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His Game: Chapter Twenty One

Joey never came back to lunch after she left to take care of Jacob, and I haven't seen her since. It's only the end of the day, so it hasn't been long, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about both her and Jacob.

I know how hard it can be to deal with people who don't understand the way Jacob and Belle act. People are ignorant to autism.

As of now, I'm chilling by our bikes while I wait for Joey to leave for the day. Dino and Roger waited with me for a while, but after ten minutes of her not showing they decided to head out.

My hand subconsciously reaches for my wallet. My fingers slide across the leather and I pull it out, slinging it open. As if a moth drawn to a flame, my eyes instantly go to the picture of Joey and I from the lake.

I don't know exactly what to do. The question isn't whether or not I have feelings for Joey, I don't think I can deny that anymore, but there still is the question of what to do with these feelings and how deep they actually go.

From this picture, it's easy to see how happy I look. And that should give me an answer as to what to do, but relationships are more than meets the eye.

"Who knew one picture could have someone looking so cheeky."

My attention instantly shifts from the polaroid picture to the source of that voice, and I find Kelly smirking at me behind her black lipstick.

I casually shut my wallet and slide it back into my pocket, "Yeah, and? I'm sure I smiled at pictures of you and me."

That much has to be true. Aside from Joey, Kelly is one of the most memorable girls to have played my game. Hell, my month with her meant enough to me to keep her as a friend. I was fine with the relationship portion of the game ending, but I still wanted to keep in touch.

That could be the case with Joey. I've admitted to myself that I like her, but I liked Kelly too and was perfectly fine breaking things off at the end of the game. So, Joey could just be another round of that. I don't have to worry about potentially losing in the end and falling for her; not over smiling at one picture.

Kelly snorts and crosses her arms, "Not like that, you didn't."

Or, I could stop being in such adamant denial.

"Rhett, look," Kelly starts, "Roger sees it. Dino sees it. I see it. Don't act like a dumbass and say you don't."

I don't have much of a response other than staring back at her, but she said all she needed to anyways. When I don't say anything, she just chuckles a little bit and then walks off.

"You're losing bad, Calvetti."

As Kelly walks away, just having to get those final words in, I finally see Joey. Her expression is distracted, still filled with the frustration I sensed when she left lunch. Her eyes are dancing all over the place, telling me she's lost in her thoughts, but she stops walking as she reaches me.

I frown and try to catch her eye, "Hey, is everything okay?"

She lets out a small sigh and finally lifts her gaze to mine, "It should be."

My frown deepens, "That didn't sound very confident..."

Her eyes fall to the ground and her stance falls into one of defeat. So I step forward and softly rest my hand on her arm, trailing it down to take her hand in mind.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I offer, tugging on her hand so she'll meet my gaze. "I can order us some Chinese food; the entire menu. Then we can talk about our feelings while stuffing our faces. Isn't that what girls do?" I say with a hint of teasing, and when she finally looks at me, I smile. "Hell, we can order two of everything if it makes you feel better."

I see the smile tugging at the corner of her lips, and she doesn't try to keep it away. She steps forward and lifts her hand to rest on the back of my neck, gently pulling my head down so that she can kiss me.

"Thank you, Rhett," she says, kissing me once more.

I grin mischievously, "Does me being super sweet mean you'll thank me by-"

I stop the second she harshly pinches the back of my neck and gently shoves me away with a small smirk. "And he's back," she drawls.

I chuckle and pull her back to me with a smirk of my own, swooping my head down to steal a small kiss. "Sweetheart, I never left."

We ride to her house and once we get to her kitchen, she pulls out a brand new menu from a Chinese place we have yet to try.

"The entire menu, right?" She asks as she wiggles it in front of me.

I lean my arms on the counter and smile at her, "Is that what you want?"

She tilts her head and taps her chin with the menu, "Is it what you want?"

I eye her and bite back my smirk, "I asked first."

Joey watches me for a moment or two, and then silently walks around the counter towards me. I shift so that my back is leaning on the counter instead as she stands in front of me, and she instantly steps between my legs and rests her hands on my chest.

"It'll be expensive," she says as she eyes my lips.

I place my hands on her hips to hold her in place, "Most likely."

"You think we'll finish it?"

I pull her a little closer, causing her to teasingly quirk a brow.

"I think that's a challenge I'm willing to face," I say lowly.

"It would certainly be worth it," she hums, trailing her hands slowly down my chest and back up.

I eye her lips and subconsciously lick mine, "Without a doubt."

She leans forward, bringing her lips dangerously close to mine, "So what's the verdict?" She asks quietly, ghosting her lips across mine, "What do you want?"

