All patched up, darlin’.”
Gigi had spent every second that had passed since she’d left the dock telling herself that she was going to come clean. Maybe not to Nash, who, like Grayson, had a protective streak a mile wide. And probably not to Jameson, who was unpredictable, but to Avery—or maybe Xander.
“Thanks,” Gigi told Nash brightly. Maybe a little too brightly. But before he could proceed with a Southern Inquisition, there was a knock on the door to her room.
Not my room for much longer. A ball of emotion rose in Gigi’s throat as Nash answered the door.
Brady stepped into the room. He’d changed back into his regular clothes, but he was still holding the sword. Looking back, Gigi realized that he’d probably been guarding it in his own, subtle Brady way the whole night. It doubtlessly had a use in the next phase of the game—if there was a game once Gigi spilled the beans.
I know you’re out there. No, sunshine, you don’t.
“Holler if you need anything,” Nash told Gigi. He palmed his cowboy hat and gave Brady a long, disturbingly neutral look, then turned and sauntered out of the room.
Alone with Brady, Gigi developed an intense fascination with her own cuticles. She felt the mattress dip as he sat down beside her on the bed.
“You’re still in the game.” Gigi still couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She reached back to take the hair tie Brady had given her out of her hair, then handed it back to him. A muscle in her throat tightened. “Where’s Knox?”
“Why,” Brady said, “are you asking me about Knox?”
Gigi thought about Knox’s scar—but that wasn’t her story to tell. “You lied to me, Brady.”
“Technically, I lied to him, and you overheard.” Gigi shook her head. “Don’t.”
“I would tell a thousand lies,” Brady swore, as intense as she’d ever seen him, “to get her back.”
Her. Knox had been right. It was always Calla with Brady. “Winning this game won’t bring Calla Thorp back,” Gigi said.
Brady was quiet for a long moment. “What if I told you it would?”
What? Gigi searched his eyes. “What do you mean?”
Brady didn’t answer the question. “You could have told Nash about the bug just now, but I don’t think you did. You could have had the whole game called off. You didn’t.”
“I haven’t told anyone yet,” Gigi corrected. Brady didn’t even know the full extent of the secret she was keeping.
I know you’re out there. No, sunshine, you don’t.
Brady reached over to take Gigi’s hand in his. “I am asking you to let this run its course.”
Gigi felt the warmth of Brady’s touch. He wanted her to feel it.
She pulled her hand back. “Was any of it real?” she asked, her voice breaking. The way he’d touched her. The way he’d looked at her. Chaos theory.
“All kinds of things can happen,” Brady said quietly, “in a closed system.”
“Nothing in, nothing out,” Gigi said. A locked room. An island.
“I wasn’t lying,” Brady said, his voice catching a little, “when I told you that my brain likes A Lot.”
Gigi tried madly to look anywhere but at his face, and her gaze fell on the sword. “If I asked you to give that to me, would you?”
His reply was gentle. “What use would you have for it now, Gigi?”
She was out of the game, and he wasn’t. “That’s what I thought.” Gigi summoned up her best and brightest smile, because this hurt. “You wanted me to feel something for you. You wanted me to trust you and like you. Maybe you thought you could use me in the next phase of the game, if our team did make it out by dawn.” Gigi was still smiling. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t let herself stop. “You played me, Brady.”
“I’m playing like her life depends on it.” Brady leaned forward, and suddenly, Gigi couldn’t see anything but his face. “Juliet? I need this game to go on.”
That was the second time he’d called her Juliet. “I never asked,” Gigi realized. “How do you know my real name?”
Brady didn’t reply.
Was any of it real? she’d asked him.
All kinds of things can happen in a closed system.
But that system wasn’t really closed, was it? And for the first time, a possibility occurred to Gigi—not just a possibility. A likelihood.
“You know, it’s funny.” Gigi looked Brady right in the eyes. “You told me about Knox’s sponsor, but you never mentioned yours.”
Brady didn’t deny it.
Gigi thought about Knox saying that the Thorps weren’t the only game in town, saying that Orion Thorp wasn’t the only member of his family who liked to play. She thought about Brady playing the Grandest Game like Calla’s life depended on it. About Knox and his scar and the way he’d said that Calla had left.
The next thing Gigi knew, Brady was standing to go, and Xander was in the doorway.
“For what it’s worth,” Brady told Gigi, “in the last six years, there hasn’t been anyone who could make me forget Calla. There hasn’t been a single moment.” Brady almost smiled at her. “There were moments with you.”
Xander waited until Brady had left, then shut the door and turned back to Gigi with one brow raised to ridiculous heights. “I’m sensing a story.”
Gigi knew that she had to tell Xander—about the bug, the knife, Code Name Mimosas, all of it. She was going to tell him. But somehow, what came out instead was: “I lost. No Viking epics for me.”
“Says who?” Xander crossed the room and sat down beside her. “I just placed an order for a very fetching Viking helmet to don during my
recitation of said epics.”
“Like you don’t already have a Viking helmet?” Gigi replied.
“If you want to get technical, I just placed an order for a backup Viking helmet for my backup Viking helmet,” Xander admitted. “This one is quite large.”
Gigi didn’t even have to try to smile with Xander.
He nudged her shoulder playfully. “Just because you didn’t win,” Xander said, producing a scone seemingly out of nowhere and handing it to Gigi, “doesn’t mean the journey was anything less than epic. I’ve written Viking sagas for less.”
Tell him, Gigi thought, with the words on the tip of her tongue: I found a bag hidden in the brush, and inside it, there was a wetsuit, an oxygen tank, a necklace that wasn’t just a necklace, and a knife.
“I once built a Rube Goldberg machine with the sole purpose of smacking my own magnificent buttocks,” Xander said, meeting Gigi’s gaze. “I tell you this to say that I am a man of many talents—one of which is listening. I am a very good listener.”
The only reasonable thing I could possibly do right now is tell him.
What did it matter that Brady had asked her not to?
What did it matter that she’d spent countless nights staring into the darkness, waiting for Very Bad News to reappear?
What did it matter that he’d called her sunshine? “I have until noon, right?” Gigi asked.
Xander grinned. “For the ease of my future compositions, please tell me that whatever you have planned rhymes with Valhalla or cheesesteak.”
Gigi gave Xander a look. “You’re not going to ask what I’m up to?”
“Like I said, I’m a man of many talents.” Xander slung an arm around her. “Among them, I give excellent platonic snuggles, and I know when not to ask.”
