Read Online The Other Side of Envy: The Ghost Bird Series: #8 (The Academy) by C. L. Stone - Free Book Online

a lot easier as he’d explain which buttons did what attacks. He wouldn’t tell me before when we were fighting against each other.
    I stole glances of him while he was playing. He had an angular jawline. His collar bones were attractive. He had wide shoulders, and a narrow waist. I’d overheard someone at school once call a rock star ‘grunge handsome’. I thought that described Gabriel pretty well.
    When we got tired of the fighting game, we switched to car racing. The first few games he beat me easily because I couldn’t figure out how he was getting so many speed bonuses.
    “Want to bet on the next game?” he asked as he dropped the controller into his lap. The sun was beating in through the window, so the room was getting warm. He stripped off the button up shirt he was wearing, tossing it onto the couch behind us.
    “No.” Was he crazy? I never won their bets.
    “Come on,” he said. “You’re getting better.” He leaned into me, tilting his head. He locked his crystal eyes on mine, making them big. His lip pouted. “Please?”
    I sensed there was something he wanted. “What’s the bet?”
    He flashed a grin. “Find out after the race.”
    I made a face at him. “No fair.”
    “Yeah, fair,” he said and he started the next game.
    Inside the race, I tried my best just to win fairly, but Gabriel was keen on crashing his car into mine and making side-swipes in front of me to get my car spinning out of control. Then he started nudging my elbow.
    “Meanie,” I whined as his pushing caused my car to crash into a tree.
    “What?” he laughed, focusing on the game.
    If I owed him a favor, it could be anything, and with Gabriel, he was too unpredictable. Cheating was going to be the only way to win.
    I started nudging his arm with my elbow. He nudged back but kept ahead of me in the game. I moved from nudging to poking him in the ribs.
    He laughed, letting go of the controller for a second to swat at my hands. When I kept poking, he caught my hand in his, causing both our cars to stop.
    He held on to me, grinning. “What-the-fuck-ever. Who do you think I am? Victor? That little shit doesn’t work on me.”
    He was challenging me to cheat better! I narrowed my eyes at him and pulled my hand back to start my car again, racing around his stalled car.
    He caught up with me, too, but kept glancing over at me. I had a feeling he was waiting for my next move.
    Using my hands wasn’t working. Letting go of the controller meant I had to stop racing. I wasn’t going to win that way. I tried to pretend I was focusing on the race, but at the same time, I slipped my sandals off my feet as if I didn’t want them.
    When he managed to sideswipe my car to send it into a spin, I kicked at his controller until it was knocked out of his hands and fell to the floor.
    “Fuck,” he said, and pushed at me hard enough that I landed on my side on the carpet as he scrambled for his controller.
    I laughed, leaning over while propped up on my elbows. I toe-nudged him in the side and on his arm. When I was sprawled out on the floor, he could only reach my legs. Maybe sitting on the other side of the room was the way to win.
    At first he tried resisting, but my nudging at him and being able to play at the same time meant I could get ahead of him. Soon I was zooming down the road, well out of his reach.
    “Shit,” he grumbled, pushing my foot away. “Stop.”
    “Nu uh,” I said. I poked him in the side with my toe as I aimed my car to collect speed bonuses before he could get there.
    He lifted a hand up, bringing it down on my thigh with a slap. Even through the material of the jeans, it stung. “Trouble,” he called to me. “Watch it.”
    “Now who’s cheating?” I said and stopped poking because I was already ahead.
    “That’s not cheating,” he said.
    “Oh?”
    He laughed and reached a hand out, snatching my ankle and trapping me. I stretched out my controller away as far as I could so he couldn’t get to it as