Page 42 of Dared

“I can’t believe you’re laughing at my misfortune.”

“Aww. Sorry, baby.” I pulled him into me, dragging my nose up the side of his face. The familiar scent of apple pie hit me. “Hey, you used my shampoo.”

“Was that not allowed?”

“Yeah, course it’s allowed. It smells nice on you.”

“I guess you’re the hair sniffer now,” he said, taking me back to a conversation we’d had a while ago.

“That means you have to kiss me to make it even in the weirdness department. That’s what I did to you last time, wasn’t it?”

He nodded against me, and then he turned his head, brushing a soft kiss over my cheek.

“Finn?”

“Yeah?”

“Why…uh…why are you calling me baby?”

Good question.

“I dunno. It just seems to happen. Do you not like it? I can stop.”

“No, I like it,” he whispered into my ear, like he was confiding a secret. “You just have all these nicknames for me, like baby and little lion and Viking, and I don’t have any for you.”

“Hmm.” I ran my hand down his back. “I’d prefer not to be known as Hammerhead outside of our games. Definitely not Sharkfin. It’s bad enough when Ed calls me that. Honestly, I’m good with you just calling me by my name. I’m not really a nickname person.”

I felt him smile against me. “Okay, Finn. Want to do a dare?”

“Yeah. What do you have in mind?”

“I dare you to play the next campaign against me. One v one, instead of as a team.”

“It’s a dare,” I said immediately. “Does the winner get a reward?”

“Bragging rights? The in-game loot?”

“Not good enough. I think the winner should get to pick the takeaway we order for dinner. How about it?”

Drawing back, he nodded. He climbed off me and settled back on the bed while I wheeled my chair into place. “Okay. Let’s go.”

It was close, as it always was, because we were so evenly matched. We rarely played against each other, preferring to work as a team, but our competitive streaks definitely came out when we played against each other. When there were just thirty seconds left on the timer and our scores were still even, I decided to try a dirty trick. Holding my controller with one hand, I reached out and tickled the underside of Leo’s foot. He shrieked at an ear-splitting volume, jumping away from me, and it only took me a few seconds of him being distracted to rack up the extra points I needed to win the game.

“You cheat!” he shouted, throwing his controller down and launching himself at me. I was weak with laughter from the utter outrage on his face, and I couldn’t have stopped his onslaught if I’d tried. His momentum was so strong that the entire chair tipped backwards, sending us crashing to the carpet.

“Fucking hell, Leo,” I wheezed, rolling away from the chair and collapsing onto my back. I couldn’t breathe through my laughter.

“Cheating bastard.” He threw himself onto my torso, knocking what remained of my breath out of me. I brought my hands up to hold him in place, and he stilled. I ran a soothing hand down his spine.

“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist.”

“You’re not sorry,” he muttered, his outraged glare replaced by a cute little pout, which made me grin.

“Okay, I’m not sorry. What can I say? I was just really in the mood for fried chicken tonight, and I knew you’d pick pizza.”

“I wouldn’t,” he lied.

“Leo.”

---