At Any Turn (Gaming The System) (11 page)

She didn’t say anything for a long moment, but I felt her hand slip into mine. I tightened my hold around it. “I missed you, too.” She stopped and I turned to face her in the dim light. “This is hard. I don’t want to fight anymore,” she said.

I clenched my teeth and prevented myself from releasing the heated words at the tip of my tongue.
Then why did you leave me?

“Me neither.”

She fixed her gaze on mine, her mouth turned up in a small smile, her eyes questioning. I kept my face as blank as I could, refusing to give away any of the inner turmoil. I was thrilled to see her, but I also ached inside, too.

And I’d determined that since I’d ignored the strategy of Sun Tzu by offering her no way out and cornering her, I was going to stick exclusively to the strategy guide now.
Retreat, thus enticing the enemy at his turn
.
I’d stand back. I’d let her come to me.
Hold out baits to entice the enemy
.

She sighed and moved toward me so quickly I didn’t realize what she was doing until she pulled me into a hug. Slowly, stiffly, my arms went around her. I caught a whiff of that vanilla scent of her hair and it hurt—it
physically
hurt. I backed off before she was finished.

A brief frown crossed her face and then vanished.

“You’re pissed off that I moved out.”

Well,
that
was leading. How to answer that without getting my head bitten off? “Does that surprise you?”

She shook her head. “It’s just that this is so hard for both of us. Things were moving quickly and—I thought this would be a good chance for us to take the pressure off a little.”

“So I take it you aren’t planning to come back soon.”

Now she gave me a look indicating that she, too, was afraid to say the wrong thing. “Not for now. The whole living together thing, and then…” She let her voice die out before mentioning the doomed marriage proposal.

That fear was back again, gripping me at the base of my throat.

“So where are we?”

She reached out for my hands and took them in hers, looking down. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You haven’t lost me.”
Yet
.

And I guessed we were going to let this whole medical school question hang in the air between us like an executioner’s axe because I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up now. I wasn’t
that
stupid.

I cleared my throat. “I’m going to be honest with you. I want you at the house. I want you to come back. I won’t tolerate this separation over an extended period of time.”

She squeezed my hands. “It’s not a separation. Adam, let’s take it slow.
Please
. I’m not expert at this relationship thing, but you aren’t either. We
both
get to steer.”

“Okay,” I said in a flat voice.

She raised her brows at me. “Okay?”

“I’ll let you handle this. You can steer for now. But I’m not going to hold back on what I want. And what I want is
you
.” My hands tightened around hers and I pulled her toward me until her body was flush against mine. My arms wrapped around her, tight.

I turned my head and laid my mouth on hers, coaxed her to open to me. My tongue slid into her mouth, declaring my wishes with my body to echo my words. I could feel the thready beat of her heart on her lips as they moved against mine, fluttering like a butterfly wings. My breath caught.

Her sweet, soft lips. Her unique taste. I wanted what was best for me. What was best for me was
her
. And this was a setback, but I wasn’t going to give this up. Not for anything. Emilia was strong-willed and stubborn, but she’d met her match in me. And deep down she knew that damn well.

I finally let her pull back, relaxing my hold on her and we stared at each other for a long, tense moment. She seemed to be holding her breath.

“I—um—I still need to wipe the floor with you on Dark Escape.”

I relaxed, stepped back, shrugged. “Not gonna happen.”

She raised her brow. “It’s on like Donkey Kong. Come on.” She grabbed my elbow and led me back toward the restaurant entrance. On the way through the arcade toward the machine, she handed me a game card, mentioning that she had recharged with money herself.

I gave her a sharp look and she shrugged. “Just wanted to make sure you didn’t have any excuses, like you had forgotten your Dale and Boomer’s uber express triple platinum card.”

We slid into the dim booth that housed the game Dark Escape. Donning 3-D glasses and grasping our mounted rifles, we began our war against the zombies—and each other. After almost forty-five minutes, she finally emerged victorious. Because of the headache and the medicine I’d taken, my accuracy was off. However, another way to get points was to maintain a low heart rate, because the game measured fear. And mine stayed much lower than hers as we wasted zombies left and right. Only when I yanked off my 3-D glasses did I realize that it had been a big mistake for me to play the game. My head was pounding again.

