Play Me: A1pha (Alpha) Part 1 Read online

  Play Me

  Blue Ashcroft

  dpgroup.org

  Published by Blue Ashcroft

  Copyright 2014. Blue Ashcroft

  Formatting: Polgarus Studio

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected].

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any events or locations depicted are also fiction and figments of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events or locations is purely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  I must have the wrong address.

  Rain whips my face as I stare up at the house in front of me. I look back down the hill, but the cab that dropped me off is already gone, a faint set of headlights far below headed back toward the freeway.

  I sigh and check the smeared address on the crumpled, soaked scrap of paper in my hand. The numbers match, so it has to be right. My friend Ollie gave it to me online only weeks ago, telling me to come if I was ever in trouble.

  The house in front of me is immense, rising in all directions like a painful reminder that nothing stays the same. It has a long semi-circular driveway that curves in front of the porch, which has tall columns on either side. The door in front of me is beautifully carved, with a custom doorknocker in a weathered silver color.

  When I last saw my gamer friends, they were in a tiny apartment struggling through computer science and engineering degrees and gaming together on the weekends.

  Now they apparently need multiple stories and a six-car garage. But maybe a lot has happened since I ran away from them into something completely stupid.

  And now I’m running back. I raise my hand to knock and hesitate. A raindrop creates a rivulet for others to follow down my face as I stand there, frozen. I can’t do this.

  I’m not sure if it’s the cold or the sheer fear of what they’ll say when they see me, but my hand just hangs there awkwardly, refusing to knock.

  I can’t stop remembering the last time I saw them, the look on Ollie’s and Ethan’s face as Alex and I shouted it out, Alex’s stubborn glare as I walked out of their lives.

  I jump when a car drives by, splattering rain onto the nearby sidewalk. My stomach falters like a lurching elevator. At any moment, that could be Nate driving by. The thought makes me colder than the frigid night air on my wet skin. I hold my breath and watch the car, exhaling when it finally makes a U-turn and goes back down the way it came.

  My heart is pounding. I take a deep breath and draw all my strength into my hand and knock forcefully against the door. After a few seconds, shadows move against shuttered windows. Someone’s coming.

  I could still run if I took off right now. But I stay frozen in place, a human popsicle. I’m a stubborn person, and just this once it’s going to be for my good rather than against it. Someone rattles the door handle and undoes a deadbolt. I clench my hands into fists and take a deep breath. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ve survived so much more than this.

  But then the door swings open, and my breath catches at the sight of the man in front of me, silhouetted by the soft indoor light, looking stunning as usual. His face is just as I remembered it, just as I’ve seen it in my dreams. But harder somehow. Colder.

  The cruelly handsome, scarily intelligent Alex Dumont.

  He braces a toned, muscular arm on the doorframe and scans me with intense green eyes, his perfectly symmetrical features evident even in the low light. Long lashes flick as he looks me up and down, an unreadable expression on his stone-hard face.

  I can see the calculations as he watches me, takes in every detail and processes it at light speed. He’s more super computer than human, a gamer with perfect reflexes and the ability to strategize on a dime.

  Fifteen months ago, I could never have contemplated being the target of his cold stare. We had each other’s back at all times. That seems like forever ago, now.

  Alex’s eyes narrow slightly during his perusal. I wince, seeing clearly in my mind’s eye what he sees. Usually, my soft brown hair, heart-shaped face, and wide blue eyes give me an ethereal, pixie-ish look, particularly suited to drawing in nerds at conventions. But right now, soaked by rain, extra pale, with makeup smearing down my face and cold and stress straining my features, I suspect I look less pixie and more drowned rat. Alex frowns when he finishes his perusal, confirming my suspicions.

  “It’s been a long time, Alex,” I say quietly, breaking the silence.

  “Lotus,” he utters softly, and I’m shocked to see a hint of pain flash across his eyes as he says my old nickname.

  “It’s Kira now,” I mutter.

  He blinks rapidly and looks slowly over me again, as if he still can’t believe I’m here. He subtly sucks in his cheeks, drawing attention to well-defined cheekbones that parallel a stunningly straight jaw.

  Wind blows over my wet skin, forcing the hairs on my arms and neck to stand at attention in uncomfortable goose bumps, but Alex just stands there staring, in some kind of trance. I admit it’s a bit unreal for me too. Seeing him again, it’s wistful in a way that makes it hard to breathe.

  But it’s cold and Nate’s out there.

  Someone please come and break the silence between us.

  A figure appears behind Alex at the door, trying to push past him. Ollie peeks his head out and then snakes around Alex, who responds with a silent glare.

  Ollie’s lankier than Alex. Dark hair and striking, pale features. He looks me over and shakes his head.

  “Why are you keeping her out here on the porch?” He pulls me inside, forcing Alex to step out of the way. “It’s freezing and she’s soaking wet, you maniac.” He lets me take off my shoes before leading me to the nearest couch.

  The carpet beneath my wet feet is soft and luxe, and my cold toes cry in relief.

