and I narrowed my eyes at the pair of them.

  “I’m, uh… gonna go get some more pizza,” Chase said with a sheepish smile. He scurried away as I raised a brow at Sawyer.

  He grinned at me. “Damian’s quite a character, isn’t he? Did you eat?”

  “I ate.”

  “Wanna play? I have a few more games in me.”

  “No. I want to talk.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  A roar broke out from somewhere down the hall, followed by the sound of glass shattering. Sawyer’s eyes widened and he looked from the hallway to me and back again.

  “It’ll wait,” I said with a sigh.

  “Thanks, darlin’. Back in a flash.” He blew me a kiss as he darted away. I pressed my hands to the newest rush of butterflies in my belly. Telling myself that he was just a flirt and it di
dn’t mean anything was useless. I felt like a newly infatuated schoolgirl no matter how much I tried to deny it. With Sawyer distracted, I went to find Chase. As far as my story went, Chase seemed to have the most potential.

  “You and Sawyer are close,” I commented as I approached him.

  “Close as brothers,” Chase said with an easy smile. He took a healthy bite of pizza.

  “So you would be the one to ask about his whole party boy lifestyle.”

  Chase looked worried for a moment and swallowed his pizza with a gulp. “I don’t know. You should probably ask him.”

  “I have,” I said. “I want to talk to you. Let’s not talk about that, though. Not specifically. Tell me about his lovers. Does he have many?”

  “At the moment? Nah. He’s sworn off women.”

  I rose a brow. “Entirely?”

  Chase shrugged, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Maybe not, I don’t know. But he had some crap luck looking for a real relationship, then worse luck with one-nighters and casual things. He’s just not lucky in love. Like, at all.”

  “What happened with the casual flings?”

  Chase began to look uncomfortable. “You should probably ask him.”

  I nodded. “Fair enough. Can you tell me why his house is set up like a swap meet?”

  To my surprise, Chase looked even more uncomfortable. He actually winced. He shook his head and gave me a tight smile. “Couldn’t tell you. Hey, Joey! Sorry Addison, I have to talk to Joey about the game on Saturday.”

  Baffled and intrigued, I went to find Sawyer. He seemed to have disappeared. I took the opportunity to talk to a few of his teammates, but the story didn’t change much from person to person. According to them, Sawyer was a good guy who’d had some rotten luck and was working very hard to turn it all around. They told me the same story in different ways, but apart from Damian, they all seemed to like Sawyer a lot. Even look up to him. Nobody echoed Damian’s suspicions, even when I hinted at the bubble bath and ballet. They all knew Sawyer’s quirks, and most of them had begun to emulate him with good results.

  By the time the party wrapped up, I was no closer to a secret than I had been when I stepped off the plane. I was beginning to suspect there was nothing to find, which was more of a relief than I was willing to admit to myself. I really did like Sawyer, in spite of his affinity for embarrassing pranks. Or maybe because of it. I couldn’t tell anymore. When the clock struck midnight, I was sitting on the stairs lost in thought, and the last straggler was getting booted out the door by Sawyer.

  “Well,” Sawyer said, dusting his hands off as he approached me. “I’d call that a success. Did you have a good time?”

  “Eventually,” I said wryly. “Damian’s a character. I owe you for that.”

  “Oh?” He raised an inquisitive brow and flopped beside me on the stairs. “You have a crush on Damian?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said with a shudder. “But I think he has a crush on you.”

  Sawyer’s jaw dropped, then he threw back his head and laughed. “What on earth gave you that idea?”

  “He’s clearly obsessed with you. To a worrying degree. If I was gullible enough to swallow his theories whole, I’d be chasing my tail for weeks.”

  Sawyer bit his lip and shot me a look full of chagrin.

  “Oh my God, that was the plan, wasn’t it? You were going to get me going on a wild goose chase!”

  “I just wanted to give you something to do,” he said earnestly.

  “To get me out of your hair?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe to keep you interested a little longer.”

  My heart flipped in my chest. I cleared my throat. “What, um… what makes you think I’m losing interest?”

  He moved a little closer to me on the stairs until his head was within inches of my thigh. “You’re kind of a bloodhound. If a bloodhound can’t catch a scent, they aren’t going to stick to a trail.”

  “I guess that depends on the trail,” I murmured.

  He lay his head on my thigh and sighed contentedly. “How do you feel about this trail?”

  I reached a tentative hand out and began running my fingers through his hair. He hooked an arm around my shin and relaxed, almost melting into the stairs.

  “I think I wouldn’t mind sticking to it for a while, even if there isn’t anything ominous hiding in the bushes.”

  He looked up at me with joyful surprise in his eyes, then settled back to his original position. “Good,” he said. “Because all that’s in those bushes are the skeletons of demons I’ve laid to rest.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  He pulled away and grinned at me, scooting up the stairs backwards until he was sitting level with me.

