The Single Game

by Amanda Black

  “Dad!“ Logan jumped in protectively. “What difference does it make?”

  “No difference at all. I just wondered since she seems to like cooking Italian food.”

  “Yes, actually,” I answered, “On my mother’s side. Her mother’s parents were from Sicily.”

  “Oh really? That’s interesting.”

  “Well, I don’t know about interesting. I never knew them, and the rest of me is just good old-fashioned North American mutt—a little bit of everything.”

  “I like that,” Douglas nodded, chewing on his food thoughtfully.

  Once our conversation started flowing, I realized it was very similar to dinner with my parents. They asked about my college plans and seemed genuinely happy that I might be attending the same school as Logan in the fall. I gave them some background info on me, trying to leave out anything that might be too embarrassing.

  “And you two have science together?” Douglas asked before shoveling in his third helping of monkey bread.

  “Zoology, Dad,” Logan corrected him.

  “Ah, that’s right! Lab partners,” he said with a wink, causing Logan to cough and blush. “I remember your first day at school, Eden, now that I think about it.”

  “Dad,” Logan groaned.

  “This one came home all moon-eyed and jabbering about his new lab partner, ‘the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen’ I think he said.”

  “Kill me now,” Logan mumbled beside me.

  I reached over underneath the table and squeezed his thigh lightly to let him know that he didn’t need to feel embarrassed. “I think that’s sweet,” I said, smiling over at my adorable boyfriend.

  “Me, too,” sighed Nora.

  After dinner I helped clear the table, but Nora shooed us out of the kitchen when she started loading up the dishwasher. “Go show her around, Logan. I’m sure there are more interesting things for our guest to do than help me clean.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Mom.” He smiled brightly and took my hand, leading me up yet another flight of stairs. We walked down a dark hallway until we came to a closed door at the very end.

  “Where are we?” I asked, feeling like I needed to whisper in the dark.

  Logan opened the door and flicked on the light switch before turning back to look down at me. When our eyes met, I noticed a new fire in his gaze that hadn’t been there during dinner.

  “My room.”

  Chapter 22

  “This is your bedroom?” I spun around slowly, unable to process the luxury surrounding me.

  “Yeah,” he answered with a shrug, closing the door behind us.

  “It’s so…wow.”

  “I told you, it looks like a catalog ad, doesn’t it? Totally sterile.”

  “No, it’s beautiful.” I looked around at the elegant decorations and the tasteful throw pillows on his leather couch. He had a leather couch in his room. “I think it’s all so lovely…but I agree that I don’t see much of you in here. Where are the posters and all the video game strategy guides?”

  “Well, I’ve never really been a huge fan of posters, but…” Logan smiled widely and walked over to the oak bookshelf, pointing to the perfectly organized and alphabetized how-to guides.

  “God, you’re a neat freak, aren’t you?” I laughed.

  “No. Well, maybe a little bit.” He blushed, and I couldn’t resist walking over and hugging him tightly.

  “Hey, that’s nothing to be embarrassed about, as long as you don’t expect me to be the same way.”

  “Never!” he scoffed. “I have no interest in dating someone who’s a carbon copy of me. I love all our differences… I love learning all your little quirks.” He leaned down and pecked me on the cheek. “I also love that you don’t mind that I have some, too.”

  “Mind? I love it! I was starting to think that there was no way you could be real—you were too perfect. Believe it or not, having a few flaws makes you even sexier to me.”

  “Oh really?” he drawled out, finishing with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows. I felt his hands slide down my back until he was cupping my ass, pulling me up against him.

  “Really,” I whispered, pulling him down for a searing kiss. Logan wasted no time seeking entrance with the tip of his tongue, and before I knew it I was lightheaded from how sensual the kiss had become.

  “Wait a minute,” I gasped, stumbling against him as I pulled away, needing a moment to collect myself before I threw him down and had my way with him while his parents were downstairs.

  “Is something wrong?” he panted.

  “I just can’t believe how good you’re getting at that.”

  “Oh,” he said with a smile. “That’s good, though, right?”

  “Yeah, except when your parents are downstairs! What if your mom busts in on us?”

  “Eden, she wouldn’t do that,” he laughed. “She’s always respected my privacy.”

  “Yeah, but that was before you were alone in your room with your girlfriend.”

  “I’m not saying she won’t try to check in on us, but she’ll be more subtle than that.”

  “Even so, maybe we shouldn’t jump into anything.” I pulled away reluctantly and began to walk around his room, looking for anything to distract me from his delicious lips. After a few minutes I turned back to him and pouted. “How am I supposed to get inside your head when you don’t have anything personal in here?”

  “Oh, well if personal is what you want, let me welcome you to my inner sanctum.” He grabbed my hand and took me over to a large computer desk in the corner. I watched as he pulled out the padded office chair and sat down, then swiveled it around and smiled up at me. “Come on,” he said, patting his lap.

  I sat down on his thigh, squealing as he spun us back around to face the desk. Logan wrapped an arm around my waist to anchor me to him while he fired up his laptop.

  “Why aren’t you using that computer?” I asked, pointing to the intimidating desktop with blinking lights and gizmos plugged into it.

