Page 13 of Dichotomy

Sure, Liam and Sebastian had set up a mini-command center in the office of the apartment, but I was used to pulling twenty-hour days. Working from 5:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at SDS, then turning around and going to work for the Archers till the early hours of the morning. I was used to always being on the go. Always immersed in work, not being forced to just sit and do nothing. The guys meant well, I knew that, but I couldn’t just sit around. I was going to go crazy. It was 11:30 a.m., and I had already reorganized my closet three times.

Like an answer to my prayers, there was a knock on the door. I flew to the door, sliding across the polished floor in my socks in a move that would make my eight-year-old self proud.

Sebastian’s smiling face greeted me through the peephole. I threw open the door. Relief rushed through me. I thought he was at the office.

“Evie, my darling!” Sebastian smacked a kiss on my cheek as he breezed by me. He set down his armload on the coffee table. Takeout bags from my favorite Italian restaurant sat on top of a stack of board games. I arched an eyebrow. Board games?

“I thought you were supposed to be at the office?”

Sebastian, more than anyone, had been slammed this week, as a lot of Citadel’s former clients needed security systems. The product team had been slammed.

“Why would I be at the office when I could be home with you?” Sebastian’s easy reply had my heart swooning even as I kept my face neutral.

“Charmer,” I accused him, but I grinned. My playful golden retriever was the perfect cure for my boredom. And maybe we could finish what we started the other day in the office breakroom.

“Anything for my darling,” Sebastian said. He clapped his hands together. “So! We have options. Obviously, I brought food. It’s not Alexander’s lasagna, but it’ll do. And then I brought board games, or we can go spar down in the gym.”

Clearly, the guys had been picking up on the restless energy I was trying to hide.

“It’s that obvious?” I frowned. I thought I had been doing a good job of acting like everything was normal, but if my restlessness was showing, was I slipping up in other areas? I couldn’t afford to slip up with the FIA watching me so closely.

“Only for us, because we care. So what will it be?”

I thought about it. Sparring sounded great, but it was probably just going to amp me up further. Plus with the concussion I should probably be taking it easy. And I hadn’t played a board game in forever. “Let’s play board games.”

“Good choice,” Sebastian said, pulling containers out of the takeout bag. “But first, food.”

We ate in comfortable silence. Sebastian was never at a loss for words, but he seemed content to just sit and eat, and by the end of lunch, I was already relaxing back on the couch. My restlessness seemed to settle just from being in his very presence. Part of me hated that they all had that effect on me—a byproduct of having to do everything and handle everything myself—but the larger part of me appreciated it. I wasn’t used to being cared for, but I was learning.

Sebastian cleared our plates and took them to the kitchen. I leaned forward to peruse the board game options he had brought. The classics were all there: Monopoly, Clue, Sorry, Candyland, and more. A slightly battered box at the bottom of the stack caught my eye, and I grinned.

Alone in my apartment with one of my attractive boyfriends? This game was perfect. Maybe it was the intimate moment we shared at the office earlier this week, but I was comfortable with Sebastian. It wasn’t that I ever felt unsafe with any of them, but I was more comfortable initiating things now. At least, I wanted to be. And Sebastian seemed to bring out the lighter, more playful side of me. Like remnants of a childhood I should have had instead of the one I did.

“Twister?” Sebastian said from behind me. He grinned when he pointed to the box I held. “Good choice.”

I grinned at him. “Ready to be beaten?” I was pretty flexible. I had to be, as the Archers often got me into tight spaces. Grace wasn’t the only one who’d had to hide in a cabinet or two over the years.

“Oh, you’re going down,” Sebastian said, rounding the couch.

We lifted the coffee table and moved it against the wall of windows, clearing a space to spread the mat out.

“Who’s going to spin the dial?” I asked, frowning. I hadn’t thought of that.

“I have an app on my phone that calls out a color based on a computer-generated spin,” Sebastian said.

I arched an eyebrow. “Played a bit, have we?”

Sebastian smirked. “Only when Marcus loses a bet.”

I laughed. I would pay good money to see Marcus trying to contort his body in a game of Twister. As if reading my thoughts, Sebastian grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll make that dream a reality. He can never resist a bet.”

“I’m looking forward to it. Let’s play.”

Sebastian presses play on his app. The app was actually pretty neat. Every thirty seconds it would call out a different color for each player to move to. It started easy, right foot on blue, left hand on yellow, etc. Sebastian was surprisingly flexible and matched every move I made with lithe grace. I was competitive and determined to win, however. When the app called for my right leg on green, I saw my opening.

Instead of sliding my right foot from the yellow dot to the green dot right next to it, I pivoted my body, swinging it up and over Sebastian’s body until I was in a table position on top of him. I wasn’t leaning against him; in fact, we were barely touching, but the length of our bodies lined up against each other. The barely there touches caused a flutter of heat in my stomach.

“Oh, that’s how it’s going to be.” Sebastian smirked up at me.