Page 131 of The Games We Play
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I muttered, slipping a card onto the pile.
Total lie.
Why was I dodging this? I knew what they meant. Iknew. Instinct told me to deflect—even though every part of me was screaming to just talk it through.
“Mm-hmm,” Ellie hummed, eyeing me over her wine. “Nothing involving Mac and a certain recent… rendezvous?”
“Nothing about him throwing you over his shoulder like a rag doll?” Aspen added with a grin, slapping her card down like it was a mic drop.
I inhaled. Held it. Then exhaled, slow and not so steady.
“Fine,” I said, tossing a card dramatically. “Mac and I had sex the night of the fundraiser.”
Silence.
Not the surprised, gasping kind, but the eerie, synchronized blinking kind. Three pairs of eyes. No words. Just… blinking.
I threw my hands up. “Seriously? That’s the reaction? Nothing?”
“Keep going,” Ellie said calmly.
I sighed and leaned back on one hand, waving my other through the air. “And… it’s been going on since roughly October,” I mumbled. “With a month or so off.”
That did it.
The three of them exchanged a single glance—one of those wordless, knowing glances only best friends could pull off—and then smiled. All of them. Matching, crooked little smirks.
I frowned.
Something was off.
I carefully set my cards face down on the carpet and moved to all fours, crawling forward into the center of our little circle like a lioness stalking her prey. My eyes narrowed.
They knew something.
I scanned each face slowly, deliberately, waiting for someone, anyone, to crack. I locked onto Theo first. Nothing.Just a cool, unbothered stare. Then to Ellie. Her poker face held strong, lips twitching at the corners but never betraying her.
Finally, I turned to Aspen. And there it was.
The eye twitch. The way her gaze flicked just a little too fast. Her wide-eyed panic.
Bingo.
“What do you know?” I asked, voice low and sharp.
Her face froze. Her body stilled like a kid caught sneaking cookies.
“N-n-nothing!” she squeaked.
Theo sighed beside me, unimpressed. “Really, Aspen? You think she’s going to buythat?”
I leaned in even closer, until I was practically nose to nose with her.
I repeated myself, slow and deliberate. “What. Do. You. Know?”
Aspen groaned and flopped back onto the rug like a dying starfish. “Ugh.Everything.”
She peeked open one eye.