I shut my eyes as a shutter goes through my body and I squeeze her waist, "Joey, you can't tease me like this," I groan lowly.

She grins and slowly kisses the corner of my mouth, "Teasing? I just want to know if you want chinese or not," she muses.

I open my eyes and catch her sparkling gaze, and somehow I gain the self control needed to not melt into a horny puddle then and there. And in one swift motion I change our positions so that she's pinned against the counter with my arms on either side of her. Her eyes widen slightly in shock, and I smirk.

"My turn to ask you," I say lowly.

My lips find her skin soon after, starting with hot kisses on her cheek, trailing to her ear and down her jaw. I feel goosebumps rise on her arms and I smirk against her skin, moving to her neck. She arches it to give me more access, and I kiss back up to her ear.

"So, Joey," I start huskily, "What do you want?"

Then I pull back and let my lips hover over hers, hot breaths mingling as our eyes meet, and I assume that I finally got her. I finally was able to tease her just a little better than she teased me.

But, then she raises a brow and I see the shift in her eyes from sexy to playful. So, when she grins and grabs the menu on the counter next to us, dipping out of my grip while setting a chaste kiss on my cheek before dialing the number, I chuckle and walk over to her, hugging her innocently from behind as she orders the entire menu.

Forty five minutes later, we're grabbing the keys to my bike and laughing for being stupid enough to forget to check if they do delivery or not. Turns out they don't, so we waited for them to show up before realizing they never asked for our address or even said they did delivery.

Luckily it didn't take them long to make the food, though. I guess Thursday nights aren't super busy.

As we step outside, however, we instantly stop and glance at one another.

"It's raining," I deadpan.

And it came out of nowhere. It was sunny earlier with only a handful of clouds in the sky, and now the world's gone dark and the sky is pouring water all over the roads.

"Do we by chance have a car to drive?" I ask.

Joey shakes her head, "My dad isn't home, all I have is my bike."

I glance back at the pouring rain and grin, "You down for a ride in the rain?"

Her only response is a smirk, and that's answer enough.

So, thirty minutes later, we're back at Joey's house with three bags of chinese food and soaking wet clothes. I remove my already soaking jacket and try to cover us from the rain for the sprint from my bike to her front porch, despite the fact we are already drenched. Joey laughs as I do so, but doesn't object as we run towards her covered porch with my jacket held over our heads.

We make it there just as a boom of thunder roars, the storm suddenly getting worse, and we quickly swing the front door open to get inside.

Not our smartest idea.

We both start laughing as we look at one another. Her makeup is starting to slide down with each drop of rain dripping from her hair, and I reach forward to wipe some of it away only to smear it more. I chuckle at the sight, but somehow she still looks beautiful.

"Do I look like a raccoon?" She asks with an amused pout, trying to wipe under her eyes to rid the smearing mascara.

"Little bit," I say, and she lightly shoves me while she laughs at herself.

Suddenly, Joey's dad walks into the room from the living room. I guess he got home while we were gone.

He glances at the two of us, then at the three soaking wet plastic bags of chinese food, and rolls his eyes with a small smile. He reaches out to take them from Joey, nodding to the steps.

"Go change into dry clothes while I decide where I went wrong to make my daughter ordered three giant bags worth of Chinese food."

Joey wastes no time in going towards the steps, and since I'm shivering from how cold I am, I instantly follow. But then I guess her dad realizes what he's allowing- a teenage boy into his daughters bedroom- and stops me.

"Rhett," he says, his voice booming into the house, "you can wait for her to finish."

I flinch slightly and turn back to him with an innocent smile, "Right, of course. Sorry."

I stand in front of him, dripping all over his hardwood floors and shivering so bad my teeth start to chatter. It doesn't help that he has the AC nearly all the way up. I have never been so cold in my life.

I watch as her dad looks at me through squinted eyes, glances upstairs, and then huffs.

"Alright, go up there and change before you catch a cold. You get five minutes before I'm coming up with a baseball bat," he threatens, pointing firmly at me.

I gulp, "Y-yes sir." I stutter both from how cold I am and the bit of fear that shot up my spine.

I rush up the steps, nearly tripping over my own shoelaces, and stumble to Joey's room. I find her waiting by the entrance with a small smirk ghosting her lips, but she doesn't say anything as she walks into her room and grabs a sweatshirt from her closet.

"My Dad didn't look at the tag when he got this for me; so he got an XL instead of a small... It should fit you though," she says.

I quirk a brow, "Usually it's the girl stealing the guys sweatshirts, not the other way around."

Joey chuckles and tosses it to me, "Just put it on."

