James Games (15 page)

I slide my hands under his shirt and feel him, his hard flat stomach, the curves of his abs, the rise of his hip bones. His body is mine to explore. Mine. I dip lower, trailing my tongue down his neck and into the nook of his collarbone. He breathes heavily, letting his head fall back, as I pull down the collar of his shirt far enough to kiss my way down his chest before letting it snap back into place.

“Fiona…”

“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I want to show you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

“Most people write thank-you notes.” He groans as I nip the taut skin of his stomach.

I smirk. “But that would be boring, wouldn’t it?”

I hook my thumbs into the belt loops of his pants and pull them down in one smooth, confident motion. And then he’s bared to me in the kitchen. All of him. His breathing turns hard. Down below, he’s harder.

The sight of him turns me into a wild thing. I’m starving for him. I grip his shaft and slide my hand up and down, luxuriating in the feel of his firm skin under my fingers before I allow myself to taste, licking my way to the tip. He tastes clean and masculine and I can’t get enough.

“God, Fiona…” James buries his hand in my hair loosely, bucking his hips unconsciously as I take him into my mouth. The moan that escapes him as I suck is like molten gold. I want to grab on to it. Instead I grab onto him with my good hand, alternating my speed.

“You are unbelievable,” he manages to get out. That’s not good. I don’t want him to be capable of speech at all.

I take him in as far as he’ll go, perform a couple tongue tricks I read about on the internet, and listen in satisfaction as he regresses to the primal stages of communication. In the looseness of his body, in the heat in my mouth, I can read that he’s close. An excitement builds in me. I’ve always spat it out before, but this time…should I try…?

“I’m—going to—” he attempts to warn me, struggling to get the words out. He leans his hips away from me, ready to pull out, but I pull him back to me. I want to give this a shot.

He comes hard, groaning through gritted teeth, his body shaking. My mouth is flooded, but I’m prepared and I swallow. Surprisingly, it’s not that bad.

He collapses against the counter, sweat standing out on his forearms. I grin and straighten.

“Now,” I say, “imagine what I could have done with two hands.”

~13~

I don’t plan on getting close to James Reid.

I don’t plan on sitting next to him every day in Philosophy class, but it makes sense, now that everyone thinks we’re doing a project together anyway. I don’t plan on passing notes, doodling together, and arguing loudly and passionately about existentialism in class. It starts as a ploy to convince people we still hate each other and slowly turns into the most academically stimulating conversation I’ve had at UCSD.

Iris frowns whenever she sees me laughing at something he texted me, or Facebooking him some article about the health benefits of tea. “You’re falling for him.”

“I am not,” I argue. “We’re friends, is all. I feel bad for him. It’s lonely being the campus celebrity. Just because we’re attracted to each other and we happen to be friends does not mean I’m falling for him.”

She rolls her eyes, but she’s been nicer to me ever since I saved her from flashing her tits at the sexiest Halloween costume contest.

In the meantime, Phi Delta Chi prepares for our famous haunted house. Thanks to Sigrid, I get to be the one who puts on a troll mask, jumps out, and screams at people. Which is surprisingly fun. Even with Sigrid stepping on my fingers as I measure construction paper, spreading a rumor that I have gonorrhea
and
syphilis, which I didn’t even know was medically possible, and demanding I be the one who goes to the store every time we run out of tape, I still have a good time putting the house together with everyone in Phi Delta Chi.

It’s after one such evening of paper-bat-cutting-out and tape-fetching that I remember I wanted to look up James on the internet.

It’s late. Iris is already asleep. The only light in the room is the blue glow from my computer. I waffle for a minute—James probably wouldn’t be too happy that I’m doing this—but curiosity wins out.

First I watch a few clips from the show he starred in as a teen,
All About Us
. I’m not surprised he won the hearts of girls everywhere. He’s incredibly talented, playing the rebellious character impeccably. All of the emotions that I never see in him are alive on his face when he acts, beaming out in explosions of anger and love. Is he really capable of having those feelings, or is he only able to act them?

I make a mental note to marathon the show later, and then I search for articles about him. There’s a lot from five years ago, and then they peter out. A few blog posts about his new life at college. A few sneaky photos of him holding Starbucks, going for a jog, studying on the lawn. Some of the details are actually pretty creepy. His class schedule from last year. His grades.

