Because as we’re pulled into the chaos again, Knox getting roped into