“Card is legal.”
“Thank fuck,” I muttered before I could remember not to curse where the streamers could catch it. I finished my turn with shaking hands, waiting for Bart to try another trick, maybe try to remove the card or steal it for his side of the board. But he had nothing, and I went on to win by the narrowest of margins, down to my last two lives when I wiped him out.
I didn’t get a “good game” from Bart, and I was sure he only shook my hand because cameras were rolling, but elation filled me nonetheless, making my soul float around the rafters of the cavernous space.
“Dude! Way to go!” Payton was waiting for me near the monitors when I finished packing up. “Now, where do you want to eat? You deserve whatever you want after wiping the floor with him like that.”
“Thanks. I just need to find—”
“Good game.”
I whirled around to find the thing I wanted most right there behind me. Alden. He had been watching. My insides wobbled, not sure whether this was a good thing or not, but I knew in my bones that I’d done the right thing, going for the win, not just letting Bart walk all over me.
“Thanks.” I wanted to reach for him, but the wariness in his eyes held me back.
“Proud of you. You did it.”
“Yeah.” My shoulders lifted, his pride almost better than my own. “Now, where are we going to eat? Payton’s already said they’re paying.”
“You guys go on. I’ve got a headache after all the noise today. Think I’ll go back to the room, rest my brain. But you have fun.”
“Are you sure?” I touched his arm. “I can find you some tea or something? I don’t have to go—”
“Yes, you do. You earned it,” he said firmly. Firmer than a guy with a killer headache should be able to manage. Hell. He was usually honest to the point of bluntness, but apparently he’d added lying to his skill set. And I had no idea how to call him on it, not in public, and not without a huge argument.
“I don’t want to go without you. Especially not if you’re sick.”
“Just let me rest.” He managed a crooked smile that was at least half grimace. “Introvert, remember? I’ll be fine. I need to recharge, that’s all.”
“Okay.” I reluctantly let him go off and headed out with Payton, but I worried about him the whole time we ate. The restaurant was an upscale fusion place, and Alden would have hated it—orange chicken tacos and Greek nachos and Thai pizza. I thought about texting him a pic of the menu, but didn’t want to bother him if he really was ill and needing to rest. After, I begged off of postdinner clubbing.
“Oh, I see how it is.” Payton gave me a pointed look but didn’t try too hard to convince me to party. As a result, it wasn’t that late when I let myself back into the hotel room, but the place was dark. The light from the bathroom revealed the barest hint of an Alden-sized lump in the far bed.
“Alden?” I whispered. No response. I wanted to slide into bed next to him, pull him close, but that seemed pretty selfish if he was headachy and already asleep. Reluctantly, moving slowly with plenty of time for him to wake up and call me over, I undressed, not caring where my clothes landed.
Still nothing, not even a whisper. I crept over to the other bed. Nothing from Alden, not even the sort of tossing and turning I’d come to expect from him. I lay there, not six feet from him and still missing him terribly. Should I say something? Do something? Hell. I just didn’t know. I might have won big that day, but thoughts of all I might have lost kept me wide awake.
Chapter Thirty
Alden
I heard Conrad come in. Because of course I did. I’d heard him in the hall, too, and that’s when I’d stopped fooling around on my phone and dove under the covers like the coward I was. I didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to talk about tomorrow, the looming match between us, mere hours away, about all the ways things might change. I’d watched him play Bart, and he was nothing short of brilliant, making my chest ache with how good he was.
“That’s how the game is meant to be played,” someone had said behind me, and it was true. Conrad was the epitome of everything that was awesome about Odyssey. Other than the rares he’d scored by opening packs the old-fashioned way, he didn’t have the high-dollar cards or the showy, complicated play style, but what he had was an understanding of the heart of the game. And he deserved to win.