but if you want to stay out all night gambling and drinking illegal booze, no one better dare say anything about it.”
He nodded, unmuting the screen. “Using religion as a tool of oppression is never acceptable, no matter what holy book it’s based on.”
“Yeah. Exactly.” She bit her lower lip, mildly embarrassed that he could so easily and eloquently articulate what she struggled to get across.
That’s what happens when you go to Harvard instead of scraping through a handful of distance-learning credits.
The video-game soldier hiked up and down snow-covered hills, then wandered into an abandoned village. He peered into doorways, crouched behind burnt-out cars and then ducked behind a semi-destroyed brick wall as gunfire popped from around the corner. Oz’s soldier returned fire, manually reloading the rifle.
She wrinkled her nose as red mist filled the air. Why anyone would pay to spend their free time playing games like this was beyond her.
The frame froze and Oz twisted around to look at her.
“Am I being an insensitive asshole?”
She blinked. “What?”
He tossed the controller on the floor. “I’m playing a shoot-’em-up war game with an actual war veteran in the room. Kate, I am so sorry.”
“You’re fine.” She dismissed his concern with a wave. “I was in a transportation battalion—combat support, not combat.”
“Still, you were there.”
“The game doesn’t bother me. Honestly. I’d tell you if it did.”
He looked at the screen, then back at her, and tapped the carpet beside him. “Sit with me. We’ll run a mission together. A non-gory one.”
She joined him on the floor and lifted the spare controller while he scrolled through various screens. She tried her fingers on the unfamiliar buttons, squinting at the options.
“Things have certainly moved on from Super Nintendo,” she remarked.
“Hang onto it if you still have yours. Collectors will pay big money for those old systems.”
“I’m sure my mom sold it years ago. It belonged to one of her boyfriends. He gave it to me and my sister, mostly to justify buying himself something better.”
“Sounds like a great guy.”
“On the plus side, he didn’t last long.”
Oz leaned over and pointed to each button in turn. “These are for movement, so this is to crouch, this is to run, and this one jumps. These two are for your weapon—you can switch, or reload. The ones on the edges…”
His words devolved into a fuzzy hum as every one of her senses homed in on the details of his proximity. The long, slim fingers brushing against hers as he indicated each button. The warm press of his hard triceps against her shoulder. The scent of eucalyptus, sharp and clean and bright and so intoxicating she could barely think.
Tremendous pressure settled on her chest, threatening to collapse her lungs as she fought off overwhelming, alien impulses to touch him. To kiss him. To thread her fingers through his hair and close her lips around his tongue. She tried desperately to swim to the surface, kicking and thrashing at the base instincts clasping at her ankles.
Had she ever been this desperate before? This helpless?
Never. Not once.
“Got it?”
His voice was an unexpectedly cold shower from frozen pipes on a winter morning. She jolted back to herself, shaky and disoriented. “Ready,” she lied.
He started the game, and their character-selves roamed the snowy Soviet landscape, apparently hunting an enemy sniper. Kate barely managed to keep her soldier moving, occasionally—and comically—transposing the buttons for running and shooting. Oz was enthusiastic nonetheless, making suggestions, letting her character open the door to a barn where they found a clue the sniper was nearby.
“Nice one.” He elbowed her jovially, eyes on the screen. “We should check outside the barn. Maybe he only just left. I’ll cover you in case he fires.”
“Great,” she muttered as her heart sank with an all-too-familiar revelation.
They were just friends. She was one of the guys. Again.
An unwelcome lump rose in her throat as she struggled to maneuver her character to exit the barn. She should be flattered, not on the verge of bawling like a weak, oversensitive baby. A professional athlete with thousands—tens of thousands, probably—of fans wanted to hang out with her. She was fun. Easygoing. Friendly. Like a sister. Isn’t that what countless numbers of would-be boyfriends had told her, year after year after year?
At least she knew where she stood, and it was comfortable, familiar, easily navigable ground. No pressure. No stress. She could concentrate on being the friend Oz clearly wanted and shelve her silly, fantastical attraction without ever having to face it head-on, or worry about it diverting her focus from rediscovering herself as an independent, self-sufficient woman with no Army safety net beneath her.
She risked nothing, would lose nothing. It was the best possible outcome, really.
And the disappointment dragging down her shoulders—she’d get over it. Eventually.
Their soldiers moved to the door. Oz’s crouched in readiness, weapon drawn. She fumbled to get her own rifle more or less in position, then sent her character forward into the wilderness.
Her hand hovered over the button to shoot but suddenly the screen froze. The bare trees on the horizon became odd-looking stalks of pixels and she turned to Oz with a frown.
“Is it broken?”
He shook his head. “I paused it.”
“Why? I was about to kick some sniper ass.”
He turned to her with a concerned expression. “I think I should kiss you.”
Her jaw practically hit her lap. After a second or two of stunned silence she managed to yank it back up, realign her teeth and force her mouth to form words.
“What did you say?”
“Spoiler alert.” He raised an apologetic hand. “There’s some pretty serious fighting up ahead and I don’t want either of us to be distracted.”
“So you want to—”
“Kiss you.” He smiled and, hot damn, he was delicious. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I think we’re both wondering if it’s going to happen, when it will happen, should it happen… It’s drawing attention away from this mission, which is, frankly, pretty important to the eventual victory of the Allies over the German military forces.”
“You want to kiss me,” she repeated dumbly, struggling to wade through the shock and disbelief muddying her mind.
“It’s up to you. I’m just saying, there are ten million Soviet lives at stake.” He shrugged.
“Okay,” some distant, detached part of her responded.
And then it happened. He put two fingers beneath her chin, tilted her face toward his and pressed his lips against hers.
She stiffened, her mind and heart vying for the fastest pace.
She shouldn’t do this. Getting involved with anyone was the last thing she needed right now, not to mention a client—oh, shit, was this a violation of her terms of employment? Had she even signed terms of employment?
Her boss wouldn’t care, surely. She saw Rich, his crew-cut, his oversized belt buckle, his habit of spinning a tobacco tin in his hands during meetings. Would he fire her? Not if her sales figures were good. That’s all he cared about. But if they slipped, she bet he wouldn’t hesitate to…Mentally she slapped herself. You’re making out with a