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Not that he wasquitewinning. Tor had held his own, the two seeming to read one another without any problem. So mostly, they played, and I lost.
Still, it was fun.
After Jarrod and Sasha left, Vance and Hayden had headed out for errands. It left Tor, Char and I alone, and Tor had tossed a deck of cards into my lap after my fifth sigh of boredom.
I hadn’t expected these two to be quite this much fun, given they weren’t usually as charming or talkative as the other two, but I’d been wrong.
I’d had a great time. Also, each time I got down to my last chip, I’d somehow manage to finally win a couple hands to stay in the game. No doubt that was their doing, but they didn’t call attention to it so neither did I.
“No more games,” Char said. “Let’s play for keeps now. Loser has to answer a question honestly.”
I groaned. “As the constant loser here, I’m going to say I’m not a fan of this idea. It’ll just end up an interrogation of me.”
“I thought you were being honest now,” Char said, his smirk saying heknewhe was backing me into a corner.
“Sure, but it feels unfair to do it like that. If we’re doing this, we need a better game! Something that I have a hope of winning. I want you all to have to answer things, too.” I knew my bottom lip stuck out in a pout, but if it made my point, that was fine by me.
“So what do you suggest?” Char asked.
My phone buzzed, and when I peered over at it, a text from Tor sat there.Truth or drink. We ask a question and anyone who doesn’t answer takes a drink.
I stared at the screen, as though I could work out what had happened. “Did Vance manage to hack your phone or something, because that ideacan’thave come from you,” I argued.
Tor gave me a rare smile, and boy, he should have smiled more often. It softened his features and made him seem like a different person, less closed off, less impossible to get to know.
As if I could have possibly said no after a look like that.
That very poor idea left the three of us in Tor’s room, seated on the floor, with a bottle of plum brandy in front of me. The alcohol was surprisingly sweet, which I happily welcomed. I remembered when I’d drunk at the restaurant with Vance, back before I’d realized he was playing me.
At least this time they’d given me alcohol that wasn’t nearly as strong as theirs. Judging from the liquor in the other bottles, however, I had a feeling Tor and Char weren’t quite hanging in there as well.
I guess the plum brandy is my handicap.
Still, I’d learned more than I expected. Tor had set his phone aside, using a small whiteboard instead, and his handwriting had gotten worse as we’d played. So far, he and Char hadn’t declined a single question, even the ones I’d have expected them to pass on.
As for me? I’d passed on a few, especially as they’d drunk even without avoiding the questions.
“When was the last time you took care of yourself?” Char asked, offering up one of those questions that I didn’t plan to answer.
Though, I sat on an edge where the alcohol had loosened my lips, and I was afraid if it clouded my head any more, I’d say things I didn’t mean to.
I lifted the bottle of rose-colored liquor and took another drink.
“Chicken,” Char muttered but didn’t touch his drink. “Yesterday for me. Tor, you in or are you tapping out?”
Tor narrowed his golden eyes, the action reminding me of a tiger. He picked up his dry erase marker and wrote, then turned the board around.A week ago.
The timeframe brought a heat to my cheeks that wasn’t caused by the plum brandy. That would have been when he’d run the bath for me, right? When he’d seen me naked, when he’d carried me back to his bed?
I glanced at him and found him staring right back at me, his expression telling me he knewexactlywhat I was thinking. Unable to hold that gaze, I looked back down at the bottle in my hand.
My heart raced, and I worried they’d notice. They’d see the want in my eyes, the way the liquor hadn’t created this need but only made it harder to ignore it.And given our history so far—they’d turn me down over it.
To try to hide that, I took my turn to ask a question. “Tell me about your first date.”
Char groaned. “Why do you pick such boring topics? If we’re talking firsts, we could talk about me making mud pies with a neighbor girl when I was five. It you want to know about my first official date, then I was sixteen. I scrimped and saved enough to take this pretty girl to the movies. I picked a horror movie because I thought she’d cuddle up close to me. Unfortunately, I’d never watched one like that, and it ended up making me feel so sick that I threw up and ruined the whole thing. Tor?”
I set a hand over my mouth to stifle my laughter, especially since his story didn’t seem much like the man I knew now. He cut me a sharp look but said nothing as Tor wrote his own answer.