It strikes me that Joey has never actually seen me shirtless. Usually by now I've been intimate with the girls of the game, but Joey and I haven't done anything more than make out. I internally smirk; a nicely sculpted body with a set of abs tends to be a girls weakness.

Even if a girl puts up a dismissive facade in the course of the game, my body always forces them to show their true emotions.

I strip my wet shirt off, not bothering to be quick with putting the sweatshirt on so that Joey can see what she's been missing. It helps that my skin is glistening from the rain. This will make her wish she hadn't only teased me earlier.

Joey finally turns back around to face me, and I wait for her reaction with cocky grin that I can't help.

But she easily takes her eyes off of my body to go back through her drawers in search of clothes, and my entire posture deflates.

Um, did she not see my abs?

Sensing my hurt pride, Joey glances back over her shoulder and pouts. "Don't look so hurt," she says, and then smirks. "They're cute."

I scowl at her in response, barely holding back a scoff. But before I can say anything, she's suddenly facing me and pulling her wet shirt over her head and my response gets caught in my throat. I stare at her, eyes raking over her body.

Damn.

As I take her in, my eyes find a tattoo beneath her chest and I tilt my head. Shit that's hot. 

It's nothing extravagant; just three small, detailed birds flying towards her waist. It's small, but big enough for the detail on the wings to show. 

Joey throws on a sweatshirt, covering up her beautiful body, and I swallow to wet my dry throat.

"You have a tattoo," I say.

Joey grins and catches my eye, "Don't tell my dad, he doesn't know about that adventure yet."

"Why'd you get it?"

She shrugs and tosses me a large pair of sweatpants she had in the deepest part of her drawer, "At the last school I was at, I met a guy who convinced me to be carefree enough to go get a tattoo. He even convinced me to get a matching one with him," she chuckles.

I want to laugh with her, but instead I find myself going quiet as a sort of jealousy fills my chest.

She was close enough with a guy to get a tattoo to always remind her about him?

"Who was this guy?" I ask, and I try to play it off as a casual question. But the tightness of my voice doesn't help much.

Joey surprises me by laughing, and I narrow my eyes at her odd reaction. She gets on her bed and then slaps me playfully with a pillow.

"Rhett, don't be so uptight. I mean come on, I'd never let a guy convince me to get a tattoo!" She laughs, shaking her head at me, "I had been wanting one forever and on my 18th birthday I finally went out and got it."

Whether it be from relief or how contagious her laugh is, I start chuckling along with her.

"Someone got a little jealous," she quips with a teasing grin.

I roll my eyes as she stands up and goes to her dresser. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," then I tilt my head again, "Why three birds?"

Joey pauses and glances over at me for a small second before directing her attention to her dresser. "Birds seem to be the one animal that travels the most."

I furrow my brow for a moment or two as I connect what she's saying. With the amount of times she's traveled, what better to represent it than a bird?

"One for you, one for Jacob, and one for your dad?" I ask. 

"Tattoos are supposed to have some deep, hidden meaning. Right?" She asks with a small chuckle. 

I smile, "You know, I think dolphins travel just as much."

She makes eye contact with me through her mirror and rolls her eyes, "Three dolphins would look silly." 

I laugh at her response, but then my mind switches directions. I believed her way too easily that some guy convinced her to get the tattoo. 

I realize that I may talk about past girls, but I have no idea who all Joey has dated. Of course I assume she's had boyfriends or at least been with guys from how good she is at, well, everything.

How many guys has she dated?

I push that thought to the back of my mind so I can get rid of the sudden weight in my stomach, and instead I walk over to her. I gently grab her waist and pull her to me, dipping my head for a small kiss. She grins and kisses me back before lightly pushing me away so that she can brush her hair.

"I can't get you too excited with my dad just downstairs. I don't think he wants to meet Punk-"

"Stop."

She snorts and starts brushing her hair, so I quickly change into the sweatpants and lay down on her bed, disregarding her dad's earlier threat since it's been longer than five minutes and he hasn't come up here yet.

I watch as Joey brushes through her hair and the events from lunch today reappear in my mind.

"What happened earlier today, Joey?" I ask, "You seemed really stressed. Is Jacob okay?"

She catches my eye through the mirror and sighs, setting the brush down. "He had a really bad breakdown," she starts, staring at her brush as she fidgets with it. "Apparently some guys were making fun of him...he's never been good at dealing with that."

I frown deeply, "I'm sorry. People can be assholes."

Joey shrugs, "It happens at every school. Some people aren't sensitive enough to Jacob and his different way to going through life. And then he overreacts and...well things just get out of hand."

With a heavy sigh, she goes back to brushing her hair and I drop the topic. Her phone buzzes next to me and I notice she only has 5%.

