“I’m not playing a game with you,” Caspian says for the hundredth time in the ten minutes we’ve been in the car.
I pout. “Why not? If you don’t, I’m going to sing horribly along to the radio the entire time.”
He frowns. “How about we sit quietly in the car on the way?”
“No, that’s not fun. We always sit quietly. We never talk. We hardly know anything about each other.”
“I know plenty about you.”
I roll my eyes. “Only things you or Adela have looked up about me. Nothing directly from me.”
I reach for the radio and turn it on. A Demi Lovato song comes on, and I start singing at the top of my lungs about having daddy issues. The irony is striking because I do have daddy issues.
Caspian turns the radio off, but I keep singing.
“Fine,” he relents.
I grin from ear to ear. “So the rules are we get to take turns asking each other anything. And we have to answer each other’s questions to get another turn.”
“And if I don’t want to answer?”
“Then, I win the game.”
“And the winner gets?”
I’ve thought about this carefully. I could offer him something sexual, but he already knows I will do anything he wants without this silly game. I could ask for something worthy of playing, like my freedom, but then he wouldn’t play or would just lie. I have nothing to offer him, but I know he’s competitive. He hates losing. It’s enough. I want this game to be light anyway. I’ll only ask the tough questions when I want the game to be over.
“Bragging rights.”
He narrows his eyes. “And how we will know if the other is telling the truth?”
“We will know.” I have no doubt we will be able to tell.
“Okay, I’ll go first. What is your favorite place in the world?”
“My house.” He answers quickly. My first questions are meant to be light and easy so he will play along, but I didn’t expect this answer.
“Seriously? You like your cabi
n? You’re not talking about a bigger house you own somewhere else?”
“That seems like a second question.”
I glare at him as his lips curl up. He’s teasing me. I like it. I’m not used to this playful side of him.
“I’m talking about my only home. The house we share.”
Share, that’s a strange word to use when we don’t share it. It’s his; I’m just a captive there.
“Your turn.”
“Why did you fall for a man like Roman?”
My mouth falls and my fingers, that were drumming along still to Demi Lovato in my head, still. I stare at him, and he stares back with the same intensity. He’s not playing games with me. He won’t ask any lighthearted questions. Only serious ones.
“Because I was desperate to be loved. I wanted an escape from the Carini family, and I couldn’t do it on my own. Or at the time at least, I thought I couldn’t. Roman paid attention to me. He offered me a chance at freedom, and I was stupid enough to think freedom was love.”
Caspian stills for a second before he nods. “Your turn,” he says as if I didn’t just bare my heart to him.