Page 33 of Playing Pretend

Footsteps approach. Colleagues pass.

My pulse kicks every time something moves in my periphery, my fight-or-flight instincts well and truly enabled.

Someone chuckles ahead to the right. A woman. No threat.

Then a twig snaps to my left. Close.

I hold my breath.

“Let’s get this over and done with.” Rome walks around the tree to stand over my right shoulder. “Get your embarrassment out in the open. Say whatever you need to say to stop fixating on what you walked in on.”

I ignore him and cling to the trunk, peering around my hiding place as I pretend to be fully invested in the stupid flag-capturing game. “I’m not going to fixate.”

“So it’s not playing on a loop in your head. You’re not picturing my di—”

“No.” I cringe.

He sighs. “I’m a guy, Piper. I jerk off sometimes.”

“I’m well aware.” If I was pink before, I must be scarlet now. Probably fluorescent. “I could’ve done without the demonstration, though.”

“I should’ve locked the door.”

“We never should’ve shared a room.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

I swing around to face him. “You were saying my name.”

His chin raises. A knee-jerk reaction. The slightest show of discomfort from a usually unflappable man.

I hate this. I hate everything about it.

The explicit flashbacks. The awkwardness.

I can still hear the way he said my name. The cadence. The tone.

“Were you goading me into walking in on you?” I ask. “Did you want that to happen?”

“No.” He shoves a rough hand through his hair. “Believe me, seeing you disgusted like this is something I’d never want.”

My heart becomes a frantic butterfly in my chest. What I feel is far from disgust. I’m embarrassed, the uncomfortable heat of it sinking right down to my bones. “Then why were you saying my name?”

His arm falls to his side, his eyes turning pained. “Why do you think?”

Because he was kidding around and things got out of hand… Because he wanted to bait me… Because he…

“You’re gorgeous, Piper. It’s not unnatural for me to fantasize about you.”

I stop breathing.Again.

He seems to have mastered that newfound skill since we arrived here, and it can’t continue. I need to be able to breathe around my best friend, otherwise how can we continue being friends at all?

“Don’t look at me like that.” He inches forward.

I try to scramble backward, every one of my nerves hyperalert as my ass bumps into the tree.

“Please, Piper. Don’t make this into a big deal. It was pleasure. Nothing more.”

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