laying Games (Games #2)(28)
Author: Jessica Clare

Unfortunately with the way he was looking at me at the moment? We’d moved past disappointed and straight to furious.

"So. Has all of this been a set-up, then?"

It was my turn to be confused. "What do you mean, a set-up?"

He gestured expansively. "All of this. Splitting up. Romancing me and romancing Tesla and then working together behind our backs. Is all of this a set-up to push your way to the win?"

My jaw dropped. "What? No!"

"Really? Because that’s not what I’m seeing. I’m seeing someone that was mad that she was partnered with me, and then kissed me out of the blue not a day later. And I couldn’t figure it out." He gave a wry snort. "I mean, you didn’t act like a groupie. That I know how to handle. And here I thought you were just a nice girl having fun. Maybe the pigtails fooled me. But those aren’t you either, are they? It’s all for the show. Everything."

I ran a hand over my pigtails and shook my head. "You’re wrong."

He put his hands up, as if to stop my argument. "Just tell me one thing. Did he promise to split the prize money with you if you helped him?"

I was silent, rather horrified. Brodie had promised to split the prize money. "It’s not what it looks like, Liam—"

"Fuck." He shook his head. "I can’t believe you f**king slept with me just to win some money."

I grabbed one of the pillows off the bed I sat on and threw it at his head. "I didn’t sleep with you for some prize money, you a**hole."

"Then why did you?"

"I thought I liked you. I guess I was wrong," I said bitterly. "You’re kind of a dick."

"Yeah, well, you’re kind of fake."

"Fuck you."

"Have you been throwing challenges?"

"Have I what?"

"Throwing challenges. You know. So your precious brother could catch up."

"Are you kidding me?" I thought my jaw couldn’t drop any lower. I was wrong. "You really think I’ve been throwing challenges?"

"I don’t know what to think anymore."

"Gee, if my memory serves me correctly, someone on this team’s been sucking at challenges and it wasn’t me." I tapped my finger on my chin as if mockingly contemplating things. "Who sucked at oil wrestling? Who sucked at eating mukluk? Actually, I should be asking you if you were throwing challenges – you’re the one that started fighting at the oil wrestling and made us lose six hours!"

The look on his face could have iced a glacier. "I attacked your brother because I didn’t like the way he treated you. I see now I was misguided and it was all just to f**k with my head. I’m sorry I bothered."

My jaw worked silently. I could think of nothing to say. The hurt spiraling through me – and the anger – was too intense. "You’re wrong about me."

"Yeah? Prove it, then."

"How?" I snapped at him. "No matter what I do, you think I’m helping my brother out."

"Don’t f**k us in the challenges in this last leg. If we win, I’ll know you weren’t lying. If you throw the challenge just to let your brother get ahead? I’ll know where things really stand."

"Fine."

"Fine, then."

"All right."

He glared at me, then shook his head, getting to his feet. "I’m not staying in here tonight. I’ll find someplace else to crash."

"Whatever," I yelled after his back.

He slammed the door and I was left alone in the hotel room. I flopped back on the bed, utterly furious.

Throwing challenges? Working with my brother behind his back?

I’d have been utterly furious…except that the more I thought about it, the less innocent my part in things seemed to be. How was it that I’d had the best intentions and still gotten screwed in this?

And how was it that I’d had the attention of a guy that seemed utterly perfect for me…and managed to somehow mess that up?

Abby was right – this wasn’t reality, and it was messing with my head. I was ready for this race to be over so I could go back to my real life. At least there, I knew how things stood. There, rock stars with delicious tattoos and sexy piercings didn’t romance me and drag me into bed, or trace tiny circles on my arms as I leaned against him. No one was so attuned to being with me that he had to touch me all the time.

That was reality.

This? This was just a dream that had turned into a nightmare.

CHAPTER TEN

"Everything’s all wrong. All wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it. All I know is that I don’t know if I can trust Katy, and that makes me so goddamn miserable I can’t stand it. I’m in love with her and I don’t know if I’m being played for a fool." — Liam Brogan, Final Leg of The World Races

Liam didn’t return to our room that night. I didn’t see him again until it was nearly time for us to depart, and he met me on the mat, thin-lipped and frowning in my direction.

"Hi," I said softly as I took my place on the mat next to him. "Where’d you sleep?"

He shrugged. "Didn’t sleep. Just needed to get my thoughts together."

"Oh." I studied him. He looked more than tired, he looked…done. Like all the fun had gone out of this and he wanted to be anywhere but standing next to me. Which hurt. "You know, Liam—"

"Let’s just race, okay, Katy? I don’t feel like talking right now."

I forced myself to put on a carefree smile. "Sure. Whatever."

An assistant ran up, tapping her watch. "Time to go." She handed us our clue and we watched the cameraman approach. When he gestured for us to begin, I offered the clue to Liam. Normally I was the one that read them, but that was back when we were a happy little team.

