The Single Game

by Amanda Black

  “Oh… uh…” his eyes briefly landed on mine as he registered that we were ready to start the game, only to move quickly back to Devon. “Yeah, sure.” He looked around the desk until he found the post-it notes, tossing them across the room easily.

  Devon caught them one-handed, peeling off blank sheets and handing them down the rows of players. He followed that up by pulling out a large stack of pens from one of the bags and passing them along behind the paper. “Everyone, write your name on your paper and fold it up tiny. Don’t try folding it special or marking it up for someone to find easily, because I’m watchin’ for that shit. If there’s someone specific that you’re hoping to hook up with, just nut up now and ask them to go make out. Otherwise, play fair.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from glancing over at Logan, wishing that he would somehow know to look at me and get inspired by his friend’s words, but of course that didn’t happen. That would have been too easy and taken away any shred of doubt I was feeling. He was currently too busy with his head bent over the desk, writing something down.

  Probably some weapons code or some boring crap like that.

  After we had all written our names down, Devon handed Zoe the blue bag and Amy the pink bag. They didn’t need to be told what to do, both of them moving to the end of the rows and working their way back up to the front, walking down the middle as they held out their bags to collect the names.

  “I hope I get Mike!” Ashley Sanders stage-whispered excitedly on my right.

  Barf.

  I sincerely hoped that she got Mike, too. The thought of kissing that skeevy douchebag turned my stomach.

  When Amy finally passed in front of me with the pink bag, she smiled down at me and winked as I dropped in my name. “That’s the spirit,” she whispered.

  I watched as they both made their way back toward Devon, Zoe taking longer than Amy since the boys all wanted to flirt with her as she passed them. It didn’t take long before Devon had seen enough.

  “Just toss your fucking name in the bag, Johnson,” he growled at Cody, who had the decency to look embarrassed. “No discussion needed.”

  Zoe took his name and moved a little faster down the line, but before she was finished I heard some sort of argument closer to Devon. I tried to see what was going on, but Zoe kept getting in my way as she moved.

  “What the hell, Black? We already started!” a whiny voice that could only belong to Mike Davis rang out.

  “Shut up, Davis, and move over.”

  When Zoe finally shifted out of my way, I could see Logan squeezing his way into the line of boys next to Devon. He was pushing and shoving Mike roughly until he finally got his way and forced the other boy to scoot down.

  By the time he was done settling into place, you could have heard a pin drop.

  “Dude, what are you doing?” Devon asked him quietly, glancing around at all the people staring at his friend with their mouths hanging open in shock. “You never play.”

  “Shut up,” was the only response Logan gave him.

  Everyone watched, holding their breath as Zoe stopped in front of him. She looked at him for a moment as if trying to read something in his eyes. “You sure?” she asked, holding out the blue bag in front of him.

  Logan’s eyes shifted over to mine quickly before looking back up at Zoe, a bright pink blush blooming under his glasses. Without saying a word, he reached out and dropped his name in the bag.

  Call me crazy, but I think Logan just made himself available.

  Chapter 6

  The room was silent for a beat while everyone processed what had just happened. Then, like someone had flipped a switch, a loud wave of whispers starting floating around the room.

  Apparently Logan Black finally playing this stupid game was a really big deal.

  “All right everybody, quiet down,” Devon scolded. “Let’s get this thing started.” He gestured to Zoe and Amy, and they both stood at his sides, holding the bags. When he nodded his head, they each folded over the top of their bag and shook it wildly, mixing up everyone’s names. When they were done, they handed Devon the bags and took a seat on either side of him, Zoe settling with a proprietary hand on his thigh and Amy leaning back against Owen for support.

