Fool Me Once

by Katee Robert

  “Right. I forgot. All the same—spill.”

  It was like saying it aloud made her even more pathetic. She didn’t want to admit how weak she was, even to Jules, who wouldn’t judge her in the least—though she might give Aubry a well-deserved kick in the ass. “There’re going to be thousands and thousands of people there—people I don’t know—all packed in like people-shaped sardines.” She shuddered. “If I believed in hell, this would be my version of it.”

  “Aubry, of course you believe in hell. You were just talking about how you’ll own a nice little piece of property there when you die.” Jules rolled her eyes. “But I’m getting off topic.”

  “Yes, you are, and I don’t like you pointing out how I’m going to burn my way through the afterlife.” Though the bantering was making her feel a little bit better.

  “The point is that I still don’t see why the glum face and lack of victory lap. This is a big deal, right?”

  “The biggest deal.” She clutched Ninja Kitteh closer, earning a warning growl. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Out of the millions of people who play this game, I’m one of ten they picked to test the alpha version.”

  Jules sat back. “I know you don’t like people, but shouldn’t you make an exception for this kind of thing? Just this once.”

  She wanted to. God, she wanted to so much she could barely stand it. “Would you go with me?” Maybe if she had a shield between her and the crowds, she’d be able to survive the encounter.

  “I would…”

  Aubry cursed. “Sorry, I forgot. You have that trip planned with Adam and Lenora for his mom. I’m a horrible fucking friend for forgetting that.” Adam’s mom had passed away a month ago, and her dying wish had been to have her ashes scattered in the Gulf where she and Lenora had their honeymoon. They were leaving next week to drive down there and spend a few days doing a memorial of sorts. Right in the middle of DeathCon.

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. How’s Adam holding up?”

  Jules sighed. “As well as can be expected, but he’s talking to me about it, so we’re working through it. This kind of loss isn’t an easy bounce-back, no matter how long he had to come to terms with it.”

  She knew. And she even liked Adam enough to be genuinely sorry he was going through this. He was a good man, and he made her best friend so deliriously happy it was a wonder Jules didn’t spend her days walking around on little clouds and singing at the top of her lungs. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know. I am, too.” She shook her head and started typing something on her phone. “But we are, once again, getting off topic. Back to DeathCon—what if there was an alternative?”

  “Alternative?” Aubry stopped panicking enough to send her best friend a suspicious look. “How can there be an alternative? I don’t like this alternative you speak of.”

  “Hmm?” Jules looked up from her phone. “We’ll figure something out. I know how you feel about people, especially people in crowds, but you can’t miss this opportunity. No matter how much you kind of hate everyone.”

  She did, but it didn’t stop that comment from stinging, just a little. “I don’t hate you.”

  “That’s because we’re lady soul mates.” Jules glanced at the door, making the small hairs on the back of Aubry’s neck stand up. She was definitely up to something.

  Aubry narrowed her eyes. “Maybe we should talk about that alternate option now.” She did not like the way her friend seemed so calm.

  “In a minute.”

  She straightened but was temporarily distracted by the front door of the café opening. Adam walked through, sending Jules a downright devastating smile as soon as he saw her. He always did that. It didn’t matter if he’d been gone an hour or a full day, he always looked at Jules like she was the best thing he’d ever seen.

  Aubry was not jealous of her best friend for having that kind of relationship. She most definitely was not.

  Then Adam stepped aside and he walked in. Quinn. She froze, almost overwhelmed by the sheer size of him, even across the room. He was well over six feet tall and had a physique that would have been seriously attractive if not attached to his particular personality. She knew the second he noticed her, because his brows slanted down for half a moment before his face relaxed into a grin. He never snapped at her, never snarled, but he said the most unforgivable crap.

  “Hey there, sweet cheeks. Looking good.”

  Like that. Sweet cheeks. What the hell was wrong with him? She hunched down into her seat and stared at her computer, but the screen just served to remind her of the opportunity her issues were forcing her to miss. If she was a normal, well-adjusted woman, she’d have no problem shooting back an email accepting the honor that the invitation signaled. For fuck’s sake, they were going to comp her a room. That wasn’t something they did for just anyone.

  Too many people. Not enough space.

  The feeling of claustrophobia was only accented by Quinn ambling across the room to the table and looming over her. “Stop hovering,” she snapped.

  “Now, don’t be mean. I know for a fact I don’t stink.”

  No, he didn’t. He smelled of some kind of cologne that made her think man. The kind that would have advertising with a guy who looked like Quinn up on the back of a horse, cowboy hat firmly in place, probably a lasso in his hands and a determined looked on his face.

  He dropped into the seat next to her, draping his arm over the back of her chair. He didn’t touch her, though. For all the casual intimacy he showed with everyone else, he never touched her.

  Probably because I threatened to rip off his arm and beat him to death with it last time he did.

  She shut her computer, all too aware of the heat she could feel emanating from his body. He was like a human-sized forge. She realized she was staring at his chiseled jaw line and jerked her gaze away…right to Jules’s considering face.

  Heat spread across her face and she realized, to her horror, she was blushing. Oh my God, what’s wrong with me?

