“You felt bad. I get that. I’m glad my scholarship covers the dorm. But all my buddies were able to afford apartments for senior year, and I’m stuck in the oldest of the upper-class dorms. Still, though, I’d take my hole-in-the-wall over living with freaking Luther and James.”

“Trust me, I would too.” He gave me a little smile as we approached the outer limits of Philly. Somehow we’d killed an hour chatting. And that probably hadn’t been the smartest because now he was even more of an enigma to me—a grieving son and a nice guy who brought me my favorite doughnuts, but also a pushover still relying on Luther and James way too freaking much. But that smile…that was the biggest problem, the way it made warmth start at my toes and snake its way north. It was going to be a long day, and I needed to focus on winning cards, not earning more smiles from a guy I was supposed to hate.

Chapter Ten

Milo

“Whoa.” I stopped short as Jasper and I entered the hotel conference-center lobby. I’d been surprised enough when his directions led us downtown instead of to a strip mall in the burbs or something like that. And now we were surrounded by people. A lot of funny, nerdy T-shirts. Tons of deck bags like what Jasper was toting. More gender and age diversity than I’d been expecting—everything from little kids to clumps of teens to older adults. “This is a lot of gamers. I’d expected a game store like in our town.”

“Bigger tournaments are usually in conference centers like this. They need more room than a single game store can provide. But the local game stores get billing as sponsors.” Jasper joined a huge line waiting to get to the registration table.

“Cool. This is like nerd—”

Holding up a hand, Jasper hardened his tone. “You might want to consider your next words. Poking fun at gamers isn’t going to make me want to win your cards back.”

“I wasn’t going to make fun!” God, was he always going to assume the worst of me?

“Oh?” His skeptical expression said yes. Yes, he was going to make those assumptions.

“I was going to say ‘nerd heaven.’ And it’s a lot of people. That’s all.” Maybe calling it nerd heaven was bad because Jasper didn’t crack a smile. I rambled ahead, trying to figure out how to redeem myself. “I didn’t realize gaming was that popular. This is more than the turnout for some of my college’s home games. It’s impressive.”