For The Win (Gamer Girls, #6) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,18

my resume until I can get an interview. I'm willing to start at the bottom, too. I can do troubleshooting, or even call center if it will get me in the field." Then she paused. "Hey? You said you just signed a deal with a call center in Billings?"

"We did," he agreed. "Pretty sure you can convince me to tell you which one, too."

"And what's that going to cost?" she asked.

He smiled. "Well, I was thinking that this talk might be a little easier at my hotel. Only because we both won't be looking over your shoulder. I have a suite, Rhave. That means chairs. So, when I invite you over, it's because I want to keep talking. Not because I'm thinking I have a chance at anything else."

She paused as the waitress returned with the pot of coffee. "Need anything else?" the girl asked.

"Just the check," Rhaven told her. "I think we're getting out of your hair soon."

Chapter 7

Next door to Denny's was a standard hotel. Rhaven moved her car around to the parking lot, then sent Kate a text as she headed inside to meet Braden in the lobby. There, he invited her upstairs. The problem was that the guy working behind the counter was someone she'd gone to school with. He watched her the whole way across the lobby, making that horrible anxiety come back.

Braden didn't say a thing until they were inside his room. Then, he cut right to the chase. "Are you just ashamed to be seen with me, or do you honestly know everyone around here?"

"I know the guy at the front desk," she admitted. "He was a grade ahead of me in school. Used to spit on me in the halls and call me gay."

"How wrong he was," Braden muttered as he gestured to the living room area.

Surprisingly, his suite was rather nice. Not as big as the ones at the conventions, but still nice. There was a room with two beds and a television, then another room with a couch, a chair, and yet another TV. At the back of that was a bar area that would serve as a table for meals, and that was pretty much it. Rhaven chose the single chair, tucking one leg under herself in an attempt to look a little less nervous about being alone with him.

Braden just headed for the mini-fridge. "Beer?" he asked.

"Sure," she agreed.

He pulled out a pair, popped the tops off both, then passed her one. Naturally, he claimed the corner of the couch closest to her. "So," he said, leaning back like he was a little too used to being in a hotel. "Want to talk about it?"

"About what?" she asked.

He just smiled. "This. You. I'm trying to figure out what exactly is going on in your mind. You don't really look like you want to be here, but I'm also not sure you want to leave." He paused for a drink. "Talk to me, Rhaven?"

She pulled her other leg up and twisted so her back was in the corner. That made it easier to face him, but it also put her knees almost against her chest. The big problem was that he was right. She was nervous. She kept thinking that she should leave. It would be safest if she went home and pretended like this had never happened, and yet she didn't want to.

Braden was just too easy to talk to. He didn't make her feel like a freak. If anything, she actually felt like he was on her side. The way he'd walked beside her through the lobby as if the pair of them were nothing more than normal guys? It was almost like she could see him flipping the switch to treat her like the dork everyone here knew, and then he relaxed when people weren't looking.

Plus, he was gorgeous. Braden was all man, and the sexy kind. Yep, she'd noticed how tight his shirt was across his chest. The arms looked like they were straining against his biceps. Then there was her personal weakness: his hands. Across the back of his right were letters that spelled the word Flawed. His left was just scarred, as if something bad had happened a long time ago.

Those were manly hands. The big kind that a woman wanted to cup her face gently. The rough kind that she'd feel sliding across her body. Nothing about Braden fit the stereotype of the typical gamer. He looked like a jock or a