  Jules didn’t give her a chance to recover, either. She leaned forward. “I think you two can help each other.”

  It took a second for her words to penetrate, but Aubry was already shaking her head. “No, absolutely not.”

  While, next to her, Quinn said, “Jules, I think you’re swell, but you need to be committed if you think for a second I’m going anywhere with this crazy woman.”

  She spun to face him, forgetting her rule about touching, and poked him in the chest. “Me? No one’s crazy enough to go anywhere with you.”

  “Tell that to all my lady friends.” He gave her a grin that was just this side of vicious. “Though, if you’re looking for that kind of company, I might be willing to make an exception.”

  Aubry went ramrod straight. He did not just offer her a pity fuck. “Over my dead body—but, who knows, you could be into that sort of thing.”

  “Hardly.” He made a face. “I like my women warm and willing. But on that note, you’re right. You don’t fit either bill.”

  A gasp of outrage slipped free. “Watch your step, cowboy. I know plenty of places to hide a dead body.”

  “Sweet cheeks, in my current mood, I almost hope you try.”

  A delicate throat clearing had Aubry ripping her gaze away from the smug look on his face to her best friend. “Jules, you’re out of your godforsaken mind if you think for a second we’d last an hour without killing each other.” No matter how good he smelled.

  “Actually, that’s why I think it’ll work perfectly.” She grinned. “Quinn needs a date to his sister’s wedding to keep his family’s matchmaking efforts in check, and you need someone to be a walking barrier between you and everyone else at this convention thing.” She motioned to Quinn. “He’d make a great barrier.”

  “Only because he’s abnormally large.” A man his size could block out the entire room, which would be perfect if she could guarantee he wouldn’t open his equally large mouth.

  �
��Aw, sweet cheeks, I didn’t think you noticed.”

  Jules snapped her fingers at him like she did at her cats when they misbehaved. “Stop poking at her or she might actually try to bury you in the desert.” She sat forward, practically vibrating. “And Quinn, you have to admit that Aubry is very good at repelling everyone in her vicinity—no offense, Aubry.”

  “None taken.” She’d worked hard to perfect her resting bitch face so people would leave her alone in public. Of course, in a town like Devil’s Falls, it was just as likely to draw in people who wanted to help. They meant well, and she managed not to hold it against them. Mostly.

  “Plus, if you’re worried about one of your lady friends getting the wrong idea, that’s not something you have to deal with if you take Aubry.”

  She glanced at him, sure that he was going to shoot Jules down the same way she had, but he had a strange look on his face—almost like he was actually contemplating it. Shaking her head, she said to Jules, “No. How many ways can I say it? No. Nyet. Non. Nein. No.”

  It was tempting to get up and storm out, but her computer was here and Quinn was blocking her exit from the table. She turned to him again. “This is insanity, and you’re crazier than I am if you’re even considering it.”

  “You don’t know my family, sweet cheeks.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “What’s this convention thing Jules is talking about?”

  She didn’t want to even entertain this idea long enough to explain it, but she could see Jules wiggling in her seat across the table, so it was only a matter of time before she shared the information anyways. Aubry sighed. “DeathCon. I have an invite to attend and test the upcoming Deathmatch: Redemption.”

  “Damn.” He sat back, a look of almost respect flitting across his face. It disappeared as quickly as it’d come, replaced by his grin that seemed to charm everyone else—except Aubry. She didn’t trust that grin any more than she trusted the strange pull she felt when he was around. There were no two ways about it—Quinn Baldwyn didn’t fit in any of her neat little boxes she shoved people into.

  She didn’t like that. She didn’t like it at all.

  She liked it even less when his grin widened. “This plan of Jules’s is starting to grow on me.”

  Chapter Two

  Quinn couldn’t believe he was actually contemplating this, but Jules had a point. A fake date would fit all his needs, and Aubry Kaiser, as vicious as she was dangerously attractive, fit the bill.

  He skated a glance over Aubry. She was a little alternative for his tastes, with her tattoos and bright red hair, looking like some kind of exotic bird that had wandered into the legions of cowgirls and down-home belles that were Devil’s Falls born and raised. Pretty in a pixie sort of way, but with a mouth more likely to cause pain than pleasure.

  Yeah, she was exactly the kind of girl who could hold her own against his family’s barbs. The woman had skin thicker than an armadillo and a don’t-give-two-fucks attitude that impressed him, despite himself.

  She didn’t look convinced, though.

  He couldn’t blame her, but the reward might be worth spending more time with her—that and the added bonus of getting a chance to see if he could get beneath her skin.

  It wasn’t a good idea—he damn well knew that. He had enough complications in his life without throwing a woman like Aubry into the mix. But Jules was right. He needed a date, and this woman would do nicely.

  If he could convince her to agree.

  He met Jules’s gaze over the top of the table and nodded once. She jumped up so fast she almost knocked Adam out of his chair. “I think I left the stove on.”

  “Sugar—”

  “Come on.” She grabbed his hand and towed him out of the room without a second glance.

  This was Quinn’s one chance. If he missed this pitch, he would have to find a different solution. He removed his arm from the back of Aubry’s chair and did his damnedest to adopt a sincere expression. “I know you don’t like me much.”

