Page 14 of Play the Game

“Every single day of his life that I’ve known him. That’s why I always take such pleasure in crushing him in these matches.”

“Took,” I said. “Past tense. Remember, you’re not here to win this thing and raise suspicion. You just need to place third.”

“Sure.” His flat tone of voice didn’t reassure me.

I couldn’t blame him for hating the guy, but we had more important things on the line. “I mean it, Jensen,” I said through the clenched teeth of a forced smile. “You screw up this op for me, and I’ll make you regret it every day for the rest of your life.”

“Good,” he mumbled back, “because then I’ll be guaranteed to see your beautiful face every day for the rest of my life.”

My heart lodged in my throat, blocking any more threats from escaping. I was tasked with keeping us focused and on point, but Jason flirting with me while I was in my current, problematic, madly-attracted-to-my-best-friend headspace made me want to cross every line, forget my professional ethics, and kiss the hell out of his grinning mouth right now.

* * *

Jason

Tam wasquiet as we walked into the adjacent room and approached the round gaming table set up with six computers and ten chairs. I picked the first computer I reached, making a show of not giving a damn about which one might give me an edge. Telegraphing confidence. Playing mind games with my opponents, especially that asshole Pasco. He’d been a thorn in my side since I’d run across him in an online community a few months after my dad left. He’d been fifteen and cocky. I’d been twelve and furious, and I’d spent the next nine years kicking his ass across the virtual universe.

Now he had a leg up. Or so he believed because he assumed my skills had atrophied. He might have been right, if I’d really spent one year awaiting trial and three years incarcerated after my foray into one of the FBI’s secure databases. I hadn’t been locked up and he was wrong, but for the sake of the mission and my best friend, I was prepared to swallow my pride and let him win.

Then he looked at Tam. Ogled her. Stared at her sexy body without bothering to hide that he was picturing her naked. Not that the thousand times I’d pictured my best friend naked and under me—and over me and kneeling in front of me—were appropriate, but knowing he was fantasizing about her made me want him dead.

Since strangling him with my bare hands would definitely, or at least probably, get my security clearance revoked, I would play nice and go back to virtually pummeling him into a bloody pulp.

Tam pulled hard on my hand, which was entwined with hers. “Earth to Jason. Where the hell are you?”

I calmed myself with a deep breath and smiled at her. “I’m right here.” I pulled out the chair next to my computer station for her, then sat beside her.

“Whatever crazy-ass scheme you’re devising, drop it,” she whisper-shouted. “Stick to the plan. You promised me.”

I nodded, thinking through the details of the plan in question, poking holes in the letter of it. What really mattered was sticking to the spirit of getting me into the top three so I’d be hired by the Carbonados and getting all of us out of this tricked-out warehouse alive. As long as both those things happened, how we got there wasn’t important.

Tam grabbed my chin and forced me to look into her eyes. “No, Jensen. N. O. I am not fucking around here.”

Like she’d read my conniving mind. That should annoy me since I was about to do the opposite of what she wanted from me, but instead, it turned me on. I stared at her lips and leaned close to her.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Playing my part,” I whispered back. “Adoring boyfriend, remember?”

She leaned toward me, as well, stopping with her lips a fraction of an inch from mine. “You’re about to miss your prompt.”

I snapped toward the computer, her words like cold water on the heat that had been between us all afternoon. Thanks to her, I didn’t miss the name of the target database that flashed across the screen, and my mind began choosing, sorting, and discarding approaches to the hack. My fingers flew across the keyboard as I worked through the puzzle and made progress, inch by inch.

Tam stared at my hands as I worked. I loved it when she watched me so closely, the way she did when she came to the IT room to keep me company on the nights when the rest of the team was finished for the night and I was working late. Her rapt attention made my mind and fingers work faster. After a little more than half an hour, I watched the first firewall crack. Another few minutes, and the second one crumbled. The third evaporated a moment later, and I was in the database. And I was first.Winnerflashed across my screen in neon orange letters, andJensenappeared in the top slot on the electronic board that hung above us on the wall. The crowd around us clapped, then hushed at the quiet signal from one of the guards.

Pasco muttered. I assumed he was swearing at me. It was nearly two minutes later when he breathed a sigh of relief, literally wiped the sweat from his brow, and glanced up at the board asPascoappeared by the number two spot. From the skill sets of the remaining four contenders, I expected Sarah Bee, which was a pseudonym for the young woman who was really named Clara Lockerbee, to finish third in this round. A minute later, I was proven right, and the crowd gave a round of applause to the three of us.

“Third place,” Tam hissed in my ear. “Third place! What do you not understand about third place?”

I held her hand and smiled at her as if she were whispering congratulations or sweet nothings. She grinned back, but her eyes were stony, and, honestly, the combination was kind of terrifying.

I relented. “You’re right. The plan is the plan.”

“And a promise is a promise, and you promised me you would not get us in trouble today.”

“I promise, this round, third place.”

Meanwhile, the departure of the last-place hacker was announced. One more would drop in each of the next two rounds until only three of us were left. This time, when I saw the prompt, I dived in at the same breakneck pace as last time. When I’d navigated through the tunnels of extraneous code, avoided dead ends and trapdoors, and torn past the outer layers of protection, I stopped. I was just two keystrokes shy of winning again, but I’d promised. I furrowed my brow, feigned confusion, and tapped my keys industriously on the keyboard without pushing hard enough to actually type.

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