The newest article catches my eye.

James Reid sighted accompanying a girl in a chicken costume to the E.R.!

I smirk. Now there’s a headline.

I find his Wikipedia article and click
Personal life.

James Reid is the child of Winona Ferrell (born 1956) and Brian Reid (born 1950, deceased 2000).

I stop. That means James’s father died when he was seven years old.

I feel sick. I close my laptop lid. That was a piece of his life I should have earned, something he should have gotten the chance to tell me as a friend. I shouldn’t have read it as a gossipy tidbit on Wikipedia. It feels like a betrayal.

He’s probably asleep now, but I text him anyway.
Still up?

He responds surprisingly fast.
Yeah.

I looked you up on the internet.

The second message takes longer to arrive.
I see.

I’m sorry. I felt bad about it so I texted you to apologize.

Him:
You could have just not told me about it in the first place. Then you wouldn’t have had to apologize.

Me:
That’s not really how I operate. I’m sorry about your dad.

Him:
A lot of people were. What else did you read?

There’s a knock on my door, so quiet I barely hear it. Did I imagine it? But it comes again. I hesitate before slipping out of bed and opening the door a crack.

Sigrid’s hard face appears in the line of light from the hallway. “Come with us. Now.”

“Why?”

“Special Phi Delta Chi ceremony. Just you, though. Not Iris.”

That’s suspicious as hell. “Why not Iris?”

“It’s a private one-on-one ceremony for new pledges. We do a different girl every night. Brooklyn’s waiting for you.”

I haven’t heard about this ceremony from Mags or any of the others, but if Brooklyn’s involved, then it must be okay. I push open the door a little wider and Sigrid gets a vise grip on my upper arm. Amber’s there, sneering at me, but Ellie isn’t. A bad sign. But before I have time to rethink things, they’re steering me forcibly down the hallway.

They take me outside, but instead of bringing me to the student parking lot, they lead me to the oak tree in the middle of campus. It’s a popular spot for studying during the day, but now the lawn is deserted, leaving the tree to rise into the night, a silent figure. It’s too high to climb, despite the various guys who make attempts, but now there’s a latter propped against the trunk, just tall enough to reach the lower branches.

I sigh. “Brooklyn’s not coming, is she?”

“Brooklyn has better things to do than screw around with you,” Sigrid breathes into my ear.

“But you don’t? That’s interesting.”

“Shut up.” Amber elbows me in the ribs.

I yawn and stretch, ignoring the smarting pain. “This has been a lovely moonlit walk, girls, but I’m afraid I really must be getting back to sleep. You two should go to bed as well. No harm in a little extra beauty sleep.”

“That’s enough sass.” Amber gives me a shove.

“You can’t go to bed just yet.” Sigrid sounds happy, which means I’m doomed. “There’s something at the top of that tree you might want to fetch.”

I wave my arm in her face. “Did you miss the part where I have a sprained wrist? Climbing trees isn’t in my top ten favorite activities at the moment.”

“But it’s so important,” she purrs. “Your little friend Margaret lost her inhaler this evening. We thought it best to put it somewhere
high up
for safekeeping until one of her pals would be kind enough to fetch it for her.”

I stare at her. “You do realize she needs that to breathe.”

“And you do realize that James Reid is off limits,” she hisses. “Or you should have realized, but apparently you haven’t. This our own little way of reminding you.”

“All you have to do is climb the tree and grab the inhaler and bring it down again,” says Amber. “It’ll take five minutes.”

Finally, Sigrid and her cronies are living up to the hype. I should go back to bed, but Mags is prone to asthma attacks. I tilt my head back. With the latter in place, the upper branches look fairly easy to climb. There’s a little bag attached to one of them.

“Phone first,” Sigrid says. “We don’t want it to fall out of your pocket and break.”

I pull my phone out of my pocket and hand it over. I still haven’t responded to James’s text, but he can wait. I can’t let Mags lose access to a medical device just because she happens to be friends with a girl Sigrid has it out for. And my wrist is doing a lot better. I grit my teeth and step toward the ladder.