“You okay?” she asked, tucking her 3-D glasses where they belonged. She sat, pressed closely to me inside the small, dark game booth. I could smell her hair, her skin, and I was reminded of the fact that I hadn’t had her in over a week.

“Headache,” I said, downplaying it.

“I’m sorry.” She reached up and touched my forehead. I turned and looked at her; her face was very close to mine. I tipped my head forward and landed a kiss on her mouth. She kissed me back for about ten seconds before pulling away. In the dim booth in close quarters, a strange sort of tension grew between us. Of unspoken declarations, of unrealized actions. I wanted to pull her to me, hold her close forever. Instead, I drew back.

“Let’s go eat. I’m starving,” I said.

We sat in a booth in the bar section to get seats faster. It was actually quieter except for the television, which we were far enough away from to comfortably ignore. We ordered drinks and our food—she ordered her usual tuna melt and I loaded up on a bleu cheese bacon burger. She gasped when it showed up, at least three times as tall as her sandwich.

“I’m so betting you can’t get that in your mouth.”

“Sure I can.”

She snorted. “So you can unhinge your jaw like a snake? Why didn’t you tell me? That’s a useful skill.”

I looked at her like she was a Martian. “In what way? That would be a more useful skill for
you
to have, if you know what I mean.” I leered at her suggestively.

“In your dreams.”

Apparently that would be the case for now. I wanted to ask her, actually. What about sex? Would we be sleeping together again soon? Because I sure wouldn’t mind that. It seemed blunt to ask her now. I planned to save it for a heated make-out session later. I could touch her in all the right places, get her all riled up and pop the question on her. A week and a half was a pretty long drought these days, when we’d been going at it so regularly. Maybe I’d gotten spoiled.

She was halfway through her sandwich when she paused to wipe her mouth, watching me devour my burger with open amusement. She lowered her voice for a moment and laughed in the deepest baritone she could manage. “Solo
bantha poodoo
!”

I swallowed my bite, laughing. “That’s
my
line. You’re just supposed to suit up in a gold bikini with a chain around your neck looking gorgeous, slave girl.”

She grinned. “Have you been indulging in your Princess Leia fantasies again?”

Thanks to the dry spell, I’d probably have to resort to fantasies soon. Going without sex sucked and she looked so damn mouthwatering in that tight T-shirt. I wanted to suck her nipples right through the cloth. Damn it. Everything went hard just with that one thought. It was like the goddamned tenth grade all over again.

“Speaking of gold bikinis, have you got your costume for the employee party at the Con put together?” I asked

“I’m going as a bright fairy.”

I grinned. “In the skimpiest costume possible, I hope.” I licked my lips like a perv.

“And you? What are you going to dress up as?”

I gloated. “Top secret.”

“Because
of course
it is,” she huffed. “You love keeping your secrets, don’t you?”

“It’s what I’m known for…”

“And what bloggers love to rant about.”

I smiled at her allusion to the now-infamous hidden quest chain in Dragon Epoch. “All in good time, young
padawan
.”

“What time will that be? 2023? I think people will have moved on to a new game by then.”

I shrugged. “I have a good feeling it may happen sometime next year.”

She snorted. “Come on…give me another hint. ‘Yellow’ isn’t going to cut it. I don’t even know if that’s a real clue, anyway!”

I sent her a look of mock hurt. “I didn’t lie to you.”

“Yellow is a totally lame clue.”

I gave her the once-over. “Hmm; maybe I can think up a way for you to
earn
another clue.”

She made a face. “Yeah, well, I’d have to be assured of the
quality
of said clue before I’d commit to that deal.”

I shrugged, grabbed an onion ring and munched on it. “Have it your way.”