  “Why Addison Beyers, are you rooting for me? How unprofessional!”

  “Oh, shut up.” I laughed. “If you didn’t make it so damn hard to dislike you, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “So it’s my fault?” He chuckled and slid his arm around my shoulders.

  “Yes, yes it is.” I let my head fall into the curve of his shoulder and listened to his heartbeat. It quickened as he stroked my arm. I sighed happily.

  “Oh!” I pulled away and looked up at him. “I have questions for you.”

  “I might have answers.”

  “In your bedroom,” I said, standing up and grabbing his hand.

  “If your questions are in my bedroom, then I definitely have answers.”

  I shot him a look over my shoulder. He just grinned.

  16

  Sawyer

  It was still as bad an idea as it had been the first time I’d laid eyes on her, but I couldn’t help myself anymore. The more time I spent around Addison, the more I liked her. The more I saw of her, the more I wanted to see. When she took my hand and led me upstairs to my own bedroom, my heart just about exploded. I hadn’t craved anybody like this in… well, ever. She was something special.

  “Your bedside table,” she said as she pushed my door open.

  “You want to know what the purple thing does,” I said with a knowing smile. “It’s a lot of fun once you figure it out.”

  “No!” She flushed. Damn, so fucking sexy. “Well… I mean, I am curious, but that isn’t what I wanted to ask you.”

  “Are you sure?” I almost told her I could give her a demonstration, but I was still hesitant about making the first move. She was still a journalist, and I was still her target—subject?—and I didn’t need to get myself into any more hot water. To my surprise, she didn’t go to that nightstand at all, but to the other one. She pulled it open and took the book out.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “A book of fairy tales.”

  “Well yes, clearly, but it’s made out to ‘my little princess’. That isn’t you, is it?”

  I took the book from her gently but firmly. I ran my fingers over the cover like I had a thousand times. The familiar ache, dulled from time and overuse, thudded in my chest. I swallowed against it and slid the book back in the drawer. I closed the drawer to put the memories out of sight, then sighed the pressure out of my chest. Addison’s sharp, analytical eyes were watching my every move.

  “Who is she?” Her voice was gentle.

  I forced a smile. “A little princess.”

  “You don’t want to talk about her?”

  “Not tonight.”

  Addison’s brow furrowed. “That sounds a lot like a secret.”

  I shook my head. “Not the kind of secret that sells magazines, I promise. Wouldn’t interest your editor.”

  She stepped toward me and touched my arm. I met her eyes and found them full of warm concern.

  “It interests me,” she said softly. “What could cause someone like you so much pain?”

  “What could cause someone like you to switch from bloodhound to mother hen?” I teased, my voice quiet.

  She smiled, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. “I don’t want to mother you, Sawyer. I only want to underst
and.”

  I hadn’t known how much I needed to hear those words until she said them. Understanding. That was what had been missing from my life. Finding it—or at least the desire for it—in such an unexpected place made the weight of the world roll off my shoulders. Almost lightheaded with relief, I leaned my forehead against hers. She ran her hands up my arms and I wrapped them around her waist.

  “Will you storm out again if I kiss you?” I asked huskily.

  “No,” she breathed.

  “Okay.” I swallowed against the ball of emotion which rose in my throat, then tilted her back in my arms and kissed her, knowing that it was risky and finding myself incapable of caring. Craving had grown into an overwhelming thirst that only she could quench.

  Her arms wrapped around my neck, and her body molded to mine as she kissed me back with the same sort of frantic desperation I felt. Like we’d been holding back so long that now, as the dam finally broke, the rushing torrent would drown us both.

  Hell, I’d happily go down in those waters.

  I slid my tongue over the seam of her lips, and she parted them quickly, letting my tongue slip inside to tangle with hers. Goddamn, she tasted so fucking sweet. Better than I remembered. Better than I’d imagined in all the many times I’d dreamt of this moment.

  Her breath was coming faster as we staggered back toward the bed. The back of her legs hit the mattress, and she leaned backwards onto the comforter, keeping her arms wrapped around me the whole time. She slid toward the center of the bed as I crawled up over her, and never once did we break our kiss.

  Fleetingly, I wondered what the odds were that I’d actually run out of air. I couldn’t seem to pull my mouth away from hers long enough to draw a full breath. I needed this too fucking much.

  My hands moved down her body, sliding over the curves I’d admired for so long. Her breasts were full and fit perfectly in my hands, and when I massaged them gently, she moaned and arched into my touch. I could feel her nipples hardening under my palms, and my cock hardened even more at her response. I ground into the warmth between her thighs, and she hooked her legs around my ass, pulling me closer.