For The Holidays (Gaming The System Book 9)

by Brenna Aubrey

  She winked at him. “I save my wild side for the bedroom, and I haven’t heard any complaints from you.”

  “Get a room,” Jordan said.

  I sipped my delicious Canadian beer—gawd how I’d missed it!—and shook my head at the fools I called friends. Mercifully, my husband was staying silent and not joining in on the taunts.

  Strange how things worked out. Here I was, in Canada, with all of my closest friends. And not only were we all in my country of origin, but we were less than two hundred kilometres from where I’d grown up. Was this week going to be full of my friends taking potshots at Canada? Because I wanted out, now. Or I’d have to shut them up by firing back. And Jordan would be my number one target.

  “Hey Kat,” snorted Jordan. “Did you hear about that terrible case of Canadian graffiti? Someone spray-painted ‘Sorry about your wall.’“

  “Hey Jordan,” I leaned forward in my chair, preparing to volley back. “Did you hear that when god created Canada, he decided to create the most perfect, beautiful country with breathtaking natural scenery, bountiful resources, and really nice people. When one of his angels told him it wasn’t fair to give Canada all of that, God said ‘Wait ’til I create their obnoxious, loud, and entitled neighbors. That’ll make up for it.’“

  “Ooooh burn.” Adam chuckled.

  “Feisty Canadian redhead is feisty.” Jordan grabbed a gravy-slathered fry and popped it in his mouth. “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, Kat.”

  “No worries. We’re in Canada. I can always visit the doctor to get checked for hurt feelings—at no charge.” Jenna held up a hand, and I slapped a high five on it while the rest of the table chuckled.

  April looked up from the information guide she’d been studying on her phone. “So, if my dear, beloved boyfriend will stop his teasing for five minutes, maybe Kat can tell us what the best slopes are to ski around here? I imagine, being a Vancouverite, you’ve skied here often?”

  I hadn’t skied very often growing up. Skiing required money, and that wasn’t in huge supply at our house. Lift tickets cost your eye teeth, to say nothing of the equipment. I’d owned a secondhand set of skis and boots at one time, but they’d been lost or sold off when I hadn’t used them in over two years. Most of the time, when I’d come up to Whistler with friends, it had been to hang around the village, go to bars or dancing, and meet guys.

  But after getting needled by Jordan, I wasn’t about to admit to the whole table that I was, at best, a mediocre skier.

  I coughed. “Oh yeah, I used to come up all the time, but it’s been a long time, so I’m sure everything has changed. What does the guide recommend?”

  She rattled off her answer—a few of the names were ones my skiing friends had mentioned in the past. I nodded along.

  Finally, our meal arrived. I’d ordered Breakfast for Dinner, complete with a stack of pancakes because I’d been dying to get my hands on some honest-to-god real maple syrup, and here was my chance to bathe my dinner in it.

  “Nothing’s complete without maple syrup,” I sighed happily.

  “True story. I even caught her putting it in her coffee once. I’ll know we’re in real trouble when she starts brushing her teeth with it,” Lucas drawled. The first words out of his mouth all night and they were to join in on the teasing. Everyone laughed, and Jordan mumbled something about Canucks. I glared at my husband through narrowed eyes for restarting the pile-on. I thought he was supposed to be on my side? At least him, I could punch.

  So I did.

  He gave me a dirty look and rubbed his arm, but kept his mouth shut. Mission accomplished. Next, I’d have to threaten to withhold my wifely favors, but he’d know in a heartbeat that I was bluffing. I wouldn’t be able to hold out any longer than he could. That threat never went anywhere. Probably a good thing. Withholding the favors meant no fun for me, either.

  “Lucas, I can imagine you’re quite the skier, what with your upbringing,” April said.

  Lucas flashed me a look of dismay, still annoyed that I’d spilled all the info about his upper crust upbringing complete with aristocratic European title. But who could blame me? I’d secretly married the guy, and then I’d found out I was a baroness!

  Of course I was going to brag about that shit to my friends!