  “That’s really just for gaming and some of my graphic design projects. The hard drive is so full of programs that I don’t really like to waste any space on frivolous stuff.”

  “So you have an extra computer just for fun?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not really uncommon for computer geeks like me. Some guys have three or four monitors going at once with every little extra thing you could imagine…along with two or three laptops.”

  “That sounds a little excessive.”

  “I guess it can be, but sometimes it’s necessary depending on what you like to do with them.”

  “So what do you like to do with yours?”

  “Well, I like to use my laptop for storing all of my pictures and video files. I also use it for screwing around on the internet. By the way, why aren’t you on Facebook?”

  “Ugh, you, too?” I groaned. “People have been asking me that for years, but I just can’t get into the idea.”

  “What bothers you about it?”

  “I guess the thought of so many people spying on what I’m doing just weirds me out. Plus, ever since I saw The Social Network, I just want to punch Mark Zuckerberg in the junk. If I join now, it’s like he wins.”

  “Ha! I never thought of it like that,” he laughed. “But even his ex-girlfriend who hated him joined by the end of the movie.”

  “Yeah, and that shows what a sell out she was. Here’s this total asshole who shits on you so bad that you can’t bear to be in the same room with him ever again, and yet you have no problem joining his website because it’s what everyone else is doing? Pfft, sell out.”

  “Wow, you’ve really given this a lot of thought.”

  “Fucking Zuckerberg,” I grumbled.

  “Well, if you can put aside the megalomaniac who designed it, Facebook can be lots of fun. As for the privacy stuff, it all depends on what you put into it. If you post every personal thing that ever happened to you, then you are kind of inviting the world into your life. But if you just thin
k about what you put out there and set up your preferences right, there are rarely any problems.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and arched an eyebrow. “You’re not going to drop it, are you?”

  He looked up at me over his sexy glasses with the biggest pair of puppy dog eyes I had ever seen. “I was just so excited to change my status to in a relationship, but it feels one-sided if I can’t share it with you. Every time I’m on there I keep finding things I want to tag you in, but then I remember that I can’t.” He went in for the kill after that, sticking out his perfect bottom lip in a pout that would put any toddler to shame.

  How was I supposed to defend myself against that?

  “How many times has that look gotten you what you wanted?” I asked.

  “I’ve lost count.” He winked quickly before sticking his lip out even farther and batting his long lashes.

  “All right, fine!” I huffed, throwing my hands up in frustration. “Next time you come over you can help me set up an account, okay?”

  “Really?” He broke into a widest grin. When I nodded my confirmation, he let out a triumphant whoop and squeezed me tightly. “It’s a date, baby.”

  “All right, all right, you’ve won,” I sighed dramatically. “The least you can do is show me how it works. Give me a mini Facebook tour.”

  “Okay, but I should really send out a quick email first.”

  “To who?”

  “Mark Zuckerberg—I need to let him know he just won.”

  “You little shit!” I laughed, slapping him on the arm. “Don’t push it, mister. I haven’t officially joined yet.”

  “All right, I’ll be good,” he chuckled, opening up his laptop. When I noticed his desktop picture my heart jumped into my throat.

  “Oh my God, it’s us!” He’d uploaded the picture he took of us on my bed and made it his background image.

  “Well, yeah,” he said quietly, the tips of his ears turning pink. “Now every time I turn on my computer it makes me smile.”

  I couldn’t say anything after that, so I just leaned down and kissed him softly.

  When we came back up for air he pulled up his Facebook page and showed me around, teaching me how to navigate through the site easily. I had to hand it to him—Logan actually managed to get me interested.

  After about ten minutes of letting me goof around and type out messages to our friends from his account, I heard a loud stomping on the stairs.

  “That’ll be Mom,” Logan sighed.

  “But she’s so loud. I thought you said she’d be subtle.”

  “I said she’d be subtle about checking up on us. That’s her way of announcing that she’s coming. She doesn’t want to actually catch us doing anything, she just wants to keep us from going too far.”

  “Ah… I guess that makes sense.”

  A moment later, a light tap sounded at the door. “Logan?” Her muffled voice called out.

  “It’s open.” He swiveled the chair around to face her, but wouldn’t let me move off his lap to another chair.

  “Hey, kids,” she said, glancing around the room. “Are you guys okay up here? Did you need anything to drink?”

  “No, we’re good,” he replied, and I could hear him biting back a chuckle.

  “Whatcha doin’?” Her eyes landed on us in the chair before moving on again quickly.

  “I was just showing Eden around Facebook a bit. I think I’ve got her convinced to join.”

  “Oh, really?” Her face lit up. “That’s wonderful! You’ll have to friend me when you do.”

  “Uh…okay,” I said slowly, feeling like I was in The Twilight Zone.

  “Well, I’ll let you get back to it, then.” She smiled at us before backing out of the room, pulling the door with her. I saw her stop and think for a moment, glancing at the door and then back at us, before she shrugged and closed it the rest of the way.

  “That should buy us at least another thirty minutes, if not longer,” Logan laughed.

  “I can’t believe she didn’t leave the door open.”

  “It was close there for a minute, but I think she’s trying to show me that she trusts me.”

