The Game We Play

Chapter 11: Learning the Rules

With her fingers faltering on the lock, Sophia stood still before her locker. The corridor around her hummed dullly with conversations, but today everything felt different. Today felt like a decision she knew nothing about how to make.

Her heart skipped uneasily across her chest. No matter how ridiculous or dangerous Liam's offer felt, it still lingered softly at the rear of her mind. Is she really capable of this? Could she leave the shadows she had long buried behind?

But her inner struggle soon gave way to an adrenaline surge as a familiar voice sliced through her ideas.

Bennett asked, "Waiting for an invitation?"

Sophia turned her head slowly, already knowing exactly who she would see. Her breath seized. Liam Carter stood there, sloppily leaning against the lockers, his icy blue eyes sharp and evaluating beneath a fringe of tousled golden-brown hair. A lazy smile carved across his face.

She said, "You're lurking again," then turned back to open her locker with a sharp jerk. "Do you ever really show up for class?"

Liam laughed softly, moving just a little bit closer to close the distance until she could feel him warm and threatening at her side.

"You didn't answer my question," he said, lowering his voice just she could hear. " Have you decided yet?"

Sophia swallowed and pretended to arrange her books. She murmured back, her voice tinged with irritation: "Maybe it's not as easy for me as it is for you."

He slanted his head slightly, looking at her with subdued entertainment. "I never mentioned it would be easy."

At last Sophia looked at him, something rebellious flickering inside her. "then what precisely are you saying?"

His height made him tower easily above her, so he moved even closer, crowding her gently but firmly. His voice was low, charged with challenge.

"Stop letting her win, I say. Give up letting Emily Sinclair choose your identity." He pointedly looked down at her clothes, eyebrows just slightly raised. "And stop dressing like you hope none will notice you, Bennett, for God's sake."

Her face flushed, humiliation tightened her chest, and anger surged in as a defense. "I asked for no fashion advice."

"No,," Liam said coolly. "You asked how one might win."

She started to answer, but no words came out. Because, damned him, he was right.

She had sought.

She was in agreement.

He grinned, obviously reading every contradictory thought across her face. "Meet me beside the hockey rink after school. Put on something you could really move in."

He shoved off the lockers and turned away before she could object, leaving her staring after him, heart pounding, pulse hammering loud enough to drown out the rest of the world.

Sophia grudgingly headed to the hockey rink after a day of suffering Emily's subtle taunts and the whispers of other students who now considered her as a handy source of entertainment. Every stride forward felt like surrender—that she might not be able to accomplish this by herself. Perhaps Liam Carter, among all people, was indeed correct.

Liam was waiting when she showed up. With arms folded across his chest, he leaned sloppily against the edge of the rink, the height of cool detachment.

"You came," he said, his voice slow and assured, eyes glistening with secret pleasure.

Sophia hesitated right at the door. "Against my better sense of judgment."

He leaned his head toward her, looking closely. "Funny, your "better judgment" has landed you exactly nowhere. You certainly want to have faith in it?"

She grimaced, then moved forward anyway. "Thus, what now? Are you going to teach me something, like skating?

Liam let out a gentle laugh. "No, Bennett, I'm not here to teach you skating. Maybe we will, however, work toward that." His posture became suddenly more austere as he waved her toward the benches by the rink. "We begin with something simpler first—confidence."

She ar eyebrows sceptically. "Confidence?"

"You nodded. Just as said. Your stance is Your move. How you view others instead of behaving as though you owe them an apology for breathing."

She put her arms defensively across. "I neither do that."

Liam's look softened just slightly, something unreadable flickering across his eyes. Indeed, you do. Emily also notes this first thing. She gets power over you from that.

Sophia ignored him since, deep down she knew he was right.

"So, shoulders back," Liam said, approaching closely with a lower, more authoritative voice. “Chin up. Give up reducing yourself to fit everyone else.

Sophia straightened slightly, uncomfortable and vulnerable under his close examination. "That's not that simple."

"Nothing worth having ever is,," he said coolly, circling her gently to evaluate her posture. "Stop obsessing over your emotions." Consider how they view you starting now. "You not yet need to be confident. Just carry on as you are. Help them to believe it."

She inhaled deeply, felt stupid but still tried. She raised her chin, straightened her shoulders, and squarely met his eye.

Liam's expression flicked, a brief, real flash of approval, then it disappeared under his customary smile. "better," he said. "Let us now see if you can hold it."

Sophia arrived at school the following day carrying Liam's words clearly in her head. She urged herself to keep her chin high and back her shoulders. She tried to behave as though none of it concerned her. Her surprise was also that it started to work.

She sensed the faint change: heads turned more slowly as she passed, whispers laced with inquiry instead of pure contempt. Eyes narrowed suspiciously, Emily watched her from across the cafeteria, obviously trying to figure out what had changed.

Liam himself surprised me the most though. She had not expected him to be honest, yet he showed up at her side at lunch, sloppily leaning against the table and staring at her with subdued gratification.

"Not bad," he said in a whisper. "You are picking things up fast."

She looked up and pulled at her lips a wary half-smile. "When the value of the lesson justifies it, I pick things quickly."

He grinned, leaned slightly forward, his voice a low, mocking whisper. "Exensive, Bennett. That almost sounded like thanks."

She answered dryly, "not flatter yourself", but the heat in her cheeks gave her away.

He laughed quietly and straightened himself once more. "Keep honing your skills. We will raise the stakes tomorrow."

Feeling both fascinated and uncomfortable, she followed him as he turned aside. Sophia Bennett wasn't sure exactly who was playing whom since this was the first time.

And perhaps—just perhaps—she had no idea at all.

Sophia felt she was picking up game skills.

Liam, though, was writing the guidelines.

And each step forward descended into his territory more deeply.

She hadn't yet understood that you never stopped playing Liam Carter's game once you started.

TO BE CONTINUED…