Page 121 of Forbidden Game

“This boy would like to get back to the actual game.” Jackson points his controller at the TV, which has just been replaying the last race as we’ve been talking.

“Do you think I could play?” Syd’s voice is quiet.

I look down at her, unveiled shock on my face.

“Oh my God, yes!” Stevie bounces up to grab one of the spare controllers. “I’ll teach you everything. And then, we can kick their asses together.”

“Hey.” I snatch the black controller from her. “If anyone’s teaching her, it’s me.”

Stevie mouths a word that looks a lot like “whipped” before plopping herself next to Aleks and picking up her gold controller. I stick my tongue out at her but smile.

“So long as it’s not Aleks, I don’t care. I want to learn how to win,” Sydney comments.

“Burn,” Jackson and I crow.

“All right, you fuckers keep this up, and we’ll see who’s laughing when I fuck you all up.” He waves his controller at all of us.

“We’re taking the piss,” I say, batting his hand away.

Light dances in my chest as I hand the black controller to Sydney. This is the first time she’s ever asked to play with us. Every time I’ve offered in the past, she would shrug it off. So much so that none of us really asked her anymore.

Sydney curves her hands around the controller, testing out the feel. I take the time to explain the basics and how there are power-ups on the course she can use.

She nods along, and her interest feels like winning a game when you’ve been down three points the entire time, just to score a Fury Kill in the last second.

I don’t even care about playing myself; all my attention is on her, is on the way every single day she becomes more and more a part of my family, and I never want to let her go.

TWENTY-THREE

SYDNEY

“I don’t want to be here,” Parker says for the fiftieth time, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

My eyes roam appreciatively over his sexy bloody angel costume.

He is wearing a pair of white wings with an open white shirt. The band of his Calvin Kleins peeks out the top of his white jeans, and Deer spent a solid thirty minutes painting bloody tears under his eyes.

God, he is attractive.

“Are you going to bitch the whole time?” Aleks asks.

“Oh, let him be, babe. You know he’s a scaredy cat.” Stevie threads her fingers through Aleks’ and grins.

The two of them are dressed as Han Solo and Leia, although Stevie went for metal-bikini Leia. She looks drop-dead gorgeous, and more than a few people have stopped to stare at her. Aleks has given out his fair share of death glares tonight as a result.

Personally, I can’t stop staring at the large hickey on her neck she’s neglected to cover up.

“I am not a scaredy cat,” Parker rejects.

“And I’m not about to punch you.” Jackson hits Parker on the back, and the two begin arguing.

According to Parker, it had been a chore to get Jackson to put any costume on, let alone the one he has on now. Honestly, I didn’t even realize it was a costume. He’s wearing stone-gray sweatpants and an extremely tight navy T-shirt and is carrying a weird-looking sword. Parker explained that it’s an anime character from a popular show. Togi? Toji? I don’t know, I just nodded along.

Lee’s outfit I recognized, at least. She’s dressed as Sailor Mars and looks both cute and badass.

Deer, I thought, is just dressed as a sexy nurse. However, she got extremely offended when I said as much and made sure to correct me that she wasn’t just any nurse but Nurse Joy from Pokémon.

Sometimes working with gamers gives me a headache.

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