  I grinned at him. “Didn’t you ski in Austria with the Dutch Royal Family?”

  “One time. Once.” He blew out a breath and rolled his eyes, clearly regretting having let that tidbit about his past drop when he’d had a bit too much Scotch.

  April was staring from one of us to the other, her eyes widening. It was almost as if she couldn’t believe her ears, and to be honest, if I were in her position, I’d probably feel the same way.

  Jordan seemed to notice her reaction, eyes flicking from first her to Lucas and then me, and back, and then that devilish grin teased his mouth. I recognized that grin. Having worked with him as long as I had, I knew what it meant. He was up to something.

  “It seems we’ve got one spouse from Canada, practically raised in the shadow of one of the best ski resorts in North America. The other one cut his teeth all over the Alps and Pyrenees. It would be interesting to see how a friendly competition between you two would end up.”

  Lucas’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at his friend. Me, on the other hand, I kept my gaze on my plate, suddenly fascinated with my pancakes.

  “I mean, aren’t you two even a little bit curious? You know, for the sake of your progeny. Who knows, you might even end up raising an Olympian one day.”

  I barked out a laugh at the ridiculous thought. Lucas’s brown eyes flicked to me and then back at Jordan. “We’re not like that. We don’t compete all the time.”

  I almost choked on my food. We were completely and totally competitive as gamers. Everybody knew this about us.

  “What about a little friendly competition between spouses?” Jordan still had that gleam in his eye, the fucker. What on earth was he trying to accomplish? Only the shit-stirrer, himself, knew that.

  I’d never seen Lucas ski, but I could only imagine that, having been raised in his noble richy-rich family that visited high-end ski resorts across the world, he would easily show up my mediocre skills.

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, yeah. All Canadians are practically born on skis. They start screening for Olympic hopefuls in elementary school. I was earmarked, but my parents didn’t want to spend the money. Anyway, I got bored with it when I got my driver’s license and a boyfriend.” I took a sip of water with a snarky smile and glanced up to see who was gullible to have bought it.

  Answer? By the looks on their shocked faces, all of them. Were Yankees all this gullible?

  Lucas’s brows raised almost to his hairline. My mind raced for a quick segue to change the subject. “So, anyway, the poutine–”

  “Wait, you can’t just drop something like that.” Jordan leaned forward, his hand gesturing.

  “Yes, I can. I just did.” Might as well take it to the next level while they were still lapping it up, right? I wondered how much mileage I could get out of this. “It’s painful to discuss, really, that my future was so altered by my family’s poverty.” I punctuated this with a wistful sigh, then added a glance to the side as if to emphasize my point of regret. I could all but keep myself from busting up laughing.

  I’d clue them in later… maybe way later after they’d shut up with their dumb jokes.

  “So is it on, then?” Jordan pushed.

  I tossed a casual shrug with one shoulder and affected my most obvious bored face. The more uninterested and nonchalant I acted with this, hopefully the sooner all this talk of skiing competitions and racing would go away.

  What was this anyway, Steep and Deep? The K12 race in Better Off Dead? Or even Hot Tub Time Machine?

  “Oh, my husband is well aware of the fact that I can ski better than him.”

  “I am?”

  I darted Lucas a meaningful look. If he’d just play along with me, this BS would go away, and we
could shut Jordan up once and for all—a nearly impossible feat most times.

  “Jordan’s not wrong.” Adam leaned in. “You could prove this pretty easily and quickly.” Oh shit. When Adam spoke, Lucas listened. And that meant he might actually get egged into this stupid thing.

  “We could.” I shrugged and sniffed, digging deep into the indifference I didn’t actually feel. “I just don’t want to humiliate my sugar buns.” I emphasized the pet name and put my hand on his shoulder, squeezing tightly. When he met my gaze, I gave him another look. Clearly, we hadn’t been married long enough to for him to have the foggiest idea what my looks meant, dammit. I suddenly wished I was a telepath who could mentally transmit my commands to my chosen life partner.

