Life is Not a Game Book 2
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Kara Verbeek
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Prologue
Book 2: Love Is Not a Game
ABIGAIL
The stadium was absolutely insane as the roar of the crowd’s cheers drowned out even the announcer’s voice. The impossible had been achieved. The giant was defeated by the underdog. It was a true Cinderella come-from-behind story, and the fans loved it.
Well, at least most of the fans. There were no cheers in my row of the arena, no excitement. Only sadness and shock could be found on my row, as it was the reserved seating for the Sun Stones’ family and friends.
A single tear rolled down my cheek as I thought of what this outcome would mean to my brother, my supporter, my best friend, my hero. He must be absolutely crushed. I knew I had to shed any tears I had here, before going to see him.
I would need to put on a happy face for him so my disappointment didn’t make him and his teammates feel any worse. He didn’t do badly—the other team just played better.
The other team was good, insanely good. In fact, I’d been watching these competitions for years and had never seen anything like them. It wasn’t as if every member on the team was the best in the world—actually, they seemed on par with my brother’s team.
What set them apart was definitely the tactics they used. I had watched their promo videos, just like everyone else in the audience. Apparently, the single female on their team, Mars, was the one who’d designed their strategies.
A high school senior, just like me. She must be an absolute genius.
I watched as Carter and his teammates shook hands with the other team before walking out of the arena. Wanting to comfort him, I quickly got up and left through the back door. To get to the green room, I had to circle around the foyer of the arena.
This left me fighting past the other spectators, making their way to restrooms, concession stands, and wherever else they were headed. As soon as I got past the last concession stand and out of the crowd of spectators, I took off running toward the green room. I needed to get to my brother—I needed to make sure he was all right.
One hallway left and I would be back to him. I sprinted around the corner, just three doors away, when a door suddenly opened in front of me. I was going too fast to stop, too fast to avoid the collision.
The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground, dazed.
“Ouch,” I said, my head lying on the warm ground.
Wait, the corridor was cold, the ground was concrete—it shouldn’t have been warm. My face was definitely pressed against something warm. My hand was also touching something warm.
“As much as I normally enjoy a woman on top of me, mind getting off?” I heard a deep voice say, making me jump.
I quickly jumped up, realizing the warmth against my cheek was a guy’s chest. Not only had I managed to take myself out in my rush, I’d also tackled a guy who, based on his chest, was very muscular.
“I am so, so, so sorry,” I quickly said, too embarrassed to look up at his face.
“Do you have a license?” he casually asked.
“Huh?” I was still too embarrassed to look up, but his question caught me off guard.
“Because you just swept me off my feet and drove off with my heart,” he casually said, like it was nothing.
“What? Do lines like that actually work?” I questioned, finally looking up and freezing when I saw who I had bumped into.
The guy in front of me was one of the players I had just watched in the arena. It was Neptune, one of the members of the Romans, the Cinderella team that just beat my brother. He was attractive on the TV, but up close, he was even hotter.
I could definitely get lost in his eyes.
“Not really. Sorry, your beauty stopped my brain from functioning,” he replied, causing my cheeks to heat up. “You’re even more stunning when you blush.”
Was he seriously hitting on me? I’d never had a guy hit on me, and this Adonis was actually hitting on me?
“Nep, you coming back?” a girl yelled from inside the room he had just come out of.
Shoot, that’s right—I had to get back to my brother. He turned to say something to the girl, and I used the opportunity to run away, back to my original mission of getting to the Sun Stones’ green room.
I burst through the door of their room, making a loud clang as the metal handle banged into the wall. I was met with a deafening silence. No one looked up, no one acknowledged me as each member was trapped in their own world, coming to terms with the loss, their fall from the top.
Carter was sitting in an armchair, his head hanging, buried in his hands. I slowly walked over to him and sat on the arm of the chair, wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders, encasing him in a hug. Our usual roles were reversed; normally he was the one comforting me.
My skinned knee after falling off my bike when I was ten. My tears when Jack called me fat in seventh grade. My first B in Mr. Gregory’s sophomore English class. Carter had been there for me countless times, comforting me and telling me it was all right. It was finally my turn to be there for him, to make him feel better.
Carter leaned toward me, putting his head on my leg. No words passed between us; no words were needed. Despite my best efforts to not show my own emotions, I couldn’t stop the tears that streamed down my cheeks.
Seeing my hero so upset was too much for me to handle. I leaned forward, placing my head on his back and wrapping my arms tightly around him. We just lay there, silently crying and seeking comfort from each other.
We stayed like that for about five minutes until Ricky, my brother’s best friend and teammate, walked over.
“Awards are in five minutes,” he quietly said.
I lifted my head to look at Ricky and saw his matching slightly puffy eyes that indicated he had spent the past few minutes the same way we had. I wanted to get up and hug him too, but knew Carter would be upset by that.
Even as a brotherly hug, he wouldn’t want me hugging a guy. For some reason, my mind went to my encounter in the hallway, before I shook it off and focused back on the men in front of me.
Carter took just a minute more before raising his head and putting on a smile, wiping away the evidence of his sadness. It was time for him to put on a confident facade and show the world that the Sun Stones were graceful even in defeat.
“All right, we can do this,” he said, standing up and putting his hand on my head. “Thanks for that, kiddo,” he said with an earnest smile, the kind that was reserved for me.
“You know I’ll always be there for you, just like you are for me,” I told him, wiping the tears from my face.
“You better believe it.”
“I love you, Bubba,” I told him, managing a weak smile.
