Roll Against Discovery (3d20 Book 3) (4 page)

Evan and Trevor didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere else. The three of us hung out, hit up various panels, and wandered through the Dealers’ Room more times than I could count. I’d never had so much fun doing random things. Innuendo and jokes flowed between us. It seemed like no topic was off limits, and that included quantum theory and whether or not Hentai—animated Japanese porn—was a legitimate art form.

The clock crept toward five, and then the afternoon blasted into evening. None of us mentioned going our separate ways, and with no real lags in conversation, I wasn’t going to be the one to cut things short. We took a break from the crowds, to stroll a few blocks and grab dinner at a tiny place Trevor swore had the best Tiramisu in existence. I had to agree, and it wasn’t only because it was too fun taking turns feeding each other. I tried to ignore the fading light outside, and that it meant this day would end sooner rather than later.

My phone buzzed with a text from Jackson.
Never heard back. You’re good?

I frowned at the message, guilt marring my good mood.
I’m sorry. I should have let you know. It was just a game, apparently. Explain more when you get here.

His reply came through a moment later.
About that… Zoe’s working late. We don’t want to go without her. See you there tomorrow?

Totally.
I couldn’t ignore my ambivalence. On the one hand, I’d been looking forward to hanging out with Jackson, his boyfriend Carter, and their girlfriend Zoe. On the other, if they weren’t here, I didn’t have to choose who to spend time with.

Evan covered my hand with his. That seemed to be his default—a hint of contact here, a light touch there. I didn’t mind. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“It’s all good.” I grabbed my smile. Might as well focus on the positive. “My friends can’t make it until tomorrow.”

“So no one’s going to notice if we kidnap you?” he asked with a teasing grin.

I painted on a wide-eyed look of shock. “Oh no, mister. Are you going to steal me away and tie me up and do naughty things to me?” Actually, I liked the sound of that.

He ducked in and brushed my earlobe with his lips. “Only if you beg.” His voice was low and husky.

My laughter died in my throat when I met Trevor’s narrow-eyed gaze. His scowl vanished in an instant, expression going blank. Had I done something wrong? I was taking things too far, and he was tired of me. Nothing else made sense. Not anything else I was willing to believe. It definitely wasn’t jealousy. Evan was friendly, but I had no illusions this meant more to either of them than a bit of fun and distraction.

Evan sank back into his seat, breaking all contact with me. “The truth this time. This is a first for you.”

At least now I understood what he was talking about. I could deny it again, but they already suspected otherwise. That, and temporary relationship or not, I didn’t want to keep building secrets on lies. “Being picked up by two gorgeous guys? Taken back to their room. Ravaged? This is a first.”

“You don’t seem to have a problem with it,” Trevor said.

“Should I?” Besides the complete unlikeliness of it happening, the entire thing had been amazing. It still was.

Evan studied me. “Some people do.”

“Not the people who say yes, I hope.” I winced as the words slipped out. I didn’t want the reminder this wasn’t special.

Trevor drummed his fingers on the table. “Actually… Those people. Yes. I mean, it’s all consensual and they enjoy it as far as I can tell, until it comes time to admit to anyone else what they’ve done.”

“That sucks.” I couldn’t think of a better way to phrase it. “Why go participate if you’re not cool with it?”

Trevor turned away, fiddling with his straw.

Evan clenched his jaw and paused for a moment before responding. “Fantasy fulfillment. Right? No one actually has three person relationships.”

“Sure they do.”

Two heads snapped in my direction, eyes wide. “Not in real life,” Trevor said.

“Yes, in real life.” For a couple of guys who shared women for fun, they were a little closed-minded. “My brother has a boyfriend and a girlfriend.”

Trevor shook his head and gave a snort. “And they know about each other?”

“They all live together. Happily.” Jackson didn’t mind discussing his relationship, but I didn’t like the questions with underlying hints of judgement. Especially given how Evan and Trevor spent their morning. As in, fucking me.

“Really?” Evan’s tone held no disbelief. His expression was open, and his tone curious.

Trevor frowned. “That’s three people out of millions. I’m not saying I have a problem with it, but their experience doesn’t make it status quo, or even likely anywhere else.”

“Anyway.” Evan’s voice was clipped—a sharp contrast to seconds ago. “What’s next?”

Trevor shrugged. “Whatever.”

A chill from the air conditioner sped down my spine. Or I was pretty sure that’s what caused me to shiver. “Viewing room?” I tried to keep my tone light, wanting to go back to the fun we’d been having before the conversation turned serious.

They exchanged a look I couldn’t interpret, with Trevor’s lips drawn into a thin line, and creases marring Evan’s forehead.

A buzz broke the bizarre staring match, and Trevor grabbed his phone from his pocket. “Fuck.” He scowled at the device.

“Work?” Evan asked.

And like that, the tension vanished. Or maybe it had never been there, and I was paranoid.

Trevor nodded, scrolling through something on screen. “Servers crashed. Night guy can’t get them back online. May have to drive to the data center.”

The words had meaning to me, but only barely. Their biggest significance was the reminder we all had lives outside this pocket of reality we’d built around ourselves.

He pushed away from the table and stood, scowl stamped on his face. “This might take a while. I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” Evan nodded at something behind Trevor.

“Sure.” Trevor pressed his phone to his ear, and seconds later, stepped outside.

I felt like I missed something significant. “What was that about?”

“If he has to drive out to where the machines are, he’ll be a couple of hours. He’ll meet us when he’s done.” Evan offered me his hand. “That is, unless you want to call it a night.”

“Not without you.” The words were bolder than I expected from myself, but they tasted right. I placed my palm in his and stood. What would it be like to have the kind of connection with someone, that an entire conversation could be conveyed in a couple of words and a tilt of the head? Evan didn’t let go of my hand right away, but when we stepped outside, his fingers drifted from mine. We meandered down the streets.

