It Was Always You (Gaming the System) (4 page)

“It’s her, isn’t it?” Tiff said coming up alongside me to follow my gaze out the window.

I shrugged. I couldn’t answer her. I felt like dirt already for what had happened last night.

“What about her?” I said, mostly to deflect. I was dreading this conversation though I knew it had to happen.

Tiff flicked her dark hair back over her shoulder and shot me a heated glare. “You had a thing for her. When you first started coming by, started hanging out at our place, I knew it was because you were into her. But she was with Sean then.”

I blinked and turned back to Tiff. She was right, of course.

“I had to ask you out five times before you actually agreed to go out with me, Tiff. Why’d you change your mind?”

She shrugged and looked away. “I figured you’d get over her eventually. Maybe I’d
make
you get over her. And I really thought you had.”

And she really liked that I’d made a lot more money at my new job. It hadn’t been lost on me that she’d agreed to go out with me for the first time within a week of my getting it. I took a deep breath and ran a hand through my hair. “This isn’t working, Tiff.”

Her features hardened. “Of course it isn’t. It never has. Neither one of us really had our heart in it. And what’s worse, I’ve been so paranoid about losing you since Mic broke up with Sean that I’ve let that get in the way of my friendship with her. And I thought hooking her up with someone else would help—help her
and
us.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. It was a pretty deep observation, coming from her. “I’m sorry.”

She looked smug. “There it is, finally. The apology that is about fifteen minutes too late.”

I held out my hands, palms up, to her. “What do you want me to do?”

She blinked. “I want you to get me a ride out of here because I hate the mountains and I hate snow and I’m tired and I don’t want to do this anymore.”

I took a breath. “I’ll drive you home.”

She shook her head, her gaze narrowing. “No,
don’t
. Last night, a couple of the guys said something about leaving today. See if one of them will do it.”

A couple of the groomsmen had to get back earlier than the rest of us due to work on Sunday and they gladly offered Tiffani a ride. She didn’t seem too heartbroken over saying goodbye, but I wasn’t sure whether she was putting on a brave face or if she was over it already.

And it still left a lot of questions unanswered.

Because first…if Michaela even felt the same way, would she feel comfortable seeing me? And how awkward would it be for me to hang out over there as Mic’s date or—God, I hoped—her boyfriend while she was still living with Tiff?

It really had been shortsighted of me to ask Tiff out.

I should have waited…waited until Michaela was free. Live and learn. She was free
now
. And so was I. And I wasn’t going to give Lucas the opportunity to swoop in and take that chance away.

So after making sure Tiffani was safely away, I put on my jacket to head outside and do what I’d been wanting to do since the beginning of the weekend. Sled down that damn hill—and do it with Michaela.

I stomped over toward the back door, bent to find my boots and pull them on. Lacing them tight, I came up, reached for the doorknob, and froze. Looking through the window in the back door, I could see Mic and Lucas standing close together on the back porch. He bent to push a pale blonde strand of hair behind her ear and she smiled at him.

And a jealous rage washed over me. I clenched my jaw. I immediately wanted to kill Lucas. With my bare hands. Okay, that probably wasn’t possible, given Lucas outweighed me and looked pretty fit. But damn…why’d he have to pick
now
to make his move…when I was five minutes away from making
my
move?

Before I could do anything assholish like storm out there and interrupt their moment, he bent and kissed her on the lips. She tilted her head toward him and her eyes fluttered close.

Goddamn it! Damn it to Hell!

Was I just about to lose her again to the most insane piece of fucked up timing ever?

Then the question popped into my mind. Had I ever even had her in the first place in order to lose her?

“Hey man, what’s up?” Nathan came up behind me.

“Nothing.” I turned, blocking his view out the door window. “You up for a rematch on
Call of Duty
? I need to kick your ass so I have something to brag about at work on Monday.”

Nathan frowned, taking in my boots and winter jacket. “You’re not going outside?”

I shrugged. “Changed my mind. So are you changing the subject because you are…chicken?”

“Screw you, loser,” he laughed. “It is on like Donkey Kong!”

