Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X #1)(56)
Author: Richelle Mead

Mae didn’t have to fake her next smile. “That’s a great story.”

Leo nodded and switched back to stiff mode. He stood up and moved into the aisle. “Be right back.” After waiting for a flight attendant to squeeze past him, he turned toward the restroom.

Justin’s eyes were still on his reader. “Who was he?”

“Who was who?” Mae didn’t know if he meant Leo or Dominic.

“The love interest you went to the beach with. Some Viking nine?”

“What makes you think he was a love interest?”

“Because friends don’t rent romantic cottages on the water together.”

“I never said it was romantic.”

“Your voice did.” He finally looked up. “Everything about you softened….” His eyes lingered on her for a few seconds, and then he went back to his reading. “It’s fine. You can keep your sordid tales and ex-lovers to yourself. I mean, well, you can try to. You tell stories without even knowing it.”

Mae knew she shouldn’t engage him. If she’d learned anything, it was that Justin loved attention. Ignoring him was probably the worst punishment she could dole out. But, as so often happened, he’d managed to reach into her in a way that made it impossible not to respond.

“Why do you think he’s an ex? How do you know we’re not still together?” she demanded.

“Because you would’ve said ‘my boyfriend and I’ when you were talking. You just said ‘we.’ And although I wouldn’t put cheating past plenty of people, you don’t strike me as one of them. You wouldn’t have sought out a sensational night of sex in Panama if you were involved with someone.”

“You have a real cut-and-dried way of analyzing relationships,” she said. If he used half as much energy on solving the case as he did on her, then he’d have figured out the murders already. “You probably don’t think Leo’s story was romantic at all.”

He scoffed. “Of course not. It was a piece of bullshit. He made it up.”

Mae was floored. “Why would you say that?”

“Because it was too well rehearsed. Couldn’t you tell? There was no spontaneity whatsoever. No emotion. He’s told that story a hundred times, like he’s reading from notecards. Besides, think about Dominic…aka Mr. ‘I don’t like cities.’ Can you picture him in Vancouver, let alone Li Vale? That’s a place Leo would go, and he’s just incorporated it into this fairy tale.”

She didn’t know what to say to that right away. Leo’s story had certainly sounded thorough, but she never would’ve guessed that it was because he’d made it up. The circumstances he’d described hadn’t sounded that contrived either. People certainly met under weirder ones. Her own past was proof enough.

“Why would Leo make something like that up?” she finally asked. Justin was so frustrating, but the inner workings of his clever mind were fascinating.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Justin adopted an overly mysterious voice. “Maybe it’s a secret. Or maybe the real story’s too boring. It could’ve just been matchmaking on the stream. Who can say?”

“Are you going to ask him?”

“Nah. I’ll find out sooner or later without even trying.”

So they were back to the arrogance and self-assuredness. She was starting to think she’d imagined those brief moments of sincerity in the hospital. At least his interest in Leo had distracted Justin from his speculation on her own romantic past. Mae kept it too well guarded in her heart, and there was no way she’d put up with Justin’s analyzing that volatile roller coaster of a relationship. Leo’s story—true or not—was tame compared to the drama-filled epic of how she and Porfirio had met.

A lot of that night’s memories were a blur. Other things stood out in perfect, crystalline clarity. But then, that was how ree worked. As one of the few intoxicating substances the implant couldn’t metabolize quickly, its effects surged inconsistently throughout the prætorian body.

Cohorts on city duty sometimes pooled their resources to throw large private parties, since drunken prætorian antics in public didn’t always go over so well. The military hadn’t gone out of its way to fix the ree loophole, but everyone knew too much abuse might eventually draw the research department’s eye. The Maize cohort was responsible for the party in question that night, and it had done its best to make the gathering a showstopper, going so far as to rent out a hall with a live band and bartender. There were about a hundred prætorians there, pretty much anyone who was within a day’s travel of Vancouver.

Mae spent most of her night at a round corner table with Val and several other prætorians. Val and an Azure named Albright had just returned from South America and brought back a card game they swore was the Most Fun Ever. Unfortunately, there were a couple of problems. It was a complicated game in and of itself, and neither of them could remember all the rules. Compounded with everyone at the table’s being drunk, the whole thing was kind of a mess. Mae didn’t really mind, though. She was afloat on a ree buzz and able to roll with just about anything—or so she’d thought.

“That’s trump,” Albright told Mae as she started to play a card. He’d been particularly solicitous in tutoring her. “Save it for the next round.”

Val’s brow furrowed in thought. “No, hearts are trump.”

“I thought it was spades?” asked some Crimson across the table.

“Hearts,” Val insisted.

Albright was an extremely easygoing guy and didn’t have a problem with the switch. He leaned toward Mae, putting an arm around the back of her chair as he looked at her hand. “That one, then,” he said, pointing.

Mae, who was pretty sure everyone was wrong and that diamonds were trump, played the card without protest. Normally, she would’ve chafed at some guy attempting to take an instructive role toward her, but Albright did it in such a friendly and laid-back way that she didn’t find it threatening or overbearing. She also discovered she was liking him more and more as the night went on. Mild-mannered prætorian men were rare. Usually, they were all brash and outgoing, and she wondered if maybe this particular personality type might be a sound choice to invest in.

“That’s bullshit! I know someone who could clean the floor with you!”

Mae and Val both looked up at the same time as a loud, familiar voice carried over to them from several tables away. Even in a noisy, crowded room, the two women were always tuned in to Dag. His back was to them as he stood near a table of what looked like Violets and Indigos. Without uniforms, it was hard to remember. Regardless, Dag was clearly worked up about something as he gestured wildly with a sloshing ree cocktail and spoke to someone Mae couldn’t see.