“Love you too,” he said, pulling me up and into a full-body hug, letting me know everything was going to be all right.
“Do I get a hug?” Ricky asked me after Carter released me.
“Touch her and die,” my brother quickly said. I would have laughed if I wasn’t pretty sure he was telling the truth.
“Why do you always threaten me? You know I was just kidding. She’s like a sister to me,” Ricky quickly defended, putting his hands up in surrender.
“You know she’s not something to joke about. No one touches my baby sister,” Carter replied.
I loved my brother, but he was way too overprotective.
“Come on, Bubba, what if I find a guy I really like? You can’t keep all guys away from me forever,” I said, once again my thoughts drifting to earlier.
“I sure can. You aren’t allowed to date guys, and anyone who even looks at you will have to face my wrath.”
“That’s not fair, I’m seventeen, not seven. I start college next year!” I whined.
“Which is precisely why you can’t date. I know what guys your age are like, and you deserve better than that. Remember, I was your age five years ago.”
“Sorry kiddo, but he’s right. Eighteen-year-old guys only want one thing,” Ricky agreed.
“You guys dated tons of girls, still do. So you only want one thing also?” I questioned, not wanting an answer, just making a point.
“We aren’t talking about us, we are talking about you,” Carter replied.
“Great, I’m gonna die a virgin,” I mumbled.
“I heard that, and yes, you are,” he replied.
I just rolled my eyes. The only good thing about this conversation was that it got their mind off of the loss.
Luckily I didn’t have to change the topic away from my dating life, or lack thereof, since their manager walked in and told them it was time to head back to the arena. Carter offered me one last smile before walking out with his teammates to go to the awards ceremony.
I went back to my spot in the audience, ready to watch the ceremony. When Carter’s team was called to receive their second place, I cheered louder than anyone in the arena. Even getting second, I was so proud of him.
The last team to take the podium was the first place team. I couldn’t help but glance at them, noticing Neptune standing proudly next to his teammates. He was definitely attractive, but he seemed to know it. He was not the type of person Carter would approve of me dating, not that he would approve of anyone.
***
It had been two weeks since the tournament, and coming in second hadn’t really changed much in my brother’s life. Carter and his team still had sponsors and were still competing online and practicing most of the time.
I guessed first or second didn’t make that much of a difference overall. They were still insanely popular, but just had to share the limelight now.
“Hey, Abs, wanna play with me?” Carter asked as I walked in from school, my parents still not home from work.
“I thought you were at an event today?” I questioned. I hadn’t seen him all week, since he was so busy shooting commercials and practicing.
“We got done early, plus I missed hanging out with you.”
“Aw, I missed you too. Unfortunately, I can’t play though, I have homework to do,” I replied.
“Come on, just for a little bit?” he begged.
“Homework,” I said, pointing to my bag over my shoulder.
“You’re super smart, I know it won’t take you all night. Play with me for just a little while. Please,” he begged.
“Oh, okay, fine. I’ll play for an hour, then I really have to do my schoolwork,” I conceded.
“Yes!” he cheered, making me laugh.
I dropped my bag on the floor in the hall and sat on the couch next to him. He grabbed the spare controller from the coffee table and threw it to me, like he had done thousands of times before. I was nowhere near as good as him at video games and would never be a professional, but I’d been playing with him my entire life, so I was decent.
Gaming together was kind of our special thing. It was how we bonded. I’d never admit it, but I really loved playing games with him.
One of my oldest memories was sitting in his lap on the floor as he helped me play some fighting game. I must have only been three or four years old. I remember picking a cartoonish girl with twin buns on her head. I liked her because she used pretty fans to attack people.
“What are we playing?” I asked curiously. Sometimes we would play Strike from Above together, but he never played that on a console, so I knew it wasn’t the game we would be playing today.
He looked over and gave me an evil grin before booting up a basketball game.
“Oh, come on!” I complained. “You know I hate sports games.”
“That’s just because you suck at them,” he teased.
“Hey!” I yelled, throwing a decorative pillow at him.
Ignoring my pillow attack, he skipped the loading screen, and we both picked our teams. He started out by getting the ball and using some combo to dribble between his legs, away from my defender, and scored a basket. Twenty seconds into the game and I was already losing.
It was now my turn to get the ball, and I decided to show off my skills. Two could play that game. I used a different combo to toss the ball behind my back to an open player, who then nailed a three-pointer.
“Yes! Take that!” I cheered, since that meant I was ahead of him.
We went back and forth like that through most of the game, each showing off whatever combos we thought the other might not know. It was so much fun playing with him, even though I don’t like that type of game.
Despite what Carter said about me sucking, I only ended up losing by three points. Not bad, considering he was a professional gamer and I was, well, just me.
Looking over at the clock, I saw that it was almost six ,and I still had a ton of work to do. I guessed our fun had to end.
“All right, Bubba, I really need to go do my homework now,” I told him, as I got up to head to my room.
“Abs, check this out before you go,” Carter said, handing me his phone where he’d been checking his social media accounts.
“Since when do you follow the Romans?” I asked.
“Gotta keep tabs on the competition, but look at their latest post.”
It was a post from Neptune on their official social media account.
“Looking for the mystery girl I ran into at the tournament. Our meeting was brief but our connection was deep. Mystery girl, if you see this and felt the connection too, send me a dm,” I read out loud.
Carter let out a loud snort. “What a player. That’s exactly the kind of guy you should avoid.”
For some reason, those words hurt more than they should have. I definitely couldn’t tell him the mystery girl was me.
