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Imagining the grounds of this estate being overrun by kids in goggles, firing foam bullets, I can’t help but smile. “Did they like it?”
“Yeah.” He turns to me with a raised eyebrow. “And I definitely didn’t wish I could join them instead of discussing market trends. Definitely not.”
“We should play,” I blurt. Mostly because he keeps revealing things about himself that challenge my anger. Make me want to forget why I need to be wary of him.
He does a double-take. “What? Now?”
I shrug. Nod.
“What’s the wager?” he asks.
“There has to be a wager?”
“I run a hedge fund, angel. I would bet on the weather if I could.”
My lips try to twitch at that, but I press them together. “Fine. If you win, I’ll sleep in your bedroom tonight.”
Jack scoffs, but the effect is ruined when he puts on a pair of plastic goggles. “That was already the plan.”
“No. You assumed that was the plan.”
He groans up at the ceiling. “You’re killing me, baby. Fine. What do you get if you win?”
“A check for two million dollars. Dated today.”
“Nope. Try again.”
Yeah, I kind of had a feeling that wasn’t going to fly.
I stomp to the chest and take out my own pair of goggles, settling them on my nose.
Then I take out the biggest, ugliest Nerf gun I can find and prop it on my hip. “I want a sound booth, then.”
He pauses in the act of selecting his own weapon, glancing over at me with interest. “For recording audiobooks?”
I press my lips together and nod. “Yes.”
“Done.” His expression is one of mock sympathy. “Unfortunately, I don’t know how to lose. It’s just not something I do.”
“Is that right?”
“It is.”
Loading my bullets, I send him a prim look—and I realize I’m having fun. A lot of fun, actually. Way more than I usually have with other people, which is why I keep to myself. “Are you sure you haven’t gone soft in your big mansion, pretty boy?”
He shakes his head slowly, but there’s a new respect in his eyes. “Oh, you’re going to pay for that, angel. What are the boundaries?”
Gun under my arm, I turn in a circle. “The whole downstairs? The den, the game room and…”
“The climbing gym?”
“That works.”
“Are you sure you want to do that? You haven’t even seen the rock wall room yet.”
“I’ll manage.”
We start to back away from each other, guns at the ready. “We each get fifteen shots. Whoever lands the most is the winner.”
I fire.
A foam bullet drills him right between the eyes.
His expression is so comically stunned that I’m giggling as I turn and run, immediately taking cover behind the college couch. When there’s no sound for a full ten seconds, I peek up over the top and a barrage of shots rains down on me from behind the doorway leading to the den. One glances off my shoulder and I yelp, wheeling around and sprinting for the climbing gym. Hearing Jack’s footsteps methodically creaking in my direction, I throw open the door and sprint inside, searching frantically for a place to hide.
There.
I kneel down behind a mini fridge stocked with water and wait for him to walk through the door, gun resting on the top of the appliance, my eye fixed on the viewfinder.
“Cute,” Jack says behind me, quickly drilling me with three bullets in the back. “Didn’t know about that second entrance, though, did you?”
Gasping my outrage, I whip around and manage to hit him with two bullets before he escapes behind the rock wall—and holy hell. I have to tip my head back to see the top of the thing. It has to be at least four stories high, rocky foot holds sticking out every couple of feet, ropes hanging down on either side.
I scan the matted area to find a gym on the other side, complete with weight machines, treadmills and stationary bikes. Getting to the gym will be risky, but there are a lot of places to hide and I’m too exposed here.
“On Friday night, you told me you only exercise if it’s spontaneous,” Jack calls from behind the rock wall. “Is this what you meant?”
“Yes! And stop trying to determine my position by asking me things. This is war.”
“Bloodthirsty girl. You could have a career in finance.”
With a smile on my face, I truck it toward the gym, keeping an eye on the edge of the rock wall, just in case he tries to fire. And of course he does, but he misses and I skid into the gym, taking shelter behind a table stacked with towels and water bottles. Like fifty of them.
“Lord. How many people work out here?”
“Just me. But I’m an extravagant billionaire.”
I’m laughing again—at his unabashed arrogance this time—but I quiet myself when his shadow crosses into the gym. Jack is winning right now, four to three, but he has a lot less bullets than me, after missing so many times. I’m at an advantage.
