For The Love Of The Game

Game Over ++

Enter Player Name: RILEY

If there was a staircase to heaven, this was the staircase from hell.

My feet weighed on me. Every step, heavier than the last. And those damn grey stairs, those fucking destroyers of quads, they elongated — taunting me.

It was a moment of insanity, moving into a 5th-floor apartment. A crime against humanity fabricated by city life, to climb Mount Olympus after hours of work just for a fraction of relief.

After a bone-crushing day, sleep would be my consolation prize. I would turn a blind eye to the dishes that undoubtedly piled up in the sink, the clothes that littered the ground, and the microwave fresh dinner. More accurately, I won't reprimand my brothers; not out of great benevolence, but pure exhaustion. Today, I'll drop the weight of the responsibility of managing not only my own life but also theirs — to be forgotten at my bedroom door.

Today, I'll bask in the emptiness of sleep and momentarily let dreams erase my reality.

I halted in my crusade towards sleep.

A barricade of brown boxes towered in the narrow staircase, block the last flight of steps to my salvation. Rude! I stared, eyebrows furrowed and eyes slit tight. A sad attempt at moving them out of the way. Cruel that I couldn't Carrie my way out of this. What did a girl have to do to get some telekinesis powers, bathe in blood?

"Hey, there, neighbor," echoed a cheerful, husky voice, dribbling down the stairs.

My eyes searched for the source, following the white walls up... Oh, my sweet abs Jesus.

There, leaning on the wooden stair rails without a care in the world, was one of the most handsome men I've seen in a long while.

I needed to go out and smell the roses more often. Such fine specimens prowled in the wild, and all I saw between the four grey walls of my office were receding hairlines and dad bods.

But, what was the point of venturing into the world when all I could do was stare?

If not for my quest to drop dead into bed, I would have admired how handsome he was; how his dark, soft curls, damp with sweat, clung to the sides of his chiseled face, or how his white tank top did nothing to cover up his well-toned body. Maybe, just maybe, I would have traced the line of his abs until it disappeared into his low-hanging sweatpants and let my mind conjure up an image of what lay underneath that impressive —

I plowed a bulldozer over that train of thought. My cheeks burned hot as I patted them once and asked, "Are these boxes yours?"

The question struck unnecessarily bitchy. Then again, this sex on legs was the culprit obstructing my sleep, so he deserved a little bite.

"Yeah, sorry about that." The tall stranger rubbed the back of his neck, ruffling his black curls. His eyes wavered between the stacked boxes and the open green door behind him. A ominous cloud loomed over him as his tired eyes counted the endless stack. "I'll move them right away."

He tugged his white shirt up and wiped the sweat off his angular jaw. The inevitable result — a full view of his sculpted abs, tinted pink from all the lifting. He huffed and picked one of the boxes from the floor. One by one, he placed them against the railings.

"My lady." He held out his hand, pointing to the tiny sliver of space between the wall and the tower of cardboard.

I didn't have the will to tell him that I would have to lose half of my butt-cheeks to fit through that narrow space. "Thank you, my lord," I said, playing along.