The Pawn (Endgame #1)(32)

As if I can’t hear him, which I totally can. I take another gulp, larger this time. That’s my new drinking game—a drink whenever he gets mad. If I’d done this at our last few appearances, I would have had a much better time.

And why did I never notice that he called our dates appearances?

“I’m talking about social climbing,” I say, examining the bottom of the cup. All gone. “You are a social climber. And I am a social faller.”

Then I collapse into a fit of giggles. Somehow the silver phone handle ends up dangling off the end table, Justin’s voice a cartoonish buzz. I picture him as a tiny little man on my shoulder, like when an angel and a devil appear to whisper advice in your ear. Would he be the angel? Candy would definitely be the devil.

The chandelier is so big. It must weigh like eight tons. I realize I’m lying on the floor, looking up at it. What if it fell on me right now? Game over. That’s what would happen. No maze, no sword. No sailing back with a white flag on my ship.

That was the agreement Theseus made with his father. If he was successful in killing the Minotaur, he would wave a white flag from his ship on return. Except in all the excitement he forgot. His father watched the ship approach with so much grief he killed himself.

That’s always been the saddest part of the story. It was all for nothing. I’ll wave the white flag, Daddy. And I’d never let him know what I did to save the house. I didn’t want him to die.

“Christ,” a voice says, low and rumbly. Not at all like the tiny angel Justin.

Gabriel’s face fills the space above my head, blocking the millions of lights from the chandelier.

“Oh, hi.”

He looks incredulous. “You’re drunk.”

“I can’t be drunk. I only had one glass. And don’t worry, I drank the cheap stuff.”

The empty glass must have rolled under the rug. He picks it up and sniffs. “You drank moonshine?” He makes a low growling sound. “This was the last bottle my dad made before he died.”

My mouth drops open. “Oh my God, the white flag.”

His gaze narrows on the phone. “Who did you call?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer but strides over to pick up the hanging shiny handset. “Who is this?”

“Don’t you like caller ID?” I ask curiously. The silver rotary phone is pretty, but it doesn’t seem practical. Then again he just paid one million dollars to have sex with me. Maybe practicality isn’t a priority for him.

He slams the phone down, vibrating with some kind of intense emotion. “Who. Did. You. Call?”

I grew up around important men. Powerful men. Angry men. I learned to speak softly, to tread lightly. To smile at them and touch their arm, as if everything I do is to placate them. It’s not because I think they’re better than me. It just makes life easier. Then I disappear into my books, into the myths that make up a fantastical world so far removed from my own.

Except somehow I’ve stepped into that world—a place of gods and monsters. My diplomacy might serve me well now, except the moonshine seems to have stripped it all away.

“I called my fiancé, Mr. Nosy Pants.”

His eyes darken. “He isn’t your fiancé anymore.”

“He said he wants to get back together.”

Gabriel comes to stand directly over me, his gaze intense. “That’s not happening. I bought you. You’re fucking mine. Got it?”

I giggle. “He’s going to be so mad once he finds out. Men are always so mad.”

“He can fucking deal with me if he has a problem with it.”

My fingers form a frame in front of me, and I look at him between them. “You’re handsome for a monster.”

“Thank you,” he says through gritted teeth. “Do you want to get up off the floor now?”

I manage to sit up, but then the world spins. “I’m thirsty. I need more of that moonshine.”

“No.”

“Are you saving it?” I whisper. “Since it’s the last moonshine your daddy made?”

“I was,” he says, his voice dry.

I nod. “I can drink the Crown Royal instead. Or the tequila. I’ve never had tequila.”

“No more drinks for you. It’s bedtime.”

“What? That’s so unfair.” I haven’t had a bedtime since I graduated from high school. And even though I usually went to bed by curfew at college, he doesn’t have to know that. “I’m not even sleepy.”

As the words leave my lips, a wave of tiredness washes over me. It feels like more than the normal amount of sleep that you feel at the end of the night. This feels like I’ve been walking through the desert for days. It weighs down my eyelids until I’m looking at Gabriel through half-mast.

He shakes his head. “Do not throw up on me.”

I don’t know what he means until his hands slide under my legs. Then behind my shoulders. And I’m in the air, held only by his strength. I curl myself against his linen shirt, breathing in the musky scent of him. “You smell good.”

“You smell like a distillery.”

He’s taking me somewhere upstairs, and I close my eyes. “It will hurt less like this.”

“It won’t hurt at all,” he says, softer now. “I’m putting you to bed.”