Page 56 of House of Bass

“I’m a grown man, I don’t bicker. I’m honest. It’s not my fault if people don’t like what they hear,” he tells me.

“You’re insufferable.”

“Thank you.”

I lie down in my bed, because his voice is as comforting to me as the sound of the ocean. Arden asks, “Is the card game the reason you asked me if you are a sore loser?”

I relay to him what Harley and Daniel told me.

“It’s true, you’re a sore loser,” he says without a second thought.

I frown, “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I am. Being a sore loser isn’t a bad thing, it just means you’re passionate about winning and don’t care what anyone else thinks. If there’s anyone who understands that, it’s me. We're winners, Saint. And winners don’t settle for anything but the very best.”

“That was good. Are you going to put that in your future autobiography?” I cheekily tell him, after his heartfelt monologue.

He laughs at my joke, “I’ll put you in the dedication.”

“What were you doing before I texted,” I ask him, not wanting the conversation to end.

“Late session with Gaz,” he says, talking about his tennis coach he’s had for years. “Then I picked up my ridiculous Halloween costume.”

I grumble thinking about his Batman costume and more specifically the fact that it is a couples costume.

“It’s bothering you, isn’t it? That you didn’t get to delegate a list of costumes this year?”

“No,” I lie, wondering how he quickly picked up on that, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

“I can bet you have the list tucked in delicately in the drawer in your nightstand.”

My cheeks turn pink, despite him not being physically here to see it. “Oh, fuck off. I make the list of what we wear every year, I just don’t understand why everyone wants to be different this time.”

He laughs, and that sound does something to the mechanics of my delicate heart. “Humour me. Tell me what you have written down.”

I begrudgingly bring out the list from where he rightfully guessed it’d be. “I, of course, Selina Kyle.”

“Of course,” he says.

“You and MJ will have been Patrick Bateman and Wonder Woman.”

“Why do I have to be the serial killer?”

“It came to me in a dream.”

“Naturally,” he says mockingly.

“Shut up and let me finish,” I say and I can tell he’s fighting off another laugh. “Dan I actually do have down as the devil and like the angel he is he’s the only one who listens to me. Fuck, that was a secret I shouldn’t have told you, but he told me earlier what he’s going as.”

“I’m sure there was no coercion involved in making that happen.” He truly couldn’t help the sarcasm that oozes out of his every word, could he?

Ignoring him, I carry on. “Dev as Betty boop because I want to see her in a bob.”

This sends him into a laughing fit, “You know she’d rather die than do that.”

“She refuses to cut her hair longer than three inches during her trims. Personally, I think she’d look cute.”

“Hmm,” is all he says.