  “Okay, round one: The Ice Breaker.” Devon looked at the two rows of players before he continued. “I know there are a few newbies here tonight, so this is how it works: when it’s your turn, draw a paper from the green bag and read it out loud. Then draw a name from the opposite sex’s bag. You aren’t allowed to pass or trade…and you have to be honest. Hold onto your papers until the round is over, and then you’ll put them back in the bags. Nothing in the Ice Breaker round involves kissing or touching of any kind, so just relax and get to know everyone better.” He looked over to Chloe Waters, who was immediately to my left and the first in our row, which made me second. Holding out the green bag, he smiled broadly and said, “Ladies first!”

  Chloe reached inside timidly, pulling out a folded piece of paper. After taking her time unfolding it, she cleared her throat and read aloud, “What is the best physical trait of this person?” She then reached into the blue bag and pulled out a name. “Cody.”

  Her face blanched a bit as she considered her answer. I didn’t know Chloe well yet, but I knew that she seemed like a very sweet girl, if not a bit quiet. I did know that she thought Cody was a huge jerk, though, so her answer might prove interesting.

  “Um… I guess his shoulders,” she answered shyly.

  “My shoulders?” Cody scoffed. “Not my face or my ass or something like that?”

  “You have broad shoulders. They’re nice,” she returned with a shrug. It was apparently all she was going to say on the matter, refusing to boost his ego any more than necessary.

  “Johnson, don’t be a dick,” Devon barked. “I said to be honest. If that’s her answer, then shut up about it.” He smiled at Chloe encouragingly. “Well done. Now pass the green bag over to Logan; it’s the guys’ turn next.”

  Logan looked queasy as he reached for the bag, but he pulled it together when it was time to read his paper, his eyes bugging out for a moment before he spoke. “Uh… Have you ever had a sexual fantasy about this person, even once?” He swallowed thickly as he drew a name from the pink bag. “Ashley Sanders.”

  “Hell yeah!” half of the guys yelled, slapping high fives like a bunch of idiots.

  “Guys, really! Grow up, already,” Ashley admonished, but I could hear the gloat in her voice without even looking at her.

  “No,” Logan’s quiet voice answered the awkward question.

  “What?” Ashley gasped.

  Uh-oh. It sounded like the sweet little cheerleader just couldn’t fathom the idea of any red-blooded American male not jerking off to her.

  “Dude, I call bullshit on that!” Mike whined.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Logan shook his head, taking a cue from Chloe and simply shrugging it off. He looked up and held my gaze. “It’s your turn,” he said softly. Without looking away, he held out the green bag to me, and when I went to take it from him I felt his fingertips graze over the back of my knuckles.

  He might as well have slid his hand between my legs, it felt so intimate.

  I felt his feather-light touch all the way down to my toes and back up again, and the only thing I could do after that was wonder what the hell it would be like if I let him really touch me.

  Remembering that it was still my turn, I forced myself to focus on drawing a question out of the bag. “What is the nicest thing this person has ever done for you?” Well, seeing as I only had two months’ worth of memories to pull from, I hoped it was at least someone I knew. “Tate Cramer.” Whew, okay. At least he was a nice guy. “Let’s see… On my first day of school here, Tate showed me around and introduced me to everyone. He was really nice and he made me feel comfortable right away, so I’ve always been thankful for that.”

  Tate blushed at my praise and a few of his buddies patted him on the head in jes
t.

  The first round continued on like that, everyone eventually getting their turn, and everyone eventually having their name drawn. It was super classy when brainiac Cody pulled my name and listed a toss-up between my “juicy ass” and my “smokin’ hot rack” as the first things he’d noticed about me.

  Ewww.

  Then the very ladylike Holly Mathers, who also happened to be on the cheer team, claimed that the best thing about Logan was how he looked in his swim trunks at Devon’s pool party last summer.

  Skank.

  Not only was it a completely shallow answer, but I hated the fact that she knew what he looked like in swim trunks and I didn’t. I couldn’t believe how jealous and possessive I already felt where Logan was concerned, and I’d only realized I had feelings for him earlier that day. I had never been ruled by so many emotions before, and I didn’t know how to take it. It was like I had taken so long to see the truth that my emotions were trying to play catch up all at once.