  Lucas stared, brow wrinkling in puzzlement. As if I could see it, the point went whizzing over his head like lasers beams shot from the blasters of Storm Troopers. Ah, married life.

  “So, it’s settled then,” Jordan said with a grin. “We’re going to have a spousal ski-off. Which run do you want to do, The Coffin or Couloir Extreme?”

  “Oh,” I laughed. “I used to do those runs when I was in middle school. They were fun.” I waved my hand again breezily while silently wishing Jordan would break his leg on his first ski run tomorrow. Or better yet, his jaw, so he couldn’t talk anymore.

  Jordan looked up from his map of the mountain runs, eyebrow arching. “We can pick one at random, then, and you can do it? Maybe we should handicap you to give your poor husband a chance. What about a blindfold?”

  “I can handle this just fine.” Lucas darted me a challenging look. “I think I’m perfectly able to kick her ass fair and square.”

  “Ooooooh!” The rest of the table leaned in, some shaking their hands at the wrists. What the hell had I just gotten myself into? Crappity crap. These idjits had hung on my every word, my every bluff like it was gospel. I’d been so annoyed by all the Canada shit-talking that I’d let my own big mouth write checks I was certain my body—and skiing ability—couldn’t cash.

  Now, these so-called friends of ours were slobbering at the chance to rubberneck at the weird ski-off pitting husband against wife. I bit my lip.

  Oh, hell. Was I going to have to risk breaking a limb in the name of defeating my husband? With video games, I pulled it off regularly with no threat to my person at all, except for maybe a sprained finger or a little carpal tunnel syndrome.

  I swallowed and then just threw another one of those stupid I’m over it already shrugs. “I have no problem showing my husband his place.”

  “Ooooooh!” The table broke out again. Even beyond the cheesy and tired Canadian jokes, this was reminding me more and more of middle school.

  Mia shook her head. “You two are worse than Adam and me. I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “Wait, what’s that what the heck is that supposed to mean?” Adam asked.

  Mia laughed and patted her husband on the shoulder. “Nothing, dear.”

  “So it’s on, then? I’ll be handling the betting pool and doling out odds. Just call me the ski bookie. What day should we do it?” Jordan nudged April, whose eyes slid down the itinerary.

  Oh, hell.

  “Well, there’s this block of free time after lunch on the day before New Year’s Eve. We have nothing scheduled from one till three. Why not then?”

  Gulp. “Ah, I—”

  “It is on!” My husband interrupted me to exclaim, a smug smile playing about his mouth.

  “That’s what I like to see.” Jordan flashed Lucas a thumbs up.

  I guess this meant I needed to get practicing or admit my lie now.

  Sigh. So practicing it was.

  Even if I had to fake breaking my arm at the last minute, I’d see this bluff through to its bitter, bloody—hopefully not literally—end.

  Chapter 8

  Lucas

  What about this trip was supposed to be restful and retreat-ish again?

  Here I thought I’d be up in the snow, admiring beautiful vistas, sipping hot chocolate and making love with my beautiful wife whenever I wanted.

  Instead, I’d been roped into some farcical competition with her, while also dealing with bullshit from work during a week when work had been shut down for the holidays. In addition, my two bosses were also here.

  Who’d have thought that becoming the brand-new head of a brand-new company division would resemble being a therapist and hand-holder of children than a boss myself?

  I’d handpicked my own team from within the company and outside of it. Brought in loads of talent for the new virtual reality division of Draco Multimedia Entertainment. But only a few months in, I was dealing with drama. Two of my key creatives were trying to railroad each other.

  This meant phone calls, videoconferences, long, wordy, and very detailed emails. Time better used to enjoy my vacation.

  Until this stupid ski race. How the hell had that even come about, anyway?

  When my wife interrupted my business call the next morning, I slammed my laptop shut, determined to keep the messy details from her. I didn’t have the right to rain on her parade. She was doing so well at her new job. Management had created the position and tailored it for her special talents. She was flying high in her new position.

  So it would be selfish to spoil her happiness with my own depressing workplace concerns.

