Playing Games
Page 19

"That's Tesla for you," Liam said, his voice wry. He glanced at me. "I can't believe you thought I was with her."
I shrugged, and thought of his hands on my inner thighs again, then shivered.
"Cold?" He looped an arm over my shoulder and pulled me close.
I'd been about to protest that I wasn't all that cold, but his arm against me felt really, really good. Comforting. Warm. Heavy and delicious. So I snuggled a bit closer and pulled out the travel guide so we could review it while we waited for the flight.
And put it away again when a cameraman was suddenly in our faces. "Katy, why don't you tell us what place you think you're at right now?"
I mentally groaned. We were sometimes dive-bombed by the cameramen who wanted us to do insta-interviews. The more footage they had, the more they could create a compelling story, I supposed. And an insta-interview usually meant that you had to get away from your partner and go quietly speak one-on-one with the camera. I'd never had one shove into my face and start interviewing me like this. Maybe it was because I was cuddled against Liam.
Good TV and all.
Damn, Liam was really good at this pretending stuff. Might as well make good TV myself. I put my hand on Liam's thigh and glanced at him, appearing to consider things. My nails scratched at his leg through his jeans, idly rubbing. "Well, there are three other teams here besides us, so we're definitely in the middle of the pack. I think that's a good thing." I squinted up at the camera. "Though I wouldn't mind if the other teams missed the flight. It sounds mean to say that, but I have to keep reminding myself that this is a race."
Liam's arm over my shoulder tightened, and I felt the muscles in his leg tense as I continued to scratch him. Then, I felt his fingers play along the edge of my shirt sleeve, brushing against my exposed skin. It sent tingles through my body.
"How do you feel about Brodie and Tesla's partnership? They seem to be dominating."
I glanced over at my brother, who was still sucking face with his partner, oblivious to the cameraman that filmed them a few short feet away. "Um, Brodie and Tesla are interesting, I guess. I was really hurt when he abandoned me, at first. But I think Liam and I are making a pretty good team." I looked up at my tall partner, whose shaggy hair was halfway in his face, covering one of his eyebrow piercings.
Liam smiled at me, that finger still teasing along my arm. "I think so."
"You two seem to be getting friendly," the cameraman prompted.
To my horror, my face turned bright red. I could feel the flush moving up my cheeks, heating them. Liam chuckled and tugged me against him, tucking my head onto his shoulder. "She's not going to answer that right now. She's too tired."
I gave the camera a yawn and snuggled closer to Liam, who made a surprisingly delicious person to rest against, and closed my eyes. I felt his fingers begin to play with one of my blonde pigtails, and I smiled to myself. Eventually, the cameraman moved on and we were left alone again.
"The coast is clear," Liam murmured. "You can wake up now."
I could. But I was suddenly exhausted and Liam was so good to lean against. I yawned again and turned my face into his neck. "Do I have to?"
I felt his laugh more than I heard it. "Nah," he said. "Take a nap. We can plot our race domination on the plane." His fingers continued to play with my ponytail, almost idly. "I'll stay awake."
And even though it wasn't fair and I should have stayed up to keep him company, he was warm and snuggly and I was so incredibly tired. Liam smelled wonderful, his neck barely brushing against my nose. I drifted off to sleep.
 
 
CHAPTER SIX
 
 
"Can I put in a request that we have more legs like the Paris one? More partner on partner action?" — Liam Brogan, Paris Leg of The World Races
 
 
When we arrived at the airport in Naples, it was late at night. We took a cab out to Pompeii, and even though it was dark, we bought tiny flashlights at one of the airport stores with the last of our money and hunted up and down along the roped off tourist areas until we found The World Races mat.
To my surprise, it wasn't a local waiting for us, but Chip Brubaker and a camera crew. Brodie and Tesla were already there, sitting off to one side, and so were Dean and Abby. Liam and I arrived in third place, and we were promptly handed our next clue.
The clue indicated that our team task would start once Pompeii opened at seven in the morning. Until then, there was nothing to do but wait.
The nice thing about this leg, though, was that we were given two hundred dollars, which we carefully pocketed. We'd been almost broke up to this point, every dollar carefully spent on food and taxis. Two hundred dollars would be a total luxury.
With nothing else to do and hours to go before daylight, we sat down with the teams to wait for the others to arrive. There was an open spot between Dean/Abby and Brodie/Tesla, but Liam's hand tugged mine, indicating we should sit a short distance away, and so we did. We kept a flashlight out, pulled out our guide book, and began to plot.
"It's a team challenge," I told Liam as we re-read the clue. We could choose 'Apollo' or 'Jupiter' according to the clue, which didn't tell us too much. "The guidebook mentions a Temple of Apollo, and a Temple of Jupiter. That has to be it."
"Maybe we have to visit one of the temples?" Liam suggested.
Made sense. "I think there's a floor plan in this thing. We could figure out which one is simpler and go to that one—"
A shoe scuffed to my side, and then Brodie was squatting next to me. "Hey, sis."
Liam leaned in front of me protectively, glaring at my brother. “Buzz off.”
I closed the guidebook and gave Brodie a suspicious look. "I see you remembered that I exist?"
"Nice to see you too." Brodie smirked. "So I guess you're still mad at me?"
"You'd guess right. You ditched me, and you've been ignoring me to play tonsil hockey with the rock star. Like I'm supposed to be grateful that you're paying attention to me now?" I shifted, moving a little closer to Liam. "You made it quite clear that you're not in this for family, and that's just fine with me."
"Look, I said I was sorry, Katy."
"Actually, you didn't—"
"How was I supposed to know the Ace would split us up?"
"Why did you use it to save another team anyhow?" I looked over at Liam. "Sorry. No offense."
"It's okay," he told me, but his face was tight with dislike as he watched my brother.
"Cause it was Tesla Spooner," Brodie told me. "Fucking hottest rock chick ever."
"So you sold me out because you wanted to make out with a rock chick?"
"Well, yeah." And he grinned boyishly.
I wanted to kick him in the nuts. "You suck, Brodie."
"I'm sorry you're still mad, Katy. I just wanted to see if you two wanted to work with me and Tesla for the rest of the race. We can still make it to the end with both of our teams, you know. I think it'd be a good thing."
I stared at my brother. "Are you serious? You ditched me and now you want my help? Our help?"