  “Okay, that brings us to the end of round one,” Devon called out, interrupting my musings. “Which means it’s time for round two!”

  Everybody starting whooping and cheering, and then I remembered.

  The Lip Lock round.

  Crap!

  Chapter 7

  “All right, boys and girls, we all know what time it is!” Devon announced. “I want you to go ahead and refold your papers, and toss them back in the correct bags when Amy and Zoe come around.”

  Oh, God. I had to draw another name, and this time there would be kissing involved.

  I was excited that Logan was a possibility, but the likelihood of pulling his name or him pulling mine out of a bag against seven other names was slim to none. The thought of kissing anyone else was repulsive, but the thought of watching him kiss anyone else made me feel homicidal.

  What the hell was I going to do?

  When it came time for me to drop Tate’s name back in, I shot Amy a panicked look as she held the blue bag out in front of me. With a knowing smile, she leaned over and grabbed my shaking hand as I was pulling it away.

  “Silly Eden,” she giggled. “You need to learn how to calm down.” As she pulled her fingers away from mine, I felt something crumpled up in my hand. She winked at me again before moving on to Chloe and I instinctively kept the wadded up piece of paper hidden in my palm.

  I didn’t need to look at it to know that it said Logan’s name.

  I glanced over just in time to see Zoe doing something very similar in front of Logan, grabbing his hand and leaning over to whisper in his ear.

  I’d been worried for nothing. My two amazing friends had recognized the need to stack the deck in our favor once Logan raised the stakes by joining in.

  Well played, ladies.

  After everyone’s names had been collected and shaken up again, Devon announced that we were going to go in a different order this time; the ladies would all go first rather than switching off with the boys. When one of the guys whined about it and asked him why, he simply smiled and said that it was hilarious to make the guys wait.

  “This is played the same way as the other round,” Devon explained, “but this time there is kissing involved, and also some touching.” When a bunch of the guys started making suggestive noises, he quickly shushed them and rolled his eyes. “Nothing nasty, guys; it’s not an orgy, for God’s sake. Now, by agreeing to play this round, you have to do whatever the note says, with whoever’s name you draw. As I said, it’s nothing too heavy, but there are a few choices in there that are more…open to interpretation. For those, you only have to go as far as you are willing, no matter what your partner says.” He shot a death glare to the guys. “Any of you get out of line, and you’ll meet the business end of my right hook. Is that understood, gentlemen?”

  I couldn’t help thinking how refreshing it was to hear Devon say that after some of the parties Riley had dragged me to in the past, where hookups were expected to happen all over the place and the motto was always “black out or back out.”

  After a few somber nods of acknowledgment from the guys around the room, Devon passed the red bag and the blue bag to Chloe so that she could begin. While I watched her nervously draw from the red bag, I discreetly tucked the paper I was hiding in between my fingers so no one would see it when it was my turn.

  “Kiss this person once on each cheek, then once on the lips,” Chloe croaked out timidly. After that, she pulled a name from the blue bag. “Tate Cramer.” Her face turned beet red as she looked over at her target, and it was cute to see that his cheeks were a matching color.

  Tate was seated almost diagonally from her toward the opposite end of the boys’ line, so she slowly crawled over to him on her hands and knees. When they were finally face-to-face, she leaned in carefully and kissed first his right cheek, then his left. Pulling back to smile at him briefly, she leaned in again and pressed her lips to his. It was all over quickly and before I knew it she was seated next to me again. The entire exchange had actually been rather sweet.

  When Chloe slid the two bags over in front of me, it dawned on me that it was actually my turn. I took a deep breath and reached into the red bag with my empty hand, not wanting to drop the note I already held. Unfolding it carefully, I cleared my throat before reading, “Kiss this person three times on the lips, then bite them once on the neck.”

  Wow. That was specific.

  And hot as hell.

