Dirty Games

Chapter Seven

I do this often, run on the beach in the dark.

It's my time away from glowing screens and chats, a break from bits and pixels and business problems. I run, hard, my feet pounding the sand and my ears absorbing the sounds of the surf. It's nearly midnight, and the Florida summer air is something close to cool. At least it feels that way as I sprint. I want my heart to beat even faster than it did when I saw Cata an hour ago.

There's a sliver of a moon, and I think about the times we kissed on this beach. The times we swam as kids, searched for shells, held hands when we finally became a couple after graduating from high school.

I've loved her since we met. We were twelve and even then, she took my breath away. I didn't even like girls until I met Cata. Her brother brought me home for dinner, and she stared at me all through the meal with those huge blue eyes.

I slow to a walk, panting, and make my way through the sand toward my house.

I laugh out loud, the sound evaporating against the waves of the Gulf. I'm thinking of the first time we got totally naked. We were in her room, and I remember how she smiled seductively at me.

Wanna play Zelda? I asked. I was so fucking nervous.

No, she had said. I want this. I want you. She shut out the light.

She sat in my lap, and I tried to be all suave by sliding her t-shirt over her head. But somehow I got her arm stuck and tangled because I couldn't see in the dark. She laughed hard until I kissed her. Then I couldn't figure out how to unhook her bra. God, I was pitiful back then. Her parents were gone that night, and we still didn't have sex. I remember how I trembled as she stroked my bare stomach, and how we talked until dawn about everything from our favorite games (Warcraft, of course) to the craziest animals (sloths, of course).

Wiping my face with my sleeve, I go inside and take three stairs two at a time until I get to my home gym. Material things don't mean much to me, but after growing up poor, I grin every time I walk into my gym and see the iron weights on the rack, the sleek mats, the mirrors that the housekeeper wipes down twice a week.

This is here because of me. My brain. My ambition.

I drop to the mat to stretch. I hate actual gyms, I'm too much of an introvert to truly enjoy them. Liam and Sawyer are all the company I can handle, and even then, I need my space.

But I never tired of being around Cata. Instead of exhausting me like other people did, I always felt calmer in her presence. Rejuvenated. It wasn't like that with the other two girls I dated. They seemed more impressed by the house or whether I'd take them to a club in Tampa or a weekend in Miami.

I power through a circuit of ab work, grunting as I do several punishing sets. Sweating, I move to a bench and pick up my phone. Should I text Scott and ask for Cata's number? Scott and I have forged a tentative, hesitant relationship again. I don't know how he'll react if I ask for his sister's number.

I'm staring at the screen when Liam walks in.

"Dude. What was that about, downstairs? Who was she?"

I shrug. I've asked the guys not to interrupt me when I workout. Usually they don't, which must mean they're really curious about Cata.

"Old friend."

Liam smiles. "Girlfriend?"

"Something like that."

He grins. "Never knew you had one. I thought you were always the hit-it-and-quit-it type."

"Yeah, right," I say sarcastically.

That's my reputation, I guess. It's unfounded since I really don't go out with a lot of girls. I did use Tinder to hook up a couple of times, and Sawyer and Liam joked about it online a few months back. Then that online gamer magazine named the three of us on a list of the world's sexiest gamer geek guys. Since that article, everyone thinks of me as a player. Even though I'm not, I've cultivated that kind of image anyway. Anything to entertain.

"Well, the guys online really want to know. They thought she was cute. And so did Sawyer."

Neither Liam or Sawyer went to high school with Cata and me, and they don't know anything about our relationship or what destroyed it. Liam picks up a 20-pound free weight and idly does a few curls.

"She's off limits. And she's not Sawyer's type." My tone is a little harsher than intended, and Liam's eyes widen. He sets the weight back in the rack and heads for the door.

Liam grins and nods. "I get it, bro. She seems cool."

He closes the door, and I exhale. I wished I'd asked for her number, but I was so nervous when she was here that I didn't. Sometimes I'm so fucking stupid. Like I was all those years ago.

When Cata's photos popped up on every phone on Palmira that summer, she was so pissed at me. I figured we needed to cool off for a while, then we'd get back together.

I thought I was doing the right thing by telling her to go to New York a few weeks early, before school started. I told her to forget about me.

I assumed she'd move on anyway, being in New York. I figured she wouldn't have wanted a guy like me, working retail at a game store on a Florida island and going to community college? Back then, she was headed to Columbia University, poised to get the best internships, make new friends. Date guys who were the opposite of me: extroverted and rich.

I let her down because I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I knew what was best. Stupid move on my part. Turns out I had no clue about anything, and I pushed her away.

Like I said, sometimes I'm so fucking stupid. But maybe, just maybe, she'll give me another chance.

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