Page 29 of These Wicked Games
“I just sat down.” He’s chewing on his thumbnail, looking out the window, his knee practically drilling a hole through the floor. I’m not quite sure why he insists on sitting in the window seat and looking out the airplane window when he’s deathly afraid of flying. I asked him once and he said,“I want to know it’s coming.”
Fantastic. Now I’m stuck here with Ryker for a three-hour flight. I glance up just as Andre walks past me and rage spreads through my chest. Thankfully, I haven’t seen him since the club, but while I’m still so pissed about that, I cannot stop thinking about what happened. It’s taken everything I can not to dissect it.
After I’d walked Danielle to her rideshare and sent her off with a scorching kiss, I’d felt more disjointed than before. I should have felt great. She was incredible. Beautiful. I could not have picked a better hookup, which just makes me more confused. I still feel this pent-up ball of bullshit rattling around my rib cage. I’m not sure what the fuck is happening.
Rage and lust are equally strong emotions and my body is just confusing the two. That’s all it is, right? Maybe I’m queer and I don’t realize it. Maybe the sight of two guys together actually does it for me. It’s not Andre, just the action. Maybe I should find a guy to try with, maybe I’d get some answers then. No harm, right?Even as I think it my gut clenches at the thought of it. I’ve basically lived in locker rooms all my life and have never felt a stir of anything looking at one of my teammates.
Just thinking about Andre the other night . . .
Why does he turn your light on?
Fucking Vanessa! I have half a mind to go down to Virginia and yell at her. She fucked with my head.
Everyone takes their quiet seats next to someone who will not hyperventilate and probably piss their pants mid-flight, and with everyone on board, the plane starts to move. Ryker tenses, then grabs my arm, lifting it up around his head to bury himself into my side like a rodent burrowing for winter. “We do this all the time, Kiki,” I sigh, patting his head as he burrows deeper.
“Exactly!” he hisses, practically in my armpit. “The chances of us crashing get more and more each time we don’t. Think about it, Kuli,” he whines. “Each time we don’t, it’s closer to the time we do. Our luck is running the fuck out. This is my fifth season. My time is coming, I know it!” He whimpers.
I shake my head. I do not have the mental space for whatever this is. We take off, and honestly, even I hate this part. My ears hurt and the grip Ryker has on my arm turns from a slight tourniquet to complete loss of blood flow.
Finally we’re up in the air and allowed to move. I unbuckle and peel Ryker off me. “Someone get me a drink! The strongest drink you can find on this fucking plane,” I yell.
“Thanks, Kuli.” Ryker’s eyes are pinched as he rests his head on the cool glass. “It’s only a twelve-hour drive. Why can’t we just drive?” he whines. “Or a train. I fucking love trains.”
Atlas stands up behind us now, hovering over our seat. Lucky bastard got to sit with Grey. “There are more train crashes than plane crashes.”
My head practically does a one-eighty, glaring at Atlas behind me. “Not. Fucking. Helping.”
A drink gets put in front of my face, and I go to thank the person handing it to me when I see the source and freeze. My eyes collide with Andre, whose hazel eyes are bouncing from me to Ryker nearly hyperventilating next to me. “Hey, Kiki.” Ryker’s confused eyes look up. “Have you ever been struck by lightning?”
“Huh?” Andre waits for him to answer. He takes a sip of his drink, sitting up a bit straighter. “Uh, no.”
“Are you afraid to go outside while it thunders?” Andre’s eyes slide to mine briefly before looking back to Ryker. Just that one look has my chest sprinkle with heat. “Are you?”
“What?”
“Are you afraid to go outside in a thunderstorm? With lightening.”
“Um, no.”
“What about the beach? You like the beach?”
“I like women in bikinis at the beach.”
“Okay . . . Not what I . . . Ya know what, whatever. Do you swim at the beach?”
“Well, yeah.”
“What about at home? Do you . . . I don’t know, walk up and down your stairs just fine?”
“I . . . Yeah, I don’t understand.”
“You have a greater chance of getting struck by lightening, eaten by a shark, and falling down your own stairs and dying than you dodying in a plane crash. Doesn’t stop you from doing any of those things, does it?”
“Well it will now!” Ryker shrieks.
I roll my eyes.Fucking great.“Amazing. Any more words of fucking wisdom?”
Ignoring me, Andre smiles. “Kiki, relax. The worst thing that’s going to happen to you on this plane has already happened.”