“Where are you from?” he asked. “What lucky city claims you, when the weekend is over?”

The way he phased the question filled me with a pleasant glow. Then again, most of what Evan said to me sounded both flattering and sincere. “I’ll be heading back to a town a whole ten or fifteen minutes away. I’m local.”

“Really?” If it was possible for a single word to embody the term
pleasantly surprised
, he’d pulled it off perfectly. “Us too.”

My pulse leaped in my veins. That meant seeing them after the weekend was a possibility. I shelved the thought quickly, but not before disappointment set in with the reminder this wasn’t what we had. “So getting a room makes it easier to pick up…” My question died in my throat. I didn’t want to hear his answer. Well, the morbid part of me did, but the rest of me already knew I was just a random girl in the right place.

Evan glanced at me, expression unreadable. “No.” His refusal sounded as sincere as everything else he’d said. “It was so… uh…” He looked away. “Because it’s more convenient than heading home at night. You know?”

“I do know. Me too.” So why did it feel like the one thing he’d said today that wasn’t one-hundred-percent honest?

Silence descended over us. I turned my attention to my feet. Small talk had never been my forte.

“Is Trevor in IT?” I blurted out the first question that popped into my mind. When I didn’t get a response, I glanced sideways, to see Evan studying me.

He smiled and looked away, shoving his hands in his pockets. “He is. Director for a little start-up that makes web applications.”

“That’s cool.” Way to be witty, me. This hadn’t exactly opened the floodgate of conversation I hoped for. Except, now that I’d broached the subject, I wanted to know more about both these men whose lives I’d dropped into for a day. “What do you do?”

He relaxed his shoulders and seemed to walk straighter. “I’m a Materials’ Process and Physics Technical Analyst, at Boeing.”

My mind ground to a stop, stuttering on the words. I got the basics of what Trevor did—I was telephone support for networking hardware. Whatever Evan just said had no bearing in my world. I’d expected him to say Sales, or something along those lines. That was what I got for making assumptions. “I… What?”

His chuckle had the same lighthearted feeling as earlier. At least he was over the weird tension. “I’m a chemical engineer, and I work with the compounds they use for planes.”

Oh. “That sounds infinitely more genius-level than… Well, anything, really.”

“It’s not.” He settled a hand at the small of my back, to point me toward the intersection. His touch lingered, and warmth from his palm spread over my skin. “It’s just a different way of looking at the world.”

“Standing on my head is a different way of looking at the world.” I realized he’d been the one leading the conversation about quantum physics, earlier. Something told me he was a lot smarter than he let on. It wasn’t that he acted stupid; it was that never once during the entire day had he talked down to anyone.

“It’s true. It is.” He glided his hand along my back and hooked it on my hip, pulling me closer. The gesture felt natural, and I leaned into him. We slowed our pace to make it easier to walk that way. “But the job is what I have a knack for. It’s cool, but it doesn’t make me special. What do you do?”

Things way too boring and trite, compared to a guy who designed stuff for planes. “Tech support.” My answer came out flat.

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s not bad.”

“But it’s not great. What would you rather be doing?”

My instinct was to keep my answers short. To redirect the conversation back to him. Except he sounded genuinely interested. “Teaching.”

“As in, school? High-school kids or something?”

Embarrassment flooded me. “Aikido.”

“Really?” The single word exuded curiosity. “That’s really cool. You must be amazing, to be able to teach.”

“I’m a black-belt. I think I’m pretty good.” My sensei said I had a natural talent for it, but saying so felt like bragging.

We reached the hotel, stepped out of the flow of traffic, and paused in the lobby. I wasn’t ready for this night to end. Evan faced me but never broke contact. Admiration shone on his face. “That’s wicked. I bet you’re better than you let on. Why don’t you do that, then? Are the jobs hard to get?”

I didn’t do
that
, because I was too shy to stand in front of a class and teach. I’d thought I could do it, but I flopped fantastically during my interview audition. Completely froze, in front of a group of new students. I couldn’t admit that to Evan, though. “I’m not good enough to ne an instructor.”

He traced his fingers lightly down my arm. “You’re being modest.”

“There’s no way you can know that.” I desperately wanted the conversation to focus on anything but me. I didn’t mind the attention—I couldn’t think of the last time anyone was so interested in hearing about my life, and it made me feel wonderfully gooey inside. But if we talked about it much longer, I had a feeling I’d have to keep making things up, to hold his interest, and temporary relationship or not, I didn’t like the idea of deceiving him. “Did you have to go to school for your job? I mean, of course you did.”

“Yup.” His mouth twisted, and he studied me. “Five years, Master’s of Science. I did a little sparring in Basic, but nothing as intensive as aikido.”

And now we were back on me. “Basic. As in… You were in the army.”

“Four years. It’s how I paid for college. And learned to work on and fly helicopters. Would you show me some of what you know?”

The request knocked me off guard. “What? Like, now?”

“Sure.” He tugged my fingers. “Hotel’s got a workout room with yoga mats. Show me a couple of throws or tumbles?”

He was a foot taller than me and had to be at least fifty pounds heavier, and he wanted me to show him some throws? “I’m not really dressed for it.”

“Nothing intensive.” He pulled me toward the exercise room. “Unless you really don’t want to.”

Did I? The answer rushed to me more quickly than I expected, almost bowling over my thoughts. “I’d definitely like to.”

The room was empty. At least that was something. I set my shoes by the edge of the pads, and he mimicked my actions. My heart hammered in my chest with both fear and excitement. I wanted to impress him, but I also didn’t want anyone to get hurt.