“I was hoping you’d say that!” I grinned, following him back out of the kitchen and pulling off my jacket to sit down beside him at the console. Fortunately I was able to lose myself in the game, but that knot of frustration twisted tighter and tighter at the base of my throat—even when I wasn’t directly thinking about Michaela and Lucas.

A few hours later, I’d made good on my threats.

“Defeated! It’s a good thing you are already engaged because no other woman would want a
lllloooooser.
” I said, pressing my thumb and index finger to form a big L on my forehead.

He answered with a finger signal of his own…the middle one, straight up, to be exact.

“What’s this, you got a tournament going or something?” Lucas said, entering and plopping down on chair beside us on the couch.

I glared at him. He caught it and scowled. “What?”

“Where’s Michaela?”

He glanced away, clearly annoyed. “I dunno.”

I looked out the window and saw that it had already begun to get dark. Nathan and I had been so involved in our game that I had hardly realized so much time had passed.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You just left her out there?”

She’d been out there for hours. And like me, she was pure SoCal through and through. We weren’t used to cold weather. Okay, so maybe it was only in the thirties or lower twenties. But why did I suddenly feel like Chewbacca when the shield doors of Echo Base on Hoth were closed while Han was still outside in the frozen night?

“She said she wanted to be alone and go for a walk. Needed to think about stuff. Sheesh, man. Chill out.” Then he snorted at his own joke. “Yeah, go take a roll out in the snow and chill out.”

Muttering under my breath, I stood and pulled my jacket on. Useless fucktard. “It’s getting dark. I’m going to go find her.” And I stomped out the back door, dodging the bride-to-be and a couple of bridesmaids as they made their way inside after having gone shopping downtown in the village.

Chapter Five
Michaela

I needed to think. This was all so confusing. First Tiffani’s push to find someone new. Then Jeremy’s odd, almost jealous behavior. Then the kiss in the closet.

And the guilt. Lord the guilt was crushing down on me. And because of it I’d been about to step into another mistake. Lucas was a nice enough guy, but as much as I hated to admit it, Jeremy had been right—Lucas wasn’t right for me. He was cute enough and nice enough…but there was just something lacking. Something I hadn’t been able to put my finger on.

And then he’d kissed me and I’d realized what it was. He wasn’t Jeremy.

Since Jeremy had come back into my life last year, it’d been hard to think about any other guy—even the one I’d been in a relationship with at the time, Sean. Jeremy and I had picked up our old friendship right where it had left off the year Jeremy had gone off to college.

We’d fallen into our same habits, our same interests. But we’d been friends. Just friends. Good friends. Good, good friends.

Friends who, when they kissed, finally, struck sparks that threatened to burn the house down. And when Lucas had kissed me earlier today, all I could think about was Jeremy’s kiss the night before.

Jeremy, my
friend.
My roommate’s
boyfriend
.

I had to get over this, get over him, and part of the reason I’d been hanging out with Lucas today had been in an honest effort to do it.

I was halfway through the wooded lot, naked tree trunks and branches clawing at a grey, gloomy sky. It was getting dark and I was getting really cold. My jacket—not very adequate for snow—had gotten wet and I’d left it behind on the porch when I’d pushed Lucas away and told him I needed to be alone.

But now I was freezing my ass off and it was getting dark. My hands were starting to get a little numb and putting them in my pockets wasn’t helping.

I turned around to head back toward the house, stopping when I saw a figure cutting across the field and heading toward the edge of the bare woods. I recognized Jeremy’s blue ski jacket with yellow trim. Much as I would have liked to cut around the long way to avoid him, he was coming at me from the shortest distance to the house and I was too cold to play around. So I set my shoulders, planning to forge ahead and give him a nod when we passed.

As I hit the edge of the wood, his strides quickened upon seeing me, long and determined and headed straight toward me. I figured I wouldn’t be able to avoid him and he had come to talk to me. But now my ears were starting to hurt from the cold.

It was almost completely dark. The lights in the house glowed golden through the rectangular windows, casting squares of sparkling illumination on the fresh powder that had fallen overnight. I paused and blew into my hands.