  “And you intend on abusing that trust, don’t you?”

  “Duh,” he said with a smirk before pulling my head down to his for another passionate kiss. When I pulled away, I blurted out the one thing that I couldn’t stop thinking.

  “Your mom’s on Facebook?”

  “Yeah. She’s totally addicted to Trivia Crack.”

  “She seems pretty cool. They both do, actually.”

  “I’m glad you like them. I was hoping you would all get along.”

  “Me, too.” I kissed him again before turning back to his computer. “So, what else do you have on this thing?”

  “I have a ton of pictures that I’ve scanned and uploaded. Here, let me show you a few from when we were all younger.” He started flipping through photos, pulling them from a bunch of different and perfectly organized files. Each folder had a title, like Sixth Grade Field Trip or Cub Scouts. There were some of him and Devon in their uniforms receiving badges, and a few later ones that showed Logan sitting next to a very pale, very bald little Devon.

  “That’s when he was sick,” he whispered.

  “He was lucky to have you there for him.” It was so easy to see the brotherly love that they shared, even at such a young age.

  “He was my best friend. Where else would I have been?” The fact that he said it so matter-of-factly, as if there had never been any other option in his mind, just proved what a loving person he was.

  “A lot of kids might have bailed over something so scary and intense.”

  He simply shrugged and looked back at the computer, as if that had never been an option. He wasn’t one of those kids and that was that.

  We continued looking through folders for a while until I noticed that there was a certain folder he kept avoiding.

  “What’s that one?” I asked, already forming my suspicions. “The one marked Homework.”

  “Homework, obviously,” he said with a nervous hitch in his voice.

  “I call bullshit,” I said after a minute of staring him down. “You labeled all your other folders way better than that. If that was really homework, you would have a folder for each class.”

  He turned beet red, knowing he was busted.

  “You might as well just admit that it’s porn before I tickle you until you pee yourself.” When he continued to resist me I made good on my promise, attacking his sides with my fingertips.

  “Stop!” he laughed. “God, I give up! Just stop!”

  I relented, looking down at him expectantly. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Let me see.”

  “No way!”

  “Come on… I want to see what you like.” I leaned closer and whispered against his lips, “Show me what turns you on.” I flicked the tip of my tongue over his mouth before pulling away.

  “God,” he grunted. “Anything you do turns me on.”

  “Good, but you know that’s not what I’m talking about. You said last night that you’ve watched a lot. I want to see some of the things that taught you so well.”

  He gulped loudly and slowly nodded, opening up the file to reveal literally hundreds of pictures and video clips.

  “Wow!” I gasped, leaning over closer to get a better look at some of the tiny thumbnails. “What are some of your favorites?”

  “Uh… I like this one a lot.” He went straight to a specific file and double clicked to open it up. It was a still photo of a naked, busty brunette with her head thrown back in what looked like ecstasy as a man buried his face between her legs. She was grabbing his hair and pulling him farther into her, totally owning her lusty need.

  “That’s… kind of hot,” I whispered.

  “You’re not offended?”

  “No, not at all. This is actually kind of sensual…artistic, even. Maybe it’s because it’s in black and white, or may
be it’s because she isn’t some plastic looking Barbie doll. She looks like a real woman. Her boobs even look real. Spectacular, but real.”

  Logan blinked at me a few times, dumbfounded.

  “What?” I finally asked, feeling awkward under his scrutiny.

  “I can’t believe that you just listed off every single thing I love about that picture.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I can’t stand watching those cookie cutter bleach blondes with boobs so huge, they look like they’ll rip through their skin. Everything about them looks so fake. I’ve never understood the appeal.”

  “Show me more,” I said, smiling wickedly.

  He clicked through a few more, every single one of them depicting a beautiful woman receiving oral.

  “I’m starting to detect a theme here,” I chuckled, feeling very warm at the memory of him doing that exact thing to me the night before.

  “I’ve always been fascinated by it,” he said with a blush. “It just looks so raw…so passionate.”

  “Is that all you have? More of the same?”

  “No, these are just some of my favorites.”

  “Show me a few others, then.” I couldn’t believe how eager I was. Logan sharing this dirty side of himself was driving me crazy.

  “Here’s a clip I like,” he said, pressing play and turning the sound way down. It was a top-down view of a man getting a blow job, as if the guy on the receiving end was holding the camera. It was fairly amateur in quality, but that probably made it easier to picture yourself as the lucky guy in question.

  We both watched in silence while the young woman bobbed and slurped up and down his length, the only sound in the room our ragged breathing. I shifted around on his lap a bit to get more comfortable, spreading my legs open until they dangled over the sides of his thighs. I leaned back against his chest to rest my head on his shoulder as we watched, and there was no mistaking the prominent bulge digging into my lower back.

  “I watched this a lot after you did that to me last week,” he said with a gravelly voice. I could feel the hot bursts of air against my neck as he spoke.

  “Did you like it?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “I fucking loved it,” he grunted, shifting his hips against me. “Now every time I watch this clip I feel the heat of your mouth on me, the wetness of your tongue.” He started trailing his fingers up and down my arms, sending tingles running through my entire body.