At Any Moment (Gaming The System Book 3) (13 page)

I frowned at him. “
Farscape?
”

He raised his brows at me. “Seriously? You’ve never seen
Farscape?
It’s only the best science fiction that has ever been televised. I will have to force you to watch a marathon someday so that you, too, can appreciate the genius that is
Farscape.
And there’s a hot bald woman in that, too. Zahn. She’s not as sexy as you, either. And she’s blue.”

I laughed. “Glad to know I’m sexier than the blue bald chick.”

I couldn’t eat any ice cream. The chemo diet did not allow dairy, nor did it allow soy. I was doubly screwed in that department. No frozen yogurt, either. He muttered something about ordering a snow cone machine instead.

We sat in recliners in his home theatre room to watch the episodes of this show from the early 2000s. I made it all the way through the first two episodes—the bizarre but amazingly done fantastical journey of John Crichton, hunky, brilliant astronaut from Earth who inadvertently discovered how to create a wormhole and ended up on the other side of the universe, where plants had evolved into humanoids, giant spaceships were creatures that were alive, and a strange, controlling race that looked exactly like humans, called the Peacekeepers, ruled with an iron fist of tyranny.

It was late when the second episode ended. He clicked off the widescreen TV and came to stand in front of me. “Off to bed with you, baldy.”

“I could so kick you in the nuts right now,” I muttered, yawning.

“Yeah, you aren’t very frightening when you can’t even keep your eyes open.”

“Where’s my paintball gun? I could so shoot you in the nuts right now.”

He gasped as if in remembered pain. “You are going to trigger my PTSD from the paintball war with talk like that.”

I half-heartedly kicked my foot in the general direction of his crotch and he caught my leg around the ankle, laughing.

“Bed. Now.”

And I didn’t have the energy to argue. It had been a long, harrowing day.

***

The next morning, a tiny pixie-like woman with blond hair and the highest heels I’d ever seen showed up at the house with several garment bags slung over her shoulder. I’d met her once before, when I’d lived here with Adam before the breakup. Sonia was Adam’s shopper, who stopped by every month or so with new clothes for him.

That was the day I’d discovered that what I had once thought was Adam’s knack for dressing wasn’t really a knack at all. He relied on Sonia to dress him. And she did a good job. Not only did she have great fashion sense but knew enough about him to determine his own style. Not that Adam would ever wear something he didn’t want to, and he did send some clothes away every time a delivery came.

Sonia usually just had clothes delivered to the house from the department store where she worked at Newport’s exclusive high-end mall, Fashion Island. But today she paid a visit in person and I’d learn later that it was at Adam’s request that she stop by.

Because now, Sonia wasn’t just Adam’s shopper, she was mine. And though the idea of someone else buying clothes for me didn’t thrill me at first—especially when she started talking about head-covering options and wigs—her suggestions soon intrigued me.

She took my measurements and we looked through some magazines. She asked me a big long list of questions about my own sense of style and she had color swatches. She showed me the different things I could put on my head, from creatively-tied scarves to berets to “buffs”—a thin, tube-like knit cap that hugged my scalp.

When she left, I gave Adam a tight hug and a kiss, thanking him. I actually didn’t need an excuse for wanting to be close to him but I took advantage of one whenever it popped up.

Chapter Fourteen
Adam

Over the next few days all she seemed to do was sleep, eat and watch
Farscape
with me. I wasn’t sure if it was the natural fatigue from the chemotherapy or depression. I crammed my work into the times when she was asleep, opting not to go into the office. Jordan, my CFO, brought me the important stuff I had to see to every few days and—to his credit—asked about her health and seemed concerned.

Though I was expecting “the talk” and eventually, I got it.

“So, uh…can I ask—what’s going on with you two, anyway?”

I looked at him over the paperwork he’d lined up for me to sign but didn’t answer.

“Are you two, uh… you know…?”

I started signing. “Friends? Yeah we’re friends.”

“But you’re not…together…”

“In what way does that concern you?” I asked, whisking the top paper off the stack and proceeding with the next one.

He held out a hand, looked away nervously. “Okay…I’m just trying to watch out for you, man. After last time—”

I clenched my teeth. “This isn’t last time.”