Not when I was Katy, Scheming Sister From Hell.

He nodded at me. "You go ahead."

"Gee, thanks." I flipped The World Races disk and peered at the writing. It was dark out, the middle of the night. "Make your way to Betsy Ross’s House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is the last leg of the race. You have one hundred dollars." I pulled the money out and brightened, smiling at Liam. "This might be the first place we’ve gone where we didn’t have to exchange anything."

"Let’s just head to the airport," he said, putting his hands on his backpack straps and walking forward.

My face fell. Was he going to be like this for the rest of the trip?

If so, this was going to quite possibly be the longest leg ever.

It definitely felt like the longest flight ever, I thought to myself as we sprinted off the plane some thirty hours later. Two layovers and more hours in an uncomfortable airline seat than I could imagine, but we had landed at our final destination. All three teams were on the same flight – Summer and Polly had been at the very back of the plane, and Tesla and Brodie had been toward the front. Liam and I got the last two seats and had spent every leg of the flight separated.

I’m sure that made him happy.

It was awkward, though. We’d gone from awkward, unhappy team to fun, happy couple, right back to awkward, unhappy team. Liam didn’t talk to me during layovers, even though we sat next to each other. He just put his earbuds in and began to tap a beat out on his bag, lost in music and looking everywhere but at me.

I tried not to let it bother me too much. The others had given us a few curious looks, but no one came over to chat except for Brodie, and I’d chased him off. The last thing I wanted was to sit down and have a long pow-wow with the brother I was supposedly in cahoots with.

At least we’d finally landed. I was the first racer out of the plane, and had to stand around and wait for my partner. Brodie and Tesla raced past with a smirk, but Liam wasn’t too far behind.

"Let’s get a cab," was all he said to me.

"Fine."

Cabs were easy to find at the airport, at least, and we ran to one just as Brodie and Tesla’s cab pulled out ahead of us. "Do you know the way to the Betsy Ross House?" Liam asked the cab driver, tossing his bag into the trunk. I shrugged out of my pack and moved to set it in the trunk next to his, but to my surprise, Liam took it from my hands and placed it next to his. At least his chivalry remained in place.

"Yep," the cab driver said easily, then eyed the cameras. "You guys in some kind of race?"

"Yes," I told him, sliding into the back seat. "Can you drive fast?"

"Lady, you ain’t seen fast," he told us as he moved back to the front seat. He got in and adjusted the rearview mirror as Liam sat next to me and closed the door to the cab. "You look familiar."

"I get that a lot," Liam said, but didn’t offer an explanation.

"Buckle in," the cab driver told us. And then we peeled out of the airport. The lurch of the car flung me, headfirst, into Liam’s lap – I hadn’t finished buckling myself in. And my chin went right into his crotch.

Warm hands helped me upright. "Careful," Liam murmured. His grip seemed to linger on me for a moment longer than necessary, and then his hands went to the belt. "Like he said, buckle in."

"Getting there," I whispered, feeling a bit breathless and hot at Liam’s touch. Maybe all wasn’t lost between us. Maybe he’d had a chance to stew on his doubts and realized that I wasn’t leading him on.

But Liam didn’t say anything else, and I sighed and buckled myself in.

A short time later, we pulled up to the Betsy Ross House just in time to see Brodie and Tesla disappear inside. We were right on their heels.

"Wait here," Liam told the cab driver as he grabbed my hand and we raced after the yellow team. The Betsy Ross house was a quaint little woodsy courtyard in the middle of the city, an old-fashioned flag fluttering on one wall. There was a large tree in the front and several small cafe tables, but no World Races mat. It had to be inside.

We made our way inside, and sure enough, at the front door stood a woman dressed in a white cap and old fashioned clothing. She smiled at us, disk in hand. The disk was labeled clearly with "Individual Challenge."

I looked at Liam. "You or me?"

"I’ll do it," he said, and stepped onto the mat.

"You sure?"

"Can’t think that Betsy Ross was famous for eating disgusting things," he murmured, and cast a sideways look at me. "We’ll be fine."

I nodded, but felt a little easier. Liam didn’t seem to be as angry. Guarded, yes. Angry, no.

"Betsy Ross was the creator of the original American flag," Liam read aloud. "Outside of this building, you passed by a replica of the original flag. In the next room, there are two hundred and thirty seven incorrect replicas and three correct. Find a correct flag and return it to the judge for your next clue." He turned and looked at me. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck," I told him softly.

He opened the door to the room and stepped inside, and I caught a glimpse of hundreds of flags, a cacophony of red, white and blue stripes. I winced in sympathy. The flag might be easy to identify if you knew what you were looking for, but digging through all of those? They’d start to look the same after a while.

"You can go to that room and wait," the judge told me, gesturing at a door at the far end of the small room.

I nodded and stepped through the doorway. There was a small side room with three chairs lined perfectly in a row.