We went silent again and I looked around the bar. It wasn’t too crowded, now that the dinner rush was dying down. Several television screens were blaring the seven o’clock news.

I looked back at her when her hand folded over mine where it rested on the tabletop. Her face had grown completely serious. I turned my hand palm up so I could clamp it around hers.

“Everything okay?” Now it was
my
turn to ask it.

She shook her head, “Actually, there was something—”

I turned from her, distracted by the volume of the TV in the bar, which had just gone up a few notches. When I saw the screen, I froze.

“What is it?” she asked and I held my hand up to silence her. I recognized the woman being interviewed by the Channel Seven news. I’d seen numerous clips of her on other shows. She was the one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against my company. And the mother of the suicidal kid who had blown away his girlfriend and then himself. She clutched a note card from which she read a statement while sobbing about her terrible loss. She described how, toward the end, her son Tom’s debilitating addiction to a video game had been his downfall.

After this brief clip, there was a cut to an outside shot of Draco headquarters and then another taken of a reporter stalking me in the company parking lot on the way to my car while I refused to stop to give him a comment.

Our waitress was watching at the bar and as soon as the shot of me faded, she turned and looked straight at our table, her mouth open.

“Adam,” Emilia said, her voice tense. “Relax. Every muscle in your body is stiff and your veins are popping out on your forehead.”

“You just saw that, right? You saw that shit?” I turned to her, muttering under my breath, hoping no one else in the damn restaurant recognized me from that. And knowing the news, it had probably been shown at five and six and would be replayed again at eleven, and likely for days to come, in some variation or another. I rubbed my temples.

“Fuck me,” I breathed, my headache suddenly pounding down on me again. I buried my face in my hand.

Emilia had scooted beside me in the booth and she was rubbing my back between my shoulder blades. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I’ve
been
talking about it.”

“I never understood why the guy shot his girlfriend.”

I sighed. “He was a hardcore player. I pulled his logs myself. He logged at least sixty to seventy hours a week. He belonged to a power guild, went on raids practically every other day.” Raids were quests taken on by large gatherings of players who tried to take down an epic monster like a huge dragon or a powerful wizard. I shrugged. “One day the girlfriend got pissed at him so she used his log-in information to get on his character and promptly gave all his rare loot away. When he logged in, his character was stripped.”

“Oh shit. And CS said they wouldn’t restore.”

“Exactly. So he locked and loaded and went over to her house.” I pushed the plate with my half-eaten hamburger away and sat back with a disgusted sigh.

“I’m not hungry anymore.” I sat staring into nothing for a long moment before I turned to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I shook my head and stared at her for a minute. She had worry all over her face. “What did you want to tell me?”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t anything big—I’m staying with Heath, in case you were wondering. In his guest room.”

I was about to reply when the waitress came up, laid the check tray on the table and left without asking if we wanted dessert.

Emilia had caught a strand of her hair and was weaving it around her forefinger. “Tell me,” I said, taking her free hand and pressing her palm to my lips. She curled her fingers around my jaw.

“It’s nothing. Nothing like what you’re going through.”

“You know you can talk to me, right? If you need anything.”

She smiled and nodded.

“So are you going back to Heath’s right now? You don’t want to come back to our—my house?”

She hesitated. “I want to, but not tonight. I’m exhausted and there’s work tomorrow.”

I fought the urge to push her on it. I had to force myself to remember my new stance. She’d come to me. I’d retreat and she would pursue. Just like the strategy dictated. I
really
wanted to push it, though.

“So when do we…figure things out?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think it will take long. We
will
figure it out. I believe in us.” She smiled.

I walked her to her car and left her with a long, tasty kiss that lingered on my lips the entire ride home. The thought of that bed being empty all night really didn’t make me happy, but at least things were better off between us than I thought they’d be when I started out the day. I could only hope they’d continue to improve.

***

Now that I was committed to following the teachings to the letter, I began to wonder about other ways in which I could plan and win her back. I’d screwed up about the school thing and I was still determined to bring her around to my way of thinking, but the direct, confrontational approach had blown up in my face.