"Your phone is about to die, you got a charger?" I ask, glancing on both sides of her bed.

She nods at me through the mirror, "Top drawer of the night stand, it's not plugged in."

I go to get it, bending down to the bottom drawer to grab it, but as I slide it open I don't find a charger. No, instead I find a bunch of polaroids.

I furrow my brow and reach in to take them out, and my stomach sinks.

They're of different guys. All a candid picture of them smiling or talking or doing something, but all just different variations of the exact same picture she took of me.

"What are these?" I ask tightly, lifting my gaze to her.

Joey turns to look at me and I hear her suck in a small breath, "I said top drawer, Rhett."

I just continue to stare at her, waiting for a response.

She sighs and comes to sit on the bed next to me, never breaking eye contact.

"I've never judged you for how many girls you've dated."

I start to respond, but then I shut my mouth once I realize she's right. She's never once tried to argue with me about it or shown that it bothers her.

I choose not to argue with her, because I really have no stance. Instead I glance back down at the pictures and stay silent, trying to calm the rapid and painful beating of my heart as I look at all of the different guys Joey was with. Guys that she laughed with, guys that she kissed, guys that she liked enough to take a polaroid of and keep.

Do they all have a Polaroid in their wallets of them and Joey?

But Joey reaches out for my hand and I snap my heavy gaze to her reassuring one. "Rhett, I'm with you right now. You should know that, you're in the same situation. Those other girls before me? You aren't worried about them when you're with someone new," she says, and then nods down to the pictures, "So don't worry about them, they were the past."

Though I know her words are supposed to be calming, I can't help but wonder if someday I'll just be another polaroid in her drawer while she says the exact same thing to someone new.

And that thought tears me apart.

Joey tilts her head, clearly noticing that her words didn't do their job. So she leans closer to me to kiss my sweetly. She rests her hand on my jaw as she sets a soft kiss on my lips, resting her forehead on mine.

I close my eyes and nudge her nose with mine, willing away the negative thoughts. Joey lightly rubs her thumb along my skin, kissing me softly again.

"I can tell you this," she starts, "I never gave one of them a nickname," she says to try and lighten the mood.

I open my eyes to look at hers and I catch sight of her reassuring smile. How she doesn't seem hung up on boys of the past, and my lips break from my frown to form my own small smile.

"Well, I can at least say with confidence that I'm hotter than all of them."

Joey suddenly laughs, high-pitched and off key, but still cute as she pulls away.

"Is that so?"

"I mean really, look at some of these guys, Joey. You can do better," I tease, glancing through the handful of polaroids, but then I stop on one and narrow my eyes.

He looks strangely familiar.

She glances down at it, "What's wrong?"

"I recognize this one...who is this?"

She takes the picture from me and then rolls her eyes as she drops it back into the small pile, "That's Billy," she says with a hint of disgust.

"Holy shit," I breathe. "Billy Rutherford?"

I knew I recognized it. He may be older, but he still has the same beady eyes and oddly angled jawline from when we were kids.

"Um, yeah...how do you know him?" Joey asks, scrunching up her face in confusion.

I laugh in disbelief. "He used to live here...he was this little racist punk that tried to break Rogers nose with a kickball. You seriously dated this dude?"

Joey stares at me, blinks at me, and then opens her mouth, "So you're saying I dated a racist?"

I cringe and nod, "Seems like it."

"Shit."

Speaking of things being broken, I suddenly recall her dads warning and realize it's been a lot longer than five minutes. I was okay with pushing that time limit a little, but it's been longer than I want to bargain with.

I like my face.

I don't want it to get busted with a baseball bat.

So I stand from her bed and extend my hand to her with a small smile, "Come on. We better get that Chinese food before your dad eats it all. I spent a fortune on it, I want to have some."

Joey smiles and takes my hand, but as we start to walk out of her room, I glance back at the polaroids and my heart drops once more.

Despite her reassurance, I can't help the jealous pit in my stomach. I don't like thinking about how they made her feel. How they made her laugh.

I focus my attention back on Joey, suddenly desperate to kiss her. I tug on her hand to get her to stop walking- she does so and glances at me with question on her lips. I step closer to her and instantly dip my head down for a kiss, moving my free hand to rest on her cheek as I deepen our kiss.

I'm silently begging for reassurance, pouring everything into this kiss, and she gives it to me. She kisses me harder, puts her hands on my chest in a way that shows I'm hers. She tells me through the kiss what she was trying to express before; for me not to worry about the past, because she doesn't.

Guys before me don't matter, girls before her don't matter. For now, all that matters is her.

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