“Where’s your jacket?” he asked as he unzipped his own.

“It was wet. Left it on the porch. I need to get inside because it’s really damn cold right now.”

He didn’t budge from his spot but caught my arm as I made to turn toward the house. “Put mine on,” he said.

“Then
you’ll
be cold.”

“I’m fine for a few minutes. Just put it on. You look like you’re about to keel over from hypothermia.”

I didn’t hesitate when he pushed it into my hands. I slid into the puffy, down jacket that had been warmed by his body. It felt like settling into a fleecy hug. Jeremy reached over and pulled the collar up.

“Cover your ears. They are bright red.”

I hunched down so that the collar would shield my ears from the cold. It felt amazing, comforting.

“What are you doing out here all alone?” he asked.

I shrugged, though I was so swallowed up in his jacket—which was one and a half times too big for me—that I doubted he could see the action. “Just thinking…”

“About?”

I looked away. “Just feeling bad, I guess.”

His mouth thinned. “About last night? That was my fault…I’m sorry—”

I shook my head. “Don’t apologize, okay? We can both feel bad that it happened and try to forget it. And treat it like the pleasant memory it should be…”

An unreadable look crossed his face. “So…you thought it was pleasant?”

I frowned at him. That should have been obvious, I thought.

“Didn’t you?”

His brow twitched and he looked like he might start laughing. “Uh. Yeah. You could say that.”

I hugged my arms to myself for lack of anything better to do with my hands, suddenly uncomfortable. I didn’t want to admit to myself how long I’d wondered what it would be like to kiss Jeremy, to feel his hands on me. To wish it was his arms around me instead of his warm coat. To smell his smell, trying unsuccessfully to bury that tingling feeling in the pit of my stomach. Trying to forget the way Jeremy made me feel.

Because he wasn’t mine and I had no right to feel this way.

“I need to tell you something,” he said, the breath escaping through his lips and haunting the chill air between us like a phantom.

I swallowed, my throat suddenly feeling thick. “No, don’t.”

He blinked. “How do you even know what I’m going to say?”

I took a deep breath and let it go, the vapor from my breath drifting out between my lips to mingle with his. “Whatever you are going to say is going to make this more awkward and more—painful.”

He said nothing for a long moment, then reached his hand, placed it on my jaw. It was warm. His thumb caressed my cheek. I closed my eyes, wishing I had the willpower to pull away from him.

“Mic…” he whispered.

I sucked in a painful breath and backed up a step. He let his hand fall from my face and we stared each other down for a long, thick minute.

“Tiff went home a few hours ago.”

“What? Why? Did she—did you tell her about what happened in the closet?” Oh, shit. Shit. If possible, the guilt clutching at me squeezed even tighter in the pit of my stomach. How she must hate me.

“No. She left because she knew…” his voice trailed off. He looked away and squared his shoulders, as if afraid to go on.

“She knew what?” I said.

His eyes returned to mine. All his features, his coloring looked like shades of deep blue in the faint light of this mountain evening.

“That it was always you.” Those words seemed to trail out between his lips, mix with that phantom breath, coalesce into something otherworldly between us. My throat tightened and I swallowed.

“I…” I shook my head, unable to find the words to reply to that, muted by joy and terror at once.

He moved up to me again, this time placing one hand on each cheek. “
Always
. Since that first day I came over to play with your brother Doug in middle school and you wouldn’t leave us alone. Since that day I helped you when you scraped up your knees. When you failed your algebra test and tried to hide your tears when you asked me to tutor you. Since that day you helped me practice my graduation speech over and over again, listening for hours, helping me memorize it, cheering every single time I finished it. Since…”

“Since the beginning…” I said, my voice trembling.

He nodded. I leaned up on tiptoes to lock my hands around his neck and pulled him down to me. And since he’d started it last night between us—
finally
making that move—it was my turn tonight.

His mouth fell on mine and I tasted him, his warm, firm lips. I felt that kiss clear down to my toes. It zinged and sizzled through my body, every extremity. His lips opened and my tongue danced with his, communicating without words, only feelings—long bottled up by fear and uncertainty.