“Are you sure about that? Adam, you have a big heart and I know you feel sorry for her, but she had you tied up in knots for months…”

My pen froze and I straightened. “I don’t feel sorry for her. I love her. We’ve moved past that…or at least we’re trying to, until well-meaning people bring it up again.”

Jordan took a deep breath and let it out. “Fine. Okay. Just…just be careful, okay? You have no idea how this is all going to…shake out…” His voice died out and he grimaced as if, in hearing what he was saying, he realized how ridiculous he was being.

As if he had to remind me that I had no idea how this was going to end up. Her eighty-five percent chance had done that for me. That number hovered at the edge of my thoughts every damn day. It had stunned me speechless the first time I’d heard it at the doctor’s office and I’d buried it under a brave face ever since. Of course I had no idea how this was all going to turn out but I didn’t need Jordan’s reminder of that all-too-real fear.

I didn’t say anything for a long while, burning my way through the stack, skimming each page to make sure of what I was signing. Then I straightened and put the cap back on the pen, looking at him. “Listen. I get what you are saying, but I’m okay. And she will be, too. She’ll pull through this.”

He nodded, bent to take up the stack and then stopped, looking at me. “Yeah, she will. But after she does? What about then?”

“I realize that she’s not your favorite person—” Likely because he preferred his women dumb as toast and Emilia far exceeded his maximum IQ limit for a woman. Some men were genuinely intimidated by a smart woman. But I had no patience for this today, no matter that it was well-meaning. I clenched my teeth. “She needs friends now. Support. Why don’t you be that instead of the constant critic?”

Jordan frowned and didn’t say anything, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

“I know that my advice in the past has only made things worse for you but…Well, if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you, man.”

“Your advice is shit.” I laughed and he tilted his head and smiled self-deprecatingly.

“Hey! I was wondering if you wanted—” Emilia rounded the corner from the hallway and into my office, obviously unaware that Jordan was here. She halted in the doorway and locked eyes with Jordan—whom she sometimes referred to as her nemesis.

They stood and stared at each other in silence. She didn’t have anything on her head and Jordan was the first person besides me, her mom and my housekeeper to see her with no hair.

“Hey Jordan,” she managed weakly, her face flushing red—and the color carrying through across her naked scalp.

“Mia!” he said in a bright voice as if our previous conversation had never taken place. “Wow, you’re looking—”

“Bald?” she interrupted, putting a self-conscious hand to her head. “Shiny?”

Jordan hesitated awkwardly. “I was going to say ‘a lot better than I thought you would be looking after two weeks of chemo.’”

Mia’s brows rose. “Oh—oh…thanks.”

“I hope you are feeling okay?”

Her mouth thinned a little but she didn’t look at me. “I’m feeling great, actually. Never better.”

Jordan didn’t react to the obvious lie. Good for him. He fidgeted for a moment and then gestured to the stack of papers in his hand. “I better be getting along, but I’m glad I got to say ‘hi.’ I’m glad to see you are doing so well.”

A brief frown crossed Emilia’s face, but she thanked him, and Jordan grabbed his stuff and left.

“Wow,” she said when the front door downstairs had shut. She turned back to me with a sardonic smile curving her lips. “He must think I’m on the verge of death or something.”

I grimaced. “No, he doesn’t. Why would you say that?”

“Dude has
never
been that nice to me.”

I laughed. She laughed.

“I guess if he’s going to keep being that nice, I’ll bother to powder my head next time.” She rubbed her scalp again.

“You brazen hussy,” I said. “Flashing all that skin!”

She stuck her tongue out at me.

“Now you’re just torturing me,” I said.

She slunk around the desk in an overtly seductive manner, swiveling her thin hips in her yoga pants, and came up next to me. “Is it working?” she whispered into my ear as she put her arms around my neck.

“Mmmaybe.” I closed my laptop and turned my office chair to face her, hooking my arms around her waist and landing a light kiss on her cheek as she sank into my lap. She pulled her knees up, leaning in against my chest.

“Whoa,” I said, suddenly very uncomfortable at the closeness. I may have been joking around but it had been a while, and she was now sitting on me in her very sexy yoga pants and thin T-shirt. I had to fight a mental battle with myself not to cop a feel of her ass. Because, damn, I really wanted to.

