Player's Guide To Catfishing (PLAYBOOK #1)

CHAPTER 54: An outsider's perspective

LAS VEGAS

Anyone with eyes could see the tangible string between Liam Griffith, the campus playboy and Odessa Vecker, the mysterious Russian girl with secrets.

It is comical how people like them always think that they have a choice when it comes to this fate thing. How they believe saying it's over really means that it is over.

Spoiler, this is just the beginning.

As Liam's birthday night takes a turn for the worst for the people surrounding them, Odessa and Liam choose it as the perfect time to leave their friends in a burning house.

In their defense, it's a strip club in Las Vegas which makes it a close second. What can one say, love is funny like that?

"I did something stupid," Liam is carrying Odessa on his back.

She doesn't understand how like before, she is already caught up in the web he has created but his mother is the author of this plan. Pamela had a simple plan, even her son couldn't mess up.

Get Odessa to Vegas and let love lead.

The Vegas part was easy because Odessa secretly wanted to come but letting the love lead part for a Russian trained inactive mobster would be the hard part. There was something cold in her heart, something only music reached.

Growing up in world like Odessa's doesn't leave room for sunshine and rainbows which is why music was important to her. It kept her anchored but what about the playboy? He touched parts of her, she didn't realize were there too.

Would Liam succeed in getting her back? It was his birthday. He did make a wish and she wanted to please.

"Something stupid? You mean cheating on me?" Vecker couldn't help herself.

As hard as she tried, it still bothered her. It being with Olivia Fisher just made things worse because it was in Cambridge as Liam cleaned her wound that she realized she couldn't be betrothed anymore.

She wanted him but didn't know how to get it. She was ready to lose it all and he thanked her by cheating.

"Odessa," Liam could always pronounce her name correctly when he was drunk.

"I was kidding," Vecker defends when he puts her down.

"No you are not," he hated that his alcohol infused vision blurred her face. "I didn't mean to," he cups her face. "She didn't and still doesn't mean anything."

That was easy for him to say, it took everything in Odessa not to beat the girl up when she apologized because she hated how much power Olivia had over them.

But she hated more that something so paper thin was the thing to break them apart, it was just a stupid picture. A picture she saw on a loop for weeks.

"What stupid thing did you do?" Vecker pulls Liam back on track.

"I got a tattoo, when we went to visit Goose's cousin." He lets go to run his fingers through his hair.

He was nervous because despite his crazy antics, this one took the cake.

"Ah," Odessa didn't understand because the boy was covered in a tapestry of ink.

"No, look" Liam sat down to remove his shoe.

"A fish?" Odessa tilted her head to see the animal eating a dice on Liam's ankle clearly.

She understood drunk decisions but this one was weird, even for her.

"It's a catfish, its eating a dice with a playboy bunny on it." Liam shone a flashlight to show her. "I wanted to get something for you, something permanent."