Dare Trilogy | Book 3 Editing | ✓

1.19 | Our Games + Voice Of Reason

Originally posted March 16th, 2017 | Edited on May 9th, 2018.

| . . . C H A P T E R . . . 1. 1 9 . 1 : O U R - G A M E S . . . |

I watched Kripa leave and remembered she'd seen me in my distorted state. I owed her an explanation. I asked Arnav, "Do you think she heard us?"

"Is it bad if she did?"

"Uh, yeah! Aaron and I were planning on getting her jealous to see if she liked him too before he'd asked her out."

"That makes no sense."

"He's afraid of rejection, okay?"

He scoffed, "Because that makes more sense."

I rolled my eyes, "How would you know? You've never faced rejection in your life, have you?"

He grumbled, "There was one girl."

I gaped in surprise and a bit of amusement, "Wow, someone said no to going out with you? The infamous Arnav Raizada?"

He clarified, "No, someone said no to my friendship."

The smirk vanished from my lips as I realized he was talking about me. Aaron's advice over keeping friendship over rumors returned to me. Did I do the wrong thing? Despite how things ended, when he got my messages, he cared enough to show up. That counted for something, didn't it?

Right now, having him here in front of me... it felt good. Right now, if I think about it, I did miss having him around. I had gotten used to it.

He cleared his throat before changing the line of subject, "How long since these nightmares returned?"

I blinked away from his gaze and stared up ahead, still lying in bed while he sat next to me. "Since the night I messaged you."

"What... what triggered it?"

I didn't want to tell him the reason so this time, I changed the topic "You need to stop pulling all-nighters because of me."

He faintly smiled, "You go through all this... least I can do is stay up for you."

I tried to not show the hitch of my breath. When he said certain things...! He'll say them so casually as if there is no bigger meaning behind them, as if in a blink of a moment without second thought and that doing these things are no big deal.

There was something going on in his life since he went home and came back, pissed. And yet, he was here to make sure I was okay and putting me over the wrongs in his life.

Why was he making me a priority even after the way I have been behaving with him?

I said abruptly, "Orange."

His brows narrowed in confusion, "What?"

"We never finished our game. We last stopped at N, didn't we?"

He understood I was talking about the game we were playing while in jail to distract me. Now again, I was distracting myself from these thoughts and probably from reading too much into his words and actions.

Luckily for me, even if he noticed, he played along. "Pear. Papaya. Peach. Plum. Passion fruit. Pine..."

I laughed picking my pillow from under my head and hitting his knee. "Smart ass. You're supposed to say only one."

He laughed along, "Got you to smile."

It remained on my smile as I shook my head at him. He did manage to make me smile and forget about the intense moments earlier in the night.