Page 55 of The Fake Divination Offense
The defensive coach is looking at me expectantly, so I stuff my phone away and focus.
We take a break a while later, and I text Alexo about living in Vegas, and how the weather was amazing but the scorpions terrified me.
He responds about how he fell in love with dance—his aunt could only afford one ballet class, so his cousin took it, and would teach him the moves after every session.
He grew up with his aunt and cousin? Where? What happened to them—why does he live with Tem now? Was he married to Alexo’s aunt? Is it part of thefamily shithe’s dealing with?
I don’t ask any questions though, and neither does he. It’s offerings only still, a trade of sorts.
He’s busy with cheer practice, and I’m getting pulled between my own practice and media junkets for the Hellhounds, so over the rest of the week, we don’t see each other, but we text nonstop.
Our next scheduled interaction is during the away game on Thursday in Manhattan—we have the game, of course, but the evening after is a gala for a charity that works closely with the national pro rawball league. Alexo and I are scheduled to attend it together.
There’s going to be overlap now, our staged PR events and things I consider real, and this is one. A big one—this charity means a lot to me, and I’m excited to not only attend with Alexo, but to have him with me in what feels like our firstrealpublic outing.
I content myself with texting him, and we feed each other little details:
His favorite color is pink. I almost tell him mine is, too, because of his hair, but I censor myself and say mine’s orange, which has worked out well with my new team’s colors.
His first job was working at a makeup store for a whole day before he accidentally stabbed a woman in the eye with a mascara brush. Mine was filing at my dad’s accounting firm when I was in middle school. Showing me around his workplace was the most animated my very stoic, docile father has ever been, but the next summer, my mom enrolled me at Camp Merethyl. I was destined to be something Urzoth-worthy, with strength and physicality, not a quiet office clerk.
Pretty sure the only reason my mom married my dad is because he rolls over for whatever she wants and makes her feel like a true Urzoth follower when she quote-unquotewinsso often.
Which is something I text to Alexo before realizing, oops, that might have been too deep for a text conversation? I pivot us back to getting-to-know-each-other ground: neither of us have had any pets, we’re both only children, he’s a Virgo, I’m a Taurus.
He sends me a selfie in front of the cheerleader bus as they’re getting ready to depart for NYC. His tongue’s sticking out, freckles highlighted in a faint blush, and his pale blue crop top readsMY BIRTHSTONE IS A GLITTER BOMBin bold sparkly font.
I hate that the players are on a separate bus. Hate that I haven’t seen or touched him in five days, but I can’t hate it too much, because I know things about him now. The fuzzed edges of his mysteries are starting to clear, and even though there are still large unanswered questions, a foundation is building, ready for whatever weight it’ll have to bear.
Tem Raussec doesn’t exist online. No socials, no news reports about him. I consider and dismiss the idea of hiring a PI to get more info on him. He didn’t seem to be the source of Alexo’s stress, just a jerk, and I don’t want to go that obsessive. Yet.
I’m also proud of myself for not contacting Alexo’s landlord like I did for Seb and throwing money at his problems anonymously. Again,yet.
All things considered, I’m being pretty patient and levelheaded and not spiraling wildly about Alexo, and it reaffirms that, even though I had moments of relapsing, I haven’t entirely lost myself. I can be calm and rational. I can havecomposure.
Until I see Alexo on the red carpet outside the charity gala at a glitzy hotel in the middle of Manhattan. Composure?Ha.I barely know her.
He’s in high-waisted, wide-legged black pants and heavy black combat boots, a goth counterweight to his airy satin tank top with thin spaghetti straps in a rosebud color that matches the pretty blush on his cheeks. The top droops and sways over his torso, showing all the lean, honed muscles in his arms and chest, more of that body glitter dusted across his skin. Gods, I want to roll around in it.
But it isn’t just glitter that has him sparkling.
He’s got some kind of gold body chain that loops around his neck and shoulders and cuts down between his pecs, dipp-ing under his collar before it goes fuck knows where below his shirt.
The body chain goesunder his clothes.
How far down?
My jaw’s open. I know it is.
Marlow cackles at me.
We’re at one end of the gala’s red carpet while Treva leads Alexo to me—it’s a staged procession, making sure every single journalist gets plenty of time to prepare for the rawball Beauty and the Beast’s next moment.
A few reporters shout out more questions about last night’s game against the New York Ghouls: 21–15, us. Mostly thanks to Marlow who, even though the field our artificers built wasn’t water, zipped around those desert dunes like they might as well havebeen an ocean. And, okay, the main reason she was able to move so freely was because of my defenses, which is why we’ve spent the past twenty minutes fielding questions about our technique and partnership.
As well as questions about our next game.
It’s at home.