“What’s up?” I asked a little shakily.

She shifted against me, sending a not-unpleasant jolt to parts south. “Nothing. Just wanted to say ‘hi.’”

“Okay,” I said, my mind racing to find a way to get her off my lap without hurting her feelings.

“You aren’t going to work today?”

“Naw.”

“Why not?”

“You have another round tomorrow. I thought maybe we could do something before… before you aren’t feeling so great again.”

She sighed. Her hand came up to press flat against my chest and rub it lightly. I bit down on the inside of my cheek and tried to think about something other than the fact that it had been months since I’d had sex.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Sure. Never better.”

“Jordan and your mom aren’t here now. You don’t need to lie to me.”

“Well, I’m good, really. Just got a weird e-mail, though.”

“Who from?”

“From another gaming blogger. The owner of GameGlomerate. He wants to buy out
Girl Geek
.”

“Are you kidding me?” I stiffened, leaning back to look into her face.

She smiled. “I do bullshit you a lot, but not this time.”

“Those guys are tools. Why do they want
your
blog?”

She pulled a face at me and then rested her head back against my shoulder. She fiddled with a button near the collar of my shirt. “Don’t act so surprised. It’s a good blog.”

“It’s an excellent blog. But what are they planning to do with it?”

She shrugged, avoiding looking into my eyes. “I think they are buying up several smaller popular blogs to expand their platform and readership.”

I laughed. “They could just do that the old fashioned way by writing their own content. But they’ll never be as clever as you are.”

She didn’t say anything for a while, just continued to fiddle with my shirt. I studied her. “You aren’t thinking about it, are you?”

She shrugged.

“You aren’t selling your blog, Mia.”

She looked up at me. “It’s
my
blog.”

“You’d really tolerate someone else swooping in and picking up your platform that you took years to build? All the content you’ve written, all the connections with your readers, other bloggers and commentators. What would you do without it? Why would you sell it? You don’t need the money.”

She was silent for a moment, then she quietly unbuttoned one button, opening my shirt at the neck. “I didn’t say I was selling it. But sometimes…blogging about DE can get awkward…especially with all the new traffic I’m getting about the secret quest.”

I swallowed and looked away. Her hand slipped to the next button at the base of my neck.

“What’s so awkward about it?”

She shrugged. “It feels wrong, somehow… because you and I are—because we live together.” Her verbal gymnastics were not lost on me. She was as in the dark about what this was between us as I was.

Her fingers unbuttoned the second button. I decided it would be safer to change the subject and get her the hell off my lap. “Hey, I was thinking we should take the Duffy boat out and go down to the end of the jetty. Or we can go to the Fun Zone…”

“Or…we can stay here,” she said, her hand slipping inside my shirt.

I took a deep breath and willed my hormones under control. Her hand on my bare skin was doing strange things to my ability to even think straight. I reached up and gently pulled it out of my shirt.

“Aren’t we getting together online with Heath and Kat today?” Heath couldn’t come over because he had a cold and Emilia couldn’t be around anyone who had any type of illness. The chemo made her highly susceptible to bacteria and viruses due to her suppressed immune system.

She frowned, watching me. “I think they wanted to, yeah.”

“Good. Do you want to go outside and go for a walk or something before we do that? You’ll be stuck inside for a little while after tomorrow.”

She blinked and slid from my lap, standing up. I almost sighed in relief.

“Uh. Yeah, sure. Let’s do that.”

I stood up and moved past her to grab our sweatshirts and put my shoes on. I tried to ignore the puzzled look she gave me as I passed by her. It was a mixture of surprise and hurt. I was aware I’d just rejected her advances—and that it probably hurt her feelings. I made a mental note to discuss it with her later. But not now.

Because right now, if I didn’t get out of here, I was likely to do something I’d regret—something I
really
wanted to do—like pull her back into my lap again and kiss her senseless. I’d assured her we should go slow and if I didn’t stick to my guns, disaster was likely waiting in the wings. So I willed my hormones to calm down and we got outside into the fresh air, where there was no danger of temptation.