German chocolate cake is actually not German.
Everything is going according to plan.
“Oh goodie, I like games,” Jeremy said.
I quickly explained the rules.
“So we make three statements and each person in the group has to guess which one is the lie?” Elaine asked. I could practically see her thinking of all the juicy tidbits she could tell us. That was the thing with this game—if people felt the need to impress, now was the time they could shed a certain light on themselves. And maybe if I played my cards right, I would get a little insight into John. I was hoping for bland, boring statements. Or maybe something that sounded like a brag. Nothing more unsexy than that. I desperately needed something awful about John to sink my fingers into.
“I’ll start.” May spread her arms to either side of the tub, holding onto the rim and splashing Elaine in the face.
I leaned forward, hugging my knees. “Shoot.”
“Okay, so, one. My family owns a restaurant chain. French food. Two….” She squinted. “I once gave a frog CPR. It survived.”
Elaine gagged into her glass.
“And three… I haven’t shaved my legs in a decade.”
“All three options are unnerving for different reasons,” Elaine muttered under her breath. “Please tell me option two is the lie. Or three.”
Jeremy looked side-eyed at May. “I say one is the lie. You do love your animals.”
I turned my head to look at John, resting my chin on my knee. The back of my neck and shoulders started to become uncomfortably cold, but I ignored it.
“Mhhh. I go with two.” I held up two fingers.
May grinned, lifting up her leg and spreading her toes, wriggling them. Her skin looked like nature had intended. “Ten years this October. The poor frog actually died.”
I snorted champagne up my nose. Jeremy howled. John bit away a chuckle.
“Right, you’re next, J,” May told him.
“Jolly. Number one….”
Jeremy made us guess between him spotting Benedict Cumberbatch on the London tube, him loving a full English, and that he wore his shirts coordinated with weekdays. Mondays pink, Wednesdays green, Fridays powder-blue… and so on.
It was an easy guess for me. He was a vegetarian, so his second choice—the English breakfast, which was famously served with blood pudding and sausages—was the obvious lie.
When the snow picked up, I leaned back again, sighing at the heat of the water that caressed the base of my neck. When I opened my eyes, I caught John watching me from the corner of his eye.
“What?”
He shook his head, cleared his throat. “Nothing.”
“Your turn, Mr. New York Times Bestselling Author.”
He looked down at me, snowflakes settling on his shoulders. The wind rustled through the pine tops. I was both colder and hotter suddenly.
He nodded, taking another sip of his glass, then stretched over the side and set it on a table behind me. I did not study the curve of his collarbone or the little mole in the shape of a clover under his ear. Nope.
“I love to travel but hate flying,” he started.
“Nothing that is common knowledge,” I interjected.
“How is that common knowledge?” He raised a brow.
I had spent some time reading up on him last night, to find weak spots, of course—ways to tilt the power dynamic now that he had not one but two things hanging over my head. “Read it somewhere some time ago,” I said, closing my eyes.
