I tightened my arm around his back and brushed a smiling kiss against his cheek. “Duchess-napper extraordinaire.”
His eyes were bright, and a dimple popped on his cheek. “No one bailed on us, and we got the job done!”
I pushed his glasses back up his nose with my fingertip. “You were calm under pressure. You kept everyone together.”
Kev’s smile faded as he realized we were pressed against each other, but he didn’t move away. Our mouths were inches away from another kiss. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said softly.
It wasn’t true. He was a true master of the game, better than I would ever be, but I appreciated him saying that. My chest tightened, and my eyes strayed to his lips.
“Are you even listening to us anymore?” Adam’s tinny voice came out of both our abandoned headsets, causing Kev to jerk and scramble up from the floor.
“Uh, yeah, sorry,” Kev said, clearing his throat. He focused on the monitor and neatly avoided looking in my direction. “I’m back.”
I slowly stood up and righted my chair before slipping my headset on.
A distinctive chirp sound came through comms, and I froze. Was that…? It sounded like a Grindr notification sound, and it for sure hadn’t come from Kev or me. Was Adam seriously trolling for ass right now while online with his supposed boyfriend?
I glanced over at Kev, who seemed like he hadn’t heard or hadn’t recognized it, and ground my teeth.
It was no secret that I didn’t like Anomaly, had gotten a bad feeling from the guy when we’d interacted over the defense of Kev’s homestead, and had suspected all along that he was trying to manipulate Kev somehow while also profiting from Kev’s glory. But this…
“Sorry, guys,” I said, trying to sound calmer than I felt. “I gotta go. Good work. Thanks for letting me join you.”
Before I clicked out of the chat, I heard the distinctive chirp again and felt my blood pressure spike. I waited for Kev to notice—to flinch or wince or lose his mind and kick Anomaly to the curb right then and there—but he was calm and efficient as he doled out the prize pips equally and congratulated Cam and Adam on their new rankings.
Cam signed off, clearly buzzing at having leveled up to Ascendant’s Class, after offering to buy us all drinks if we were in Vegas for HOGCon, and that was when I set my headset down and turned off the game… but I didn’t leave the room. I pretended to be engrossed in text messages on my phone—apparently, the IRS was looking for me, and I needed to buy an extended warranty for my car—while waiting for Kev to finish.
For a long while, I could only hear Kev’s side of the conversation, which amounted to grunts and hmms. Then his fingertip began tapping the side of his thumb. “Yeah, no, I… Uh-huh. I didn’t think of that. Good idea. Thanks for the suggestion. Maybe I’ll try it next time…”
I didn’t mean to eavesdrop—oh, who was I kidding? I was fully, shamelessly eavesdropping—but I got the sense that Adam was critiquing Kev’s game play, which was ridiculous. Not only was Kev an amazing player, but he was also an adult, for fuck’s sake. One who hadn’t asked for feedback. One who was riding the high of a victory.
I waited for Kev to clap back, the way he did with me. To tell Anomaly exactly where he could shove his unsolicited advice and to call him out for nearly killing us all.
But he didn’t.
My jaw began to ache with the effort of keeping my mouth shut.
“Oh, right. I forgot about the article. Uh… Well, I would probably keep something like that offline? Like, if it was critical data you really wanted to protect, it would be safest on a drive in a safe somewhere. It’s not easy to access that way, but the safety is worth the inconven—oh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Is this data you need to access regularly or just store?”
I turned to look at him. Why was Adam asking Kev about data security?
“Yeah, but wait. This is data someone else has? That you want to find? Like… what kind of data?” Kev’s eyes flicked to mine. I couldn’t tell if his expression was one of embarrassment or concern. “Oh, phew. Yeah, no. That would be fine with 256-bit encryption. Standard stuff. I mean, unless you have like the NSA on your tail,” he said with a laugh.
They talked for a few more minutes, and then Kev said, “Uh, no. I think at this point we should wait until next weekend. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess we could, but— Wait! I’m not agreeing! I— Adam?”
Kev blew out a breath and threw down his headset. It sounded like Adam had cut him off midsentence—probably rushing out to get dicked down—and I felt more enraged than I’d maybe ever been.