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“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
Will put more food in his mouth and flipped Peyton off.
“Will can’t play,” Peyton explained. “He’s just bitter.”
Will swallowed. “I can play just fine.” He played like a normal person. Peyton played like his life was on the line, and everyone was a danger to his survival. No one was safe, not even his lover or his family. He’d seen Peyton wipe the floor with his own mother.
“You can’t.”
“I can.”
“Okay, children,” Sebastian said mildly. He leaned back in his chair, taking his bowl with him. “Why don’t we deal and see who can play?”
Will bent his knee and rested his foot on the side of the chair, curving around the wood, as he finished his food. He briefly looked at his cards and then put them back down. “What should we bet?”
“Isn’t it customary to bet money?” Sebastian asked. He twisted as if going for his pocket, and Will waved him off.
“We vetoed that a few years back,” he said. “Peyton is a shark.”
“I think what you mean is that you and my brothers are sore losers. I think there’s a few packets of Smarties in the pantry?”
Will quickly found them. There were six, and he was almost sure they were Parker’s—Peyton didn’t have a super sweet tooth, and Will couldn’t remember buying them—so he was generous and only grabbed four packets.
“Smarties?” Sebastian asked as Will poured them out.
Will ate a few of the brown ones before quickly sorting them out into individual colours. Brown was always neutral because Will ended up eating them all before they even started.
“Pick your chips.”
“They’re not—” Sebastian bit his lip on a muted smile. “Green.”
Will beamed and pushed all the green ones over to him.
“There are an uneven number,” Sebastian pointed out.
“So?” Will popped another brown one in his mouth with a loud crunch. There weren’t many of them, and he was going to have to start in on his own stack soon.
“Haven’t gambled a lot, have you?” Sebastian asked.
Will was too distracted to respond to the clearly rhetorical question. He scooped up his colour—red—and gathered the spares for eating. Peyton would pick purple. That left the blue, yellow, orange, and pink ones for Will’s dining pleasure.
“Are you worried you don’t have enough to win?” Peyton asked challengingly, with a faint hint of a smirk.
Will sighed heavily. He gave up some of the spares to make sure everyone had an even number. A worthy sacrifice if it meant avoiding war. He stared longingly at them, though, because he enjoyed Smarties.
A knock sounded at the door before they could start the first round of betting, and Will got up to answer it while Peyton and Sebastian talked about rules. He thought they should have nutted those outbeforethey’d dealt the cards, but who was he to tell them how to play? He just wanted to eat his Smarties. And he wasn’t a fan of rules in games. Games shouldn’t have rules. It was agame. It was about fun, not competition. Will’s brother, Harry, had always looked at him funny when he said that. Guess that’s why he went into a professional sport that was all about ranking, and Will chose a more team-orientated career.
Quinn was waiting in the hallway when Will opened it. His beard was unkempt, with a five o’clock shadow that was more like eight o’clock, thick and dark. He had heavy eyelids, a slump to his shoulders, and his tie was askew. He looked tired.
“We’re so popular tonight,” Will said in greeting, grinning broadly.
“Oh?”
“Seb is here.” Will searched around his feet. “No Persephone?”
“She’s with my sister,” Quinn said, ending on a big yawn.
Will pulled him into a hug. Quinn buried his head in Will’s neck and breathed deeply.
