“Oh, my bad. Is this better?”
She brings the booklet away a little further until I catch a glimpse of three ballerinas upon a stage – Sophia Solomon, Lucy Kincaid, and my sister. They’re in real-life tutus, standing on their toes, spotlighted under real-life stage lights. Above the picture, an announcement for an upcoming recital.
When Quinn decides I’ve looked long enough, she flips the booklet open and shows me the credits.
School director: Sophia.
Headline dancer: Lucy.
Choreographer…
“Fuck, Bubbles. You did it.”
“I know!” she cries out and tosses the booklet away. “I really did it, Will. I’m choreographing my own show. A whole show.”
“I’m so proud of you. Have I told you that lately?”
She clamps her trembling lips shut and nods.
“I love you so much,” I continue. “And I always knew you would achieve your dreams.”
“When are you coming home, Will?” A tear slides over her cheek. A single tear, filled with the same grief I carry every single day in this city so far away.
Maybe we’re only separated by distance, and maybe we get to chat as often as we like. But we’re the original kids from a family who didn’t want them. We’ve been a team since the day she was born, unbreakable in bond and spirit, but now we’re apart, and neither of us are coping all that well.
“Soon, right?” She studies my eyes. “You said soon.”
“Soon,” I confirm on a croaked rasp. “I’m almost done, and then I’m coming back for good.”
“What are you doing, Will? Where are you? No one knows anything.”
“That’s because I haven’t told anyone.” I chuckle and try to brush her questions off as silly. “It’s classified.”
“What city are you in?”
“Paris.”
She sighs. “Liar. What’s your day job?”
“Barista?”
She growls this time. “Liar! How many lady friends do you have now?”
I snort. “A hundred and twenty-seven. And you?”
She sighs. “I miss you.” After a moment of silence, her eyes come back to mine. “Soon?”
“Soon. What game are you guys playing tonight?”
“Eleusis.” She drops back onto the couch where she started, and leans against a beefy shoulder I assume belongs to Jamie Kincaid.
He’s her man, has been for years. He treats her the way he’s supposed to, and takes care of her in ways I can’t. Maybe I can admit I like the guy – hell, I love him – but that doesn’t mean I put too much thought into their romantic life. Because if I did, if I thought of the specifics and the time they spend alone, heads would roll.
“It’s a strange game where everyone gets to make up their own rules.” She shrugs. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s a game of logic.” A woman’s voice drifts across the room and into my fucking soul.
Quinn’s eyes leave mine, and instead go over the top of her phone to look at whoever is sitting across from her. “It’s a game of cheats,” she shoots back. “Everyone gets to make up their own shit, but claim it’s part of the game.”
“It’s a game of strict rules that everyone must adhere to,” that woman’s voice counters.
I know her voice, I’ve dreamt of that voice. I’ve done filthy fucking things while thinking about that voice. And the irony is, she sounds so proper, so educated, so soft and rule following, that Olivia Conner and ‘filth’ should never be used in the same sentence.
“Without the rules,” she continues haughtily, “the game is merely chaos.”
“But the rules are secret!” Quinn snaps. “Secret. That’s not rules, that’s bullshit.”
“Calm down, crazy.” Jamie’s chuckling voice brings Quinn’s eyes back to me. She adjusts the phone screen and brings him into view. “Will.”
“Kincaid. You doing right by my sister, or is it time for me to break your arms?”
He gives a casual shrug and grins. “Guess you’ll have to drop in and find out for yourself. How far away are you?”
“I don’t know. I get to leave when they tell me I can leave.”
“And who are they?” he asks oh-so-casually, like he hasn’t asked a thousand times this past year. “We don’t know shit around here. Not even the cops know where you are.”
“Ironic,” I snort. “I’m around, I’m safe, and I’m not even breaking the law.”
“Just my heart, then?” Quinn murmurs. “So easily disposed of?”
“Shush.” I roll my eyes. “Let’s talk about the game with no rules again.”
“There are rules!” Olivia Conner pipes up. Just like I knew she would.
She’s too self-righteous for her own good, too rigid and perfect to let my comment go. Either my sister knows I want to see, or she merely wants to see Olivia and I duel, but she flips the camera and presents me with a view of the beautiful woman sitting on the couch across from Quinn. Long, raven hair goes all the way to the middle of her chest, strictly straight – perhaps her fear of breaking rules has scared her hair into submission. Her eyes are bright, too bright for her face, but that’s the point. They’re contradictory and stop a man in his tracks.
Olivia is a little younger than me… not so young that any rational person would call foul. But young enough to know that her daddy doesn’t like it. And by ‘doesn’t like it’, I mean that motherfucker slammed me against a wall with more force than was needed that one time he tried to arrest me.
Olivia – such a sweet, princessy name – sits tall and straight, stick-up-her-ass straight, and rests her clasped hands on her knee as she folds one leg over the other. She wears jeans, skin-tight and a similar blue to my sister’s eyes… or, well, my eyes too, I guess. And beneath that raven hair, behind those folded arms, a floaty white shirt. It’s loose, and when I squint hard enough at my tiny screen, a part of me wonders if it’s somewhat see-through.
She’s so fucking perfect that it would be a crime for me to touch.
And we both know, I blew my chance a while ago.
Daughter to a cop. Niece to the chief. Sister to a world champion fighter. And let’s not forget her mother, who executed her first husband; point-blank, lights out, never-fuck-with-me-again execution.
Olivia’s brother sits beside her, but the space on her left is empty; space for me, perhaps, if I were to ever join these game nights in the future.
Olivia smiles for me now, but it doesn’t seem all that genuine. In my mind, I imagine it might be how a lady praying mantis looks at her man a single second before she eats his head. “William.”
I grin right back and annoy her fake smile straight off her face. “Olivia. Are you cheating in a game against my sister?”
“I don’t cheat.” She sits back a little, a dismissal for the pauper boy. “I don’t need to, because I understand a game of logic. Quinn is nice and all, but she can’t play the game. That’s not my fault.”
“Hey!” A beer cap flies across the top of my camera view to land in Olivia’s lap. “I can’t play it because it’s not a real game.”