  “It’s almost time for that helicopter tour. Can you believe we’re going to fly in a helicopter! I’ve never even been in one before. Have you?”

  I shrugged and gave her a sheepish look. My family had owned one for a while.

  “Oh yeah, forgot, Baron Lucas van den Hoehnsboek van Lynden. Of course you have, your eminence and worship,” she bowed and made a flourish.

  “Whatever, peasant,” I said with a grin, my standard reply whenever she teased me about it—which was often. It was either call her peasant or remind her that she was now a baroness by their standard, because she was married to me.

  She sobered, biting her lip.

  I frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “So about this whole ski race—”

  “Knock, knock!” Mia poked her head inside our open door while rapping on the door frame. “We’re headed to the helicopter in five.”

  Kat and I nodded at her, and once she disappeared, I turned, expecting Kat to continue her sentence about the stupid ski race that I didn’t even want to do.

  “Let’s talk about it later.” She grabbed her jacket and threw me mine. “Time to go pop my helicopter ridin’ cherry.”

  “That’s not really the cherry I think about popping—constantly.”

  She laughed at me, blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “Later, horndawg.”

  I was too preoccupied with work problems to enjoy the tour.

  Maybe it was a good thing we had this bullshit ski competition to focus on. And to keep the bosses focused on. They brought it up every time we were all together, in fact.

  I gazed across at my gorgeous wife. She was all smiles and excitement, pointing things out to me and talking over a headset like we were on a Dragon Epoch raid. Who knew that my bride was a champion skier? She was full of surprises. But this one? I never would have thought.

  “You two are getting along swimmingly for being pitted against each other in the ultimate intra-marital downhill contest.” Jordan’s voice, booming dramatically in imitation of a sports commentator, broke in over the speaker.

  I shot him an annoyed glance. Damned instigator.

  I’d skied before, having visited many prestigious resorts with my family as I was growing up. But that didn’t make me an automatic expert. I’d much preferred to be on the water sculling in a racing boat under the sun rowing than whooshing down a slope with icy wind in my hair. Skiing bored me.

  But apparently now I was supposed to be serving my wife humble pie on the slopes.

  Why didn’t I just admit to her that I wasn’t that good?

  I watched her as her face lit up, taking in the view, the sunlight
gleaming in her fiery hair that poured over her shoulders. I could just tell her that this was stupid, confer her the winner, and then even the score in bed—a much more interesting sport than downhill ski.

  But there was now the added problem that my bosses were invested. In fact, I’d seen Jordan’s pool sheet, and Kat and I were pretty evenly divided where the bets were concerned.

  Saving face or no, it wasn’t worth my life. I’d only done a black diamond run a few times in my life, and neither of them had ended well. Mostly they’d wrapped up with me rolling down the slope, screaming at the top of my lungs and threatening avalanches for miles around.

  “So, this whole black diamond thing… do you think that’s the best way to show off our skills? On a run where no one will be able to see what we’re doing? It would probably make more sense to go down the intermediate runs. More opportunity for them to watch us…” I asked Kat as we left the helicopter pad and drifted about twenty feet behind the clump of our friends. Everyone was headed for the SUV and the driver waiting patiently to whisk us to our next fun-filled activity.

  “What’s wrong, Colonel Sanders, chicken?” she quipped with a laugh.

  It was just enough to get my ire up. “No. Fine. You want a black diamond race? Fine. Enjoy eating my snow.”

  Once we caught up with the group, however, and stuffed ourselves into the big car, the conversation rolled over and over in my mind.

  She was more likely to make me eat her snow.

  Oh well, at least snow would taste better than eating my own words.

  No, I wasn’t going to humiliate myself out there. I just needed some practice, and I had approximately six days to get good enough to at least appear competent, anyway.

  No big deal if she ended up winning—though I prayed the gloating wouldn’t last forever—but I could at least give her some kind of run for her money.

  There was just enough time in the schedule for me to do some practice runs on my own. I messaged our concierge to this effect, and she arranged some lift tickets for me to pick up.