  “Honestly, Alex,” he says, giving me a gentle shove so I fall onto the couch. It’s soft and the warmth of the room surrounds me as I sink into it. Ollie disappears down a hallway.

  “She didn’t ask to come in,” Alex says simply to his back. He’s not at all abashed, because in his eyes, everyone on Earth should understand things exactly as he does.

  “Come on, like anyone knocks on a door on a rainy night because they want to stay out in it,” Ollie says in a disgusted tone as he reenters the room. He tosses a blanket over me and then tucks it in around the edges. I smile up at him and he gives me a quiet wink.

  “Thanks.” I pull the blanket up around my chin and lean forward to keep my hair from dampening the back of the couch if possible.

  The room goes quiet, save for the discreet pattering of rainwater dripping onto the rug from my soaked clothes. I inwardly flinch at the sound.

  Ollie leans against the arm of the other side of the couch, studying me quietly. He’s lean with wide shoulders. He still has features a little too harsh to be classically handsome. He looks like a movie villain who isn’t supposed to be attractive but is. He has dark, nearly black hair, navy blue almost violet eyes, a slightly roman nose, and a small tattoo that extends down his wrist from the rolled up cuffs of the button-up shirts he always wears.

  Likes to write, lady charmer. Gamer handle: Darkhorse, or Dark.

  Alex shuts and
locks the door and steps into the living room. He goes to stand on the other side, leaning against the opposite wall and continuing his cold appraisal of me.

  I slowly become aware of someone else in the room. On a couch across from me, a tanned gamer with wavy brown hair is slowly letting his Xbox controller slide out of his hand while staring at me open-mouthed. When he catches me looking, his jaw snaps back and his brown eyes twinkle.

  Ethan Maguire. Sports enthusiast, console mainer. Looks more like someone you’d find at a frat house or a sports bar but prefers gaming all the same. He’s flirtatious and playful. Alex’s best friend since before I met them. He loves to ruffle Alex’s feathers, but he’s always there to clean up his messes.

  Ethan is a lean kind of buff. The kind that comes from enjoying sports rather than hitting the gym. He’s usually playing in some sort of soccer league. He’s loyal and sharp. Gamer handle: Hawk.

  “Kira?” he asks, eyes bright and shining with excitement. “Are you serious?”

  “Serious about what?”

  “Seriously back,” he says, bounding off his couch to give me a huge hug. I flush and pat his back. Then he steps back and sits on his couch again, watching me sheepishly. “Sorry, it’s been so long.”

  Ethan and I were the jokers of the group, always looking for a prank to pull on the more serious Ollie or Alex. Ethan was always up for a team match or a console tournament when the others felt above it. I always saw him as a brother. I’m not sure that was entirely mutual from the way he’s eyeing me, intensity emanating from the brown depths of his irises.

  I can feel all of their eyes on me.

  Kira Landis. Apparent nerd queen, though I never meant to be. I wasn’t trying to rule a group of guys. I just felt at home with them. From the moment we met through our college gaming club, we knew it was a perfect fit. With them, I was able to come out of my shell, and we were inseparable for almost two years. Then I ran out of their lives. Gamer handle: Lotus.

  Which just leaves the man standing over by the far wall in a kind of self-imposed solitary confinement, glaring at all of us.

  His perfectly arched brows give him an imperious look, and his sharp cheekbones are aristocratic. On his head is gorgeous, natural blond hair the color of wheat in the sun. He wears it short, just long enough to tuft in different directions on the top but buzzed on the sides. He’s the tallest in the group at 6’3”. Immaculate clothing and grooming right down to his always perfect fingernails. Supernaturally fast reflexes that make him impossible to beat in a game but the best teammate you can have.

  He’s as talented as he is arrogant. The one nerd that never wanted me and the one nerd I wanted.

  Gamer handle: A1pha.

  We all stare at each other, the only sound in the room the quiet dripping of my hair onto the blanket and the sound of rain pattering against the windows, the wind blowing through the trees outside.

  Things are always more awkward than I thought they would be.

  Like the first time I met the guys in person, at a gaming event sponsored by the campus nerd club. I wasn’t expecting the stares, the murmured disapproval, the desire.

  I didn’t grow up with anyone telling me I was beautiful. My dad and mom divorced when I was younger and my mom had a hard time with my brothers and me. Never enough money for the kinds of things that make a girl popular. I was teased at school for my worn clothes and my limp, boring hair and bare, pale face.

  Gaming was my escape. When I went online, I was someone else, and my friends in my games understood me like no one in real life did.

  When I turned eighteen, Dad finally started to feel some remorse and offered to pay for college and living expenses. I took him up on it and used some of my savings to get the things I’d never had—makeup, clothing that wasn’t from a thrift store, a new gaming computer.

  I found a flier for our college gaming club, went online and joined, and met A1pha, Dark, and Hawk through recruitment for a team they were forming for a game I loved. As we got closer, I got to know them just as names on a screen, though I pictured them in various ways due to their behavior. A1pha, in particular, was interesting to me, always carrying the team, always short with words yet so thoughtful. I think I had a crush on him even then. When a campus console gaming tournament came up, we all decided it was finally time to meet in person.

