Page 69 of Blackmail
“I wouldn’t even know how to play most of these. Never really had time for games.” I try to shrug it off, but I’ve gotten the impression that many people played chess and checkers when they were young. You’d think I would be used to all the reminders of how twisted my childhood was, but it never seems to get easier.
Especially now, when I wish I had the skills to do something fun with this guy who looks even more devastating when he smiles.
Sebastian walks over to one of the games. It’s a large yellow grid with red and black disks that can be dropped inside. Someone appears to have started a game and then abandoned it. Sebastian hits a lever that drops the disks onto the ground.
“This one’s easy,” he says. “I’ll show you.”
So we stand there for the next hour like a couple of overgrown kids, playing this fucking game. He beats me nearly every time, his sharp steel eyes constantly looking for and finding the best move.
As the breeze ruffles his hair—only a little, because God forbid the wind piss him off—and the sun shines on his skin (I lied when I called him beige; he sparkles like a fucking movie vampire), it’s impossible not to have…thoughts. Sexy ones, because those same hands lifting oversized game pieces and slotting them into place have been on every inch of my skin. Caressing, bruising, fucking. But underneath it all, there’s a warm something I can’t describe in my chest.
When a resort employee comes by to ask if we need anything and he not only uses the name on the guy’s name tag but tips him generously just for bringing me a ginger ale, I think it might be even worse than falling in love with him.
I’m starting to genuinely like him.
I am so fucked.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
SEBASTIAN
For over an hour, my time with Simon feels like something more. More than sex, more than something I paid for.
Our time together is cut short by Simon’s phone.
“Fuck.”
I stop while dropping the piece that will give me a win with four of my pieces on the diagonal. The look on Simon’s face is part fear, part anger.
“What’s wrong?” Before he even answers, I can see I won’t like what he has to say.
He shakes his head, cursing and pacing. Throwing out so many expletives that even for Simon it seems over the top. There’s a quiet rage bubbling that I’ve never seen in him. Not even when I was an intentional dick to him.
“My brother. They kicked him out.”
“I thought you said you had no family.”
He tugs his hair in frustration. “I don’t. Not really. I haven’t had contact with any of them in years. Except my little brother, who sends me messages sometimes.”
“Your parents?”
He swipes at his eye and shakes his head. “My father’s dead, and my mother wouldn’t… More likely this was the elders’ doing. Young men are less valuable than young women. Since we can’t reproduce.” His laugh has no humor. “God forbid you step out of line. Then you’re gone.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
“Yes and no.”
“How do you even know about this? I thought it was one of those places where they didn’t have contact with the outside world?”
“There’s a guy at the local feed store. After I ran away, I begged him to help me get a message to my siblings. He’s been sort of acting as a go-between ever since. The message was from him. My brother is there, and he’s in bad shape.”
There’s a selfish, irrational anger inside me. Something was different here, today in this bubble containing only Simon and me. Thanks to a natural disaster, I was forced to step away from work. Thanks to his illness, Simon went from needing my help too much to push me away, to finally acting as if he felt the same stirring of something I do.
There’s nobody to blame for this situation blowing up our bubble, and I’m not enough of a bastard to force him to stay because he owes me two more days. I just…don’t want to let him leave.
If I make him stay, there will never be a chance of more. Nothing between us would ever be right. That realization makes me want to murder someone. The elder responsible for kicking Simon’s brother off the farm or the next senior citizen walking a tiny dog—I’m not picky.
