Page 18 of Dungeons and Drama

He shrugs and steps even closer. He’s definitely inside the invisible bubble of personal space around me and my heart thuds at his nearness. “I thought about it in the stockroom and decided you made a good point. Plus…” He reaches out and slowly brushes my hair away from my face. Goose bumps rise on my arms as he slides his thumb down the curve of my jaw until he’s cradling my face in his hand. “I thought it might be fun to get to know you better.”

Uh…what? I thought he liked Sophia? I try to swallow, but my throat is too dry.

“I…um…,” I choke out.

At my words (or lack thereof), he smirks and steps back. “That’s what I thought.” His voice has turned flat. “I toldyou, you won’t make it one minute into this fake flirting thing.”

“Wait, what?” Horror flies through me and I wrap my arms over my chest. “Were you just…was that…” I stare at him in shock. “Were you justfaking?”

“Of course.” He’s laughing now, but it’s an annoying, gloating sort of laugh that makes me want to push him into the nearest toilet. And I can guarantee the public toilets here don’t get cleaned every day. “That’s what you asked me to do. We’re supposed to be fake flirting, aren’t we?”

I throw my hands up in the air. “Well, it doesn’t count right now! You have to warn me—I need to be prepared. I thought maybe you…”

He laughs again. “Yeah, no. I don’t think so.”

“Oh my God, you’re horrible.Whydid I have to blurt out your name?” I squeeze my eyes shut in frustration. And embarrassment. I can’t believe I thought he might be serious there for a second—I’m such an idiot. Although I have to say, Nathan’s a better actor than I gave him credit for. Maybe he’d be willing to audition for the spring musicalonce I bring it back—that is, if I don’t kill him before that.

I pull in a long, calming breath and look him directly in the eye. “I’m a professional. Not literally, because I haven’t made any money from my theater performances, but I consider myself one anyway. If you can pull off this fake flirting thing, then I absolutely can as well. And we only have to keep it up long enough for Sophia to get interested and for Paul to believe I wasn’t lying. Then we break it off and go back to happily ignoring each other.”

“If only I had a TARDIS so I could travel to the future now.”

“Lovely.” I roll my eyes. “So, we’re good? You’re not going to rat me out to Paul on Monday?”

We stare at each other. His lips are pressed into a thin line, but he doesn’t look angry any longer. More like he’s sizing me up.

“We’re good. If you can pull this off.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

He raises an eyebrow and then strides back to his friends, leaving me to follow. Sophia better wake up and notice him pronto, because I won’t be able to take much more of Nathan Wheeler.

Chapter Six

Lucas, Anthony, and John stare at us expectantly when Nathan and I return to the table.

“Ready to play,” I say in a falsely cheery voice. “What’s first?”

Lucas looks between Nathan and me. “What’s going on? What were you two talking about back there?”

“Nothing. Just a work thing,” Nathan replies.

“A work thing?” Anthony raises his eyebrows. “A secret work thing?”

“Riley, first you need to make your character,” Nathan says, ignoring him. “Here’s your character sheet to fill out.” He slides a paper over to me with a hard look in his eyes. I’m still getting to know his expressions, but I think he’s trying to tell me that he doesn’t want to talk about our deal with his friends. Which is fine by me, though they’re definitely going to figure it out as soon as Sophia comes in and I have to lay on the charm.

The idea makes my stomach do a little flip. I’ve been so focused on trying to dig myself out of this mess with Paul that I haven’t had two seconds to think about the consequences of Nathan saying yes. I can still feel the caress of his thumb across my jaw. Despite all my big talk, am I really going to be able to pull this off? I’m not sure I even know what to do around Sophia. Bat my eyelashes at him and say risqué things? Touch him?Kisshim someplace other than his arm? We might need a few more private discussions about this.

“Riley? You still with us?”

I shake my head to clear the thoughts and nod at Lucas. I scan the table, immediately overwhelmed despite Lucas’s welcoming expression. He has a trifold divider in front of him to block our view from what he’s looking at. There are piles of books on the table:D&D Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual,andXanathar’s Guide to Everything.Everyone has dice—the fancy ones that Dad sells at the store, not the usual six-sided white and black dice that Mom and I use in Monopoly—along with iPads, notebooks, and figurines placed on a grid in the middle of the table.

I pick up Nathan’s paper. There are a ton of boxes with labels likeDexterity, Intelligence,andCharisma.My imagination explodes at all the possible characters I could make. All the fun I could have acting—no,role-playing.

“Do I get to choose all of these characteristics? Because I definitely want high Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. And maybe Dexterity just because.”

“Okay, slow down,” Nathan says, sighing. “The first thing you need to do is choose which race and class you want to be.” He flips open a book and shows me the options. “And you can’t just choose the highest scores in everything. It depends on the kind of character you’re playing. If you’re a fighter, then you would probably want to choose Strength and Constitution as your highest attributes. But if you want to be a wizard, then you would choose Intelligence.”

“You can’t play a wizard,” John says. “I’m already the wizard of the party.”

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