Gamed (A Standalone Romance Novel) (Bad Boy Romance) by Claire Adams Read Free Book Online Page A

made me think of ripe strawberries.
    I met her a month
after Sienna and I started dating. Her hair was loose, her arms looked too
long, and her chocolate brown eyes were so wide. For all her teenage
awkwardness, Quinn was confident.
    "You're
dating my sister?" she had asked. "Do you play football?"
    "No."
    "Basketball?"
    "No," I
had said.
    She had tipped her
head, those chestnut waves sweeping over her arm. "What do you do?"
    "I don't know,
video games?"
    Quinn had laughed
– a free, unpracticed sound. "With Sienna? She hates video games. You must
be a good kisser."
    Quinn had always
been easy to talk to, despite the gap in our ages. She was a freshman when
Sienna and I were seniors in high school. I remembered hearing the other guys
talk about Sienna's hot younger sister. It had made my blood boil. They did not
know her like I did. Quinn was more than just attractive. She was quick-witted,
interesting, and guileless.
    Where Sienna
always had an agenda, an angle, or a desired outcome, Quinn was different. She
was genuinely interested in people, not for what they could do for her but
because she liked them. She was friends with everyone. Sienna had an exclusive
list of people she would be seen with, but Quinn was more like me. Not loners,
just not defined by the tight clans of high school territory.
    "She's
driving me crazy," Sienna had said many times. "I mean, she went to
the movies with this nerdy guy. She could have gone out with the first baseman
of the baseball team."
    "Not into the
whole dating thing?" I had asked Quinn when she was a freshman in high
school. We sat on the worn leather sofa in her parents' basement playing video
games while Sienna did her make-up for a pep rally.
    Quinn had
shrugged. "Sienna makes it sound like a competition. I'd rather just sit
here and beat you at Mario Kart ."
    I did not tell her
then, but I preferred the same thing. There had been too many nights when all I
wanted to do was hang out with Quinn. I leaned on the doorframe and called
myself a coward.
    She must have
heard my heavy sigh. "Owen? How long have you been standing there?"
    "Long enough
to be impressed with your use of the frost sword," I said.
    Quinn paused the
game. "Yeah, right. An expert like you. I probably did one hundred things
wrong back in that glen."
    "Well, there
is a secret passage in one of the trees, but you were a little busy with that
ogre." I slipped onto the couch next to her.
    "Is it wrong
that all I wanted to do all day was escape down here?" Quinn asked.
    I resisted the
urge to brush her chestnut curls off her bare shoulder. "I don't think
anyone would judge you for that. It’s surreal up there."
    "All the
almost crying but not actually, because women don't want their mascara to run. All
the cheery stories about Sienna, even from people who called her the b-word to
her face," Quinn said. "Perfect pictures, perfect flowers, perfect conversations – I'm not sure I'd call that
reality."
    "Sienna would
have loved it."
    Quinn gave a short
laugh that ended on a jagged sigh. "She would be so mad about me hiding
out here. I should be trolling the guests for a good date."
    "'I don't
need a date; we're good,'" I quoted her.
    "Every time
Sienna caught us down here playing video games." Quinn gave a ghost of a
smile.
    "You know, I
was being honest. You're getting pretty good," I said. I picked up the
second controller and tossed it between my hands.
    "You don't
need to lie to me," she said.
    "And you look
beautiful in that dress and your hair looks great long," I said. I nudged
her with my shoulder. "Now can I compliment your playing or should I keep going about you?"
    Quinn never
believed me when I told her she was beautiful. It had almost turned into a
game. I wondered if she heard compliments so rarely that she never knew what to
do. Sienna got the compliments, the praise, and the bragging stories from their
parents.
    I told myself it
was good for Quinn. Really, it was just a way to say what was on my mind.