  “That’s the biggest understatement in the history of understatements.”

  Yeah, he kind of thought so, too. He took a deep breath and tried again. “You want to go to this convention and play this game—don’t bother to lie and say you don’t.”

  Her mouth set in an unforgiving line. “I wasn’t planning on it. Yes, I want to go, though ‘want’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. Obviously you’ve been too busy lifting rocks or wrestling bulls or whatever you cowboy types do to notice, but Deathmatch is kind of my life.”

  He’d noticed. She might be as cute as a pit bull about to take a bite out of the mailman, but even he’d noticed that Aubry cared about exactly three things: Jules, whatever work it was that she did on that laptop she always seemed to be carting around, and Deathmatch. He’d only seen her play it a few times in the past year, but the sheer joy that suffused her face when she was murdering people on that damn game was pretty fucking sexy. Not that he’d ever admit as much. But that was the only time he’d allowed himself to think about what it’d be like if he got her out of those tight jeans and T-shirts with a variety of nerd sayings on them. He’d spent one buzzed night imagining exactly how far down her tattoo descended past her collarbone and, fuck, it had been hot as hell.

  But the long and short of it was that he just plain didn’t like her any more than she liked him. And Quinn didn’t sleep with women he didn’t like. It was in poor taste, and ultimately unsatisfying.

  He tapped his fingers on the table, disturbed by the turn of his thoughts. In an effort to focus, he said, “What do you need in order to actually go to this thing?”

  Her long-suffering sigh made him grit his teeth. He knew she thought he was some kind of knuckle-dragging Neanderthal and, to be perfectly honest, he hadn’t done much to disabuse her of the notion, but it got old sometimes.

  Aubry started shutting down her computer. “I don’t like people.”

  “That I did notice.”

  She dropped her gaze, something almost vulnerable in those amber eyes. “No, I mean like I have near-crippling social anxiety. Put me in the middle of a crowd and you’ll find me curled up into a ball trying to remember that I’m not suffocating to death.”

  Quinn blinked. He had a hard time envisioning a situation where she wouldn’t be in full control and delivering barbed commentary, but he knew something about panic attacks. His littler sister had them from time to time.

  But there weren’t two women more different than Jenny and the woman sitting next to him.

  His sister needed a quiet space and calm words to talk her through an anxiety attack, but when he’d read up on it all those years ago, it seemed like each person was different. Some needed a physical link to hold it together, some complete silence, some needed something else altogether. It was purely personal.

  In order for him to deal with Aubry’s potential attacks, he needed to know what was required to bring her down. “So, again, what do you need to do this?”

  “Nothing you can give me.”

  “And what about work? This is kind of last minute to request time off.”

  “All I need to keep up on my clients’ websites is right here.” She closed the laptop. “But that’s irrelevant for a number of reasons. The first being that I don’t like you and you don’t like me, and that’s fine. It’s better than fine. But it means I don’t trust you and you can’t do shit for me when it comes to my anxiety if I don’t trust you.”

  She had a point, but he couldn’t let it go. When she stood, he stood with her. “Aubry—”

  “I’m sorry that your sister’s wedding is presenting you such an awful conundrum, but I’d be even less helpful at a wedding surrounded by strangers than I would be at DeathCon—and that’s with me wanting to go to DeathCon. I sure as hell don’t have any desire to go to this girl’s wedding. Why don’t you ask one of your lady friends?”

  That was the problem. He might have lady
friends, but he didn’t have much in the way of friends who were ladies. To be honest, Jules pretty much summed it up. There was no one he…well, “trusted” was a good word. There was no one he trusted to take with him who wouldn’t look too much into the invitation, which would only make a bad situation worse.

  “Jules said I would make a good wall, and she’s right. Have you ever seen me walk through a crowded room?”

  Aubry hesitated. “Only at Jules’s wedding.”

  “Then you know for a fact I can clear a space in front of me. When I walk, people get out of the way.”

  Another hesitation. She was cracking. “Only because you’re so gigantic, they’re probably afraid you’re going to trample them to death.”

  Yep. He definitely had her interest. He could see it. She must really want to go to this convention if she was actually considering going with him. He took a step back and spread his arms. “So then let me be your wall—both at the convention and at the wedding. What have you got to lose, except missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?”

  …

  Deathmatch had driven Aubry out of her goddamn mind. That was the only explanation for her actually toying with the idea of saying yes. Either that, or Jules had rubbed off on her more than she ever could have guessed. Aubry might talk a good game, but the truth was when it came to pulling off plans, her friend was the one who threw herself into motion and made it happen. It’s how she ended up owning her very own cat café before she turned thirty, and it was how she’d ended up with Adam Meyer, town bad boy. She was the force of nature. Aubry was the one who sat in her safe little corner and kept up an ongoing commentary.

  What if I took the risk? Just this once.

  Sure, last time she’d gone out on a limb, her asshole family had chopped the damn tree down, but this wasn’t the same situation. Quinn might be an ass, but he was hardly going to throw her under the bus just for the sake of doing it.

  She hoped.