Conventionally Yours (True Colors 1)

We dressed and collected our stuff, heading to the door together, but also oh-so-separate. Unable to stand the silence another second, I grabbed his hand right as he reached for the doorknob.

“Wait. I want to tell you good luck.” I pulled him in for a hard, fast kiss. “Forget dreading this. I want to meet you in the semifinals tomorrow morning. I want you to kick ass today.”

He gave me a nervous-looking half smile, eyes darting away from mine. “I don’t want you to lose either. Kick butt. Especially Bart’s.”

“Alden?” I still wasn’t ready to release him.

“Yeah?”

“Tell me we’ll deal. No matter what happens.”

He took a moment, breathing hard. “I want to believe we can get through this and still be…friends.”

We were so very much more than friends, but it was a start.

“We’ll find a way,” I promised, no more sure than I’d been the night before, but needing to say the words aloud, needing to will them into existence. One more quick kiss, and we were on our way over to the convention center.

Once there, a large leader board outside the tournament revealed Alden had been right. We were on the same half of the bracket, him the number three seed for his quarter, and me an eye-popping number one for mine.

“Guess that win over Arresting Aaron really helped your point total. You were his only defeat. He still squeaked into the elimination rounds.” Alden’s tone was his usual pragmatism, but his expression was harder to read. No one would have predicted me coming out with a higher seed than him. I wasn’t concerned about jealousy as much as the seeding shaking his confidence in his playing.

“Well, look at this. Representing well.” Payton came striding up in a unicorn hoodie with rainbow mane and purple skinny jeans. Messy hair and sunglasses said that they probably hadn’t slept much and had probably been out partying late. I didn’t have even a momentary pang that I hadn’t been with them. I’d been exactly where I most wanted to be, and I wasn’t regretting any time I spent with Alden. “And my grand plan to not advance didn’t fare as well.”

“Oh?” I studied the board again. “Well, crap. You’re playing Alden in Round One this morning.”

“May God have mercy on my soul.” Payton gave Alden a lopsided grin he didn’t return. “Dude, please go easy on me. Pretend I’m a newbie or something. I was out till four a.m. at this club… Don’t even remember the name. You should have come, Con. So many pretty people.”

“Eh. I had a pretty good evening.” I winked at Alden, trying to remind him of everything wonderful between us.

“So you guys are like seriously a thing now? An exclusive thing?” Mouth twisting like the word exclusive was physically painful, Payton studied us before pointing at the board. “How’s that going to work tonight if you’re both in the top four heading into tomorrow’s finals? Or only one of you? Someone’s not getting any.”

“We’ll deal.” My promise to Alden was still fresh on my lips, but I was no closer to believing it. And I didn’t get a further chance to consider it because the PA system announced the start of the first round, sending Payton and Alden off to battle with Payton still complaining about their hangover and Alden looking like he’d rather have an appendectomy.

Most of the elimination rounds would be streamed, and they were spaced further apart than the qualifying rounds, so I wasn’t too surprised when my first match was picked to be one of the ones up on the raised stage. Just make it to tomorrow. One more turn. My mantra of the last year came back to me. I didn’t want to get too ahead of myself. I’d worry about playing Alden when it was time. What I needed to focus on was making it that far, one turn at a time, trusting my cards.

I didn’t even need the headphones to find my zone that round, as I tuned everything out—all the clutter in my brain and the noise in the room, and even my opponent, an older man with graying dreadlocks and a methodical playing style. Ordinarily, that sort of well-organized player was the hardest for me to beat, but I’d both played against and watched Alden play enough that I quickly caught on to his strategy and was able to disrupt it, throw him off his flow, and come in for the win. Damn. That was a fun one.

“Good game.” The guy had a hearty handshake for me as we packed up. “You’re going to win it all.”

“You think?” I grinned at him.

“You play the right way.” He nodded at my deck. “Reminds me of how I’d play as a kid. Haven’t played against someone with your kind of spirit in years. Good luck, young man. Keep playing your game.”