  I was bitterly afraid I would disappoint them, that they would judge me the way others had as I was growing up. But I got my hair done, did a little makeup, wore clothing that was clean and fit well, and decided that was the best I could do.

  When I walked into the crowded room, the loud chatter that had been going up to that point slowly quieted. A couple dozen guys turned to me and I froze in the doorway, hand still on the door handle.

  I’d tried my best to look nice, but I wasn’t expecting this reaction. Jaws hanging open, eyes bugging, murmurs starting, the crowd getting louder. It felt like the room was closing in on me. I searched vainly for other girls in the room but didn’t see any. Just men. And how was I supposed to know who was who?

  I shrank back against the door, wondering if I should run, and then I saw a face above the others. Above the masses of greasy, unkempt hair, I saw a thatch of well-groomed natural blond, tousled into loose, spiky tufts on the top and short on the sides. Beneath the hair lay a smooth brow, arched dark eyebrows, and intensely green eyes that pierced me even from across the room.

  A1pha. I knew it without anyone telling me.

  He started making his way toward me, confusion plain on his face as he pushed through the crowd.

  I tried to keep the disgust off my face as several of the gamers leered at me. I was wearing a simple black jacket and jeans, nothing that invited that kind of attention. I had every right to be there and be treated like a normal player. With that thought in mind, I strode forward, chin lifted, into the crowd to walk to the registration table. Some of the guys moved out of the way, and I swallowed down the fear and almost made it to the table before a hand grabbed my arm. I gasped in shock and turned to my attacker, but before I could open my mouth to shout, my eyes met a pair of liquid-green emeralds and my knees turned to jelly.

  A1pha slid an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to the booth. People moved out of his way.

  “Lotus?” The guy at the registration booth had dark hair and dark-blue eyes. He looked me over slowly and then grinned in disbelief. “Wow.” He shook it off and pushed a form toward me, circling the place where I needed to sign. “I’m Dark, by the way, or you could call me Ollie,” he said, looking up with a grin that probably charmed the pants off women despite his awful sense of style. He wore a horrible button-up the color of a yellow highlighter.

  “Nice to finally meet you,” I said, wondering if I should shake off A1pha’s arm or leave it there because it seemed to keep others away.

  “Hey, A1pha, stop hogging her.” A smooth tenor cut through the noise, and a guy with a surfer tan pushed through the crowd, adjusting his hat back on his head so he could get a better look at me. Brown waves stuck out from under the brim. He wore a polo and shorts and stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the other gamers.

  “I’m Hawk, or Ethan,” he said. He put out a hand, and when I gave him mine, he shook it vigorously and then pulled me into a firm hug, causing me to let out a squeak of surprise, which drew A1pha’s attention. He extricated us and pushed me toward the registration booth.

  “We can do intros later. Let’s get you signed up.” His voice was somewhere between low and high, a velvety, deep quality to it. I nodded, still blown away by the perfection in front of me.

  When sign-ups were finished, Ethan put an arm around my waist and pulled me toward the back of the room, through a side exit, and out into the sunlight. I twisted out of his reach as politely as I possibly could, not used to so much male attention. I put my back to the wall and they came around in a semi-circle. And then we all stared at each other.

  Like we’re all staring at each other now. I guess I always k
now how to make an entrance.

  Ollie takes a deep breath and leans forward in a brave move to cut through the tension. “You remember everyone, Lo?”

  “I prefer Kira now,” I say. “But yes, I remember everyone.” I gesture around the room, making contact with each as I say their names. “Ethan.” I look over at Alex and my throat tightens up. “Alex,” I mutter.

  Alex tips his chin my direction. Just a tiny, haughty nod. Then he’s back to looking grim and pensive about the situation. I wonder what he’s remembering, what he’s feeling right now.

  “Wow, it’s been so long,” Ethan says, settling back on his couch with the lazy ease he always seems to possess. “We’ve missed you.”

  “You guys too,” I murmur.

  “Why are you here?” Alex finally asks, breaking the tension in the room. He tilts his head to the side, impatient and expectant. “Where’s Nate?”

  I flinch at the name. Not only because I was the biggest idiot in the world for not seeing him for who he was, but because he’s the reason I can’t look my friends in the eye.

  Silence in the room. They’re all waiting for me to answer.

  “I left him,” I say quietly.

  Tick. Tock. If there was a clock, we’d be able to hear it right now.

  “I need somewhere to stay,” I blurt out rapidly, facing them for only a moment before looking quickly away. “He’s going to try and find me.”

  “How did you get our address?” Alex asks.

  I flush because it sounds like an accusation. “Ollie gave it to me.”

  “Of course I did,” Ollie says. “We’re her friends. Or have you forgotten that, A1pha?” He says Alex’s handle in a sneering way, suggesting I’m not the only one who feels bitter about the way Alex ended things between us.

  Not that I excuse myself either.

  Ethan’s eyes lock on mine, a soft expression of concern in their brown depths. “I’m sorry, Kira. I didn’t know.”