  As I grabbed the blue bag, I realized that I was about to do something I’d never done before in my entire life, and had always sworn I would never do.

  I was about to cheat.

  Part of me felt guilty, but when I thought of doing those things with Logan, the guilt was shoved out of the way by my growing curiosity. I wanted to get closer to Logan, and making out with other guys in front of him wasn’t going to accomplish that. I needed to kiss him. I needed to explore whatever this spark was between us and see what happened.

  From the way I felt when he touched me earlier, I had a feeling we would go up in flames.

  Reaching into the blue bag with my right hand, I kept my stolen name tucked tightly between my fingers. Making a show of stirring the papers around, I flipped the one I already held out into my palm and pulled my hand back out of the bag. Although I knew what I would find, I still felt a rush of satisfaction at seeing the name written in elegant script.

  “Logan Black.”

  Even his name tasted sweet on my tongue. I couldn’t wait to discover how his lips tasted.

  I heard a few murmurs around me, people whispering about finally seeing him kiss someone, but they didn’t even register in my mind at that moment. I only had eyes for Logan.

  I crawled across the divide, sitting on my knees in front of him. Looking past his glasses into his beautiful gray eyes, I noticed something that I wasn’t exactly surprised to see.

  Fear.

  “Is this okay?” I whispered. I didn’t want to force him to do something he wasn’t ready for, rules of the game be damned.

  He gulped loudly before nodding sharply.

  “You sure?” Translation: Please don’t puke on me.

  “Yeah,” he choked out.

  Closing my eyes, I covered his lips with my own, using only the slightest pressure. He didn’t kiss me back at first, but I knew he was extremely nervous. His lips were soft and strong, and I wanted to feel more. Pulling back to show that the first kiss was over, I smiled at him so that he could see I didn’t hate it.

  His cheeks were tinted pink, but I was happy to see that some of the fear had left his eyes.

  I leaned in again for the second kiss, using a little more pressure than before. I felt him pursing his lips under mine, gently returning the kiss. It was sweet, soft, and gentle…and the tingles that it was sending through my body were nothing short of amazing.

  It was so difficult to keep the kisses chaste once he finally started responding. All of my instincts were yelling at me to shove my tongue in his mouth, but I didn’t want to p
ress my luck with so many people watching.

  By the third kiss, I could tell he was becoming a little more comfortable. He kissed me back right from the beginning, and when I pulled away, he leaned forward as if he didn’t want it to end.

  The feeling was definitely mutual.

  We smiled at each other, and then I heard Zoe’s voice next to me, breaking through my little happiness bubble. “Don’t forget the bite, Eden.”

  “Huh?” I shot her a confused look.

  “You’re supposed to bite him on the neck, too.”

  “Oh.” I’d been so absorbed with the feeling of Logan’s lips that I forgot the last part of the instructions.

  I leaned into his neck slowly, savoring his scent as I got closer. Seriously, how had I never noticed how freaking good he smelled before now?

  Bringing my lips to his neck, I kissed him quickly before opening my mouth and pressing my teeth into his flesh gently. I felt him jolt under me, causing me to bite a little harder. His hands clamped around my arms, holding me to him, and I swear I heard him give off another one of those fucking sexy whimpers.

  Well, well, well. It seemed that Logan liked being bitten.

  As I pulled away, something wicked inside of me compelled me to flick my tongue against his abused flesh. I wanted him to know that I enjoyed doing that; that I was excited by it, too. I felt his grip on me tighten even more, and when I pulled back far enough I could see that he was slightly flushed, his eyes closed in what looked like ecstasy.

  That face made my whole night.

  Even if he never kissed me again, I could take the memory of that face and lock it away in my spank bank to use for years to come.

  I sat back in a daze and passed the bags to my right. The rest of the game seemed to disappear around me when his eyes met mine. All I could do was smile stupidly at Logan, and after his cheeks flamed a brilliant red, I saw the corners of his mouth turning up as well.

  He definitely liked it.