Out of Character (True Colors 2)

“Lee’s?” Plenty of people in the area relied on chain places, but Lee’s was a Gracehaven institution, and a love of their doughnuts was one of the few things our dads had in common. When I was a kid, my dad often retrieved a box on Saturday mornings when Milo stayed over, and we’d bickered over our favorite flavors.

“Of course. Picked out a couple. One’s that chocolate-chocolate one you used to love.”

He’d remembered that little tidbit, too, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from beaming. It was a doughnut, not an engagement ring, and going out of his way to get them probably only meant he’d been hungry. “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that, but I’m not going to turn down chocolate-chocolate.”

“Eh. I needed coffee and didn’t want to wake Luther by rattling around the kitchen. He worked overnight.”

Poof. A lot of my good feelings toward Milo evaporated at the mention of his bully of a friend. Maybe Milo’s main sin was not speaking up, but Luther and James had been actively awful to me and my crowd in high school. Teasing. Pranks. Showboating. General assholery. Milo wanted me to believe he’d changed, but I wasn’t sure how to trust that when he was still associating with jerks and bullies.

“Luther has gainful employment? And let me guess, James lives there too?”

“Yeah. They both work for a janitorial company. And before you give me a lecture, I didn’t have a ton of housing options after my…accident. Their other roommate had recently moved out—”

“Probably wised up,” I grumbled. Outside the weather was equally bleak, with none of the sunny energy of my summer trip, and I again questioned the wisdom of trying to help Milo.

“Not gonna dispute that. They’re kind of shit roommates. But it was that or keep hogging my mom’s spare room. After Dad died, she found this little garden apartment over by the university. She can walk to work when the weather’s nice. It’s perfect. But small. She would have let me stay, but…”

“You felt bad. I get that. I’m glad my scholarship covers the dorm. But all my buddies were able to afford apartments for senior year, and I’m stuck in the oldest of the upper-class dorms. Still, though, I’d take my hole-in-the-wall over living with freaking Luther and James.”

“Trust me, I would too.” He gave me a little smile as we approached the outer limits of Philly. Somehow we’d killed an hour chatting. And that probably hadn’t been the smartest because now he was even more of an enigma to me—a grieving son and a nice guy who brought me my favorite doughnuts, but also a pushover still relying on Luther and James way too freaking much. But that smile…that was the biggest problem, the way it made warmth start at my toes and snake its way north. It was going to be a long day, and I needed to focus on winning cards, not earning more smiles from a guy I was supposed to hate.

Chapter Ten

Milo

“Whoa.” I stopped short as Jasper and I entered the hotel conference-center lobby. I’d been surprised enough when his directions led us downtown instead of to a strip mall in the burbs or something like that. And now we were surrounded by people. A lot of funny, nerdy T-shirts. Tons of deck bags like what Jasper was toting. More gender and age diversity than I’d been expecting—everything from little kids to clumps of teens to older adults. “This is a lot of gamers. I’d expected a game store like in our town.”

“Bigger tournaments are usually in conference centers like this. They need more room than a single game store can provide. But the local game stores get billing as sponsors.” Jasper joined a huge line waiting to get to the registration table.

“Cool. This is like nerd—”

Holding up a hand, Jasper hardened his tone. “You might want to consider your next words. Poking fun at gamers isn’t going to make me want to win your cards back.”

“I wasn’t going to make fun!” God, was he always going to assume the worst of me?

“Oh?” His skeptical expression said yes. Yes, he was going to make those assumptions.

“I was going to say ‘nerd heaven.’ And it’s a lot of people. That’s all.” Maybe calling it nerd heaven was bad because Jasper didn’t crack a smile. I rambled ahead, trying to figure out how to redeem myself. “I didn’t realize gaming was that popular. This is more than the turnout for some of my college’s home games. It’s impressive.”

“It’s massively popular all over the world. And this is actually a little smaller than some of the regional tournaments. I’ve played in bigger.” Jasper’s shoulders lifted, and his voice lightened the way it always did when he bragged. I wasn’t supposed to find that appealing but it did something for me, his confidence infectious.