I’ve never minded heights, but the wobbly rungs are enough to make even me feel nervous. When I step off the top rung and clamber onto a branch, it’s actually a relief. Sigrid and Amber are gazing up at me. It’s too dark to make out their expressions, but I’m sure they’re wearing twin smirks.

I struggle upwards, using my sore arm as little as possible. Twigs scratch my cheek and leaves tickle me. When I’m finally in reach of the little bag, I hear a scraping noise.

Sigrid and Amber are taking the ladder away.

“Put that back!” I yell down at them, but all they do is burst into laughter. The ladder thumps into the grass and they each grab an end, scurrying away and giggling like maniacs.

Those fuckers.

I grab the bag and stuff it into my pocket. How far is it to the ground? Fifteen feet, maybe twenty? The grass looks soft enough, but it’s definitely a lot higher than that window was when I jumped into the bush. I wouldn’t make it. At the very least, I’d do a lot worse than sprain my wrist.

It’s California, so it’s not too cold, but I still shiver as a breeze dips under my legs. I’m in my nightie and it’s only three a.m. I’ll spend a sleepless night here, and in the morning, I’ll get to add ‘girl who got stuck in the oak tree’ to ‘girl who showed up naked to a party’ and ‘girl who wore a chicken costume to the sexiest Halloween costume contest’ on my litany of fame.

I bang my head against the tree trunk.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

I don’t know how long I sit there, watching the moon make its slow track across the sky, but it’s long enough that the branch under my butt ceases to be tolerably comforting and becomes distinctly agonizing. The butt pain is so severe that when a shadow moves across the lawn, I’m sure it’s a hallucination. Then I hear soft grassy footsteps and jolt so hard I almost fall out of the tree.

“You! Hey you!” I yell hoarsely. Humiliating myself in front of one person is better than humiliating myself in front of a bunch of them.

The shadow stops, then turns toward the tree. Footsteps quicken. “Fiona?”

I nearly fall out of the tree again. It’s James.

“What are you doing out here? It’s like four in the morning,” I hiss down at him.

“You’re asking me that and I’m on the lawn. I’m asking you that and you’re going to answer first, because you’re in a tree.” I can’t see his face, but his tone is pure incredulity.

I open my mouth and shut it again. If I tell him the real reason I’m up here, he’ll confront Sigrid and maybe that would get her to stop bothering me…

Or it would just make her ten times angrier at me. Either way, I’m sick of James fighting my battles for me. I’m going to deal with this one on my own.

“Well,” I hedge. “It’s a funny story. I was…”

He waits.

“Sleepwalking.”

“You sleepwalked up a tree.”

“Sleep climbing is a better word for it, actually.”

There’s a long silence. “Fiona, the lowest branch on that tree is fifteen feet up.”

“I’m a very innovative sleep climber! My grandfather was an acrobat.”

“Right. An Amish acrobat.”

“Are you going to get out my family tree or are you going to get me out of this oak tree?”

He sighs, long and hard. If I squint, I can see him rubbing his forehead. “I can’t climb that.”

“Go find a ladder, then.”

“Where the hell am I supposed to get a ladder? Can’t you sleep-climb down?”

If Sigrid and Amber can magic a ladder into the middle of campus, James can too. “Yeah, that’s a great idea. I’ll just fall asleep up here in this tall tree and hope for the best. Too bad I don’t have my chicken costume to break my fall. I’m sure that would result in at least three fewer broken bones.”

“All right, all right! I’ll go find a ladder. Don’t move around, okay?”

He’s gone for what feels like forever. In the meantime, I count the number of leaves on the branch I’m clinging to before moving on to the second. The sky starts to lighten. It must be nearing five a.m. If the sun rises and I’m caught here…

I exhale deeply when James reappears, a long thin object hoisted over his shoulder. He settles it against the tree trunk, the scraping of metal against wood like angels singing.

“Where did you find that?” I ask.

“Broke into the gardener’s shed. Should I climb up and help you down? What about your arm?”

“I’m all right. Just hold the bottom of the ladder.”

I feel for the lower branches with my feet, working out the stiffness in my limbs. My right leg is totally asleep. I should probably wait for feeling to return, but I’m too desperate to be back on the ground.