He spent most of the next day engaging in cat-and-mouse with Jean, pitting his heightened senses against her telepathy in a race to get to Rogue first and tell her about the bet. He couldn’t find her, despite searching all of her usual haunts and waiting outside of her classes, and it became clear to him that she was avoiding him. And at every turn, Jean was there, probing into his mind, and the minds of Christ knew who else, trying to find out where she was.

As much as he didn’t want to do it, he knew he had to tell Rogue the truth. She was going to be furious, would probably scream that she hated him…but then it wouldn’t be the first time he’d heard those words from a woman, so he could handle that. Maybe once she had a chance to cool down, they could wipe the slate clean, start over as friends. Maybe…maybe he could make her understand that it wasn’t all a game to him, not the whole time.

If he was completely honest with himself, he knew that the game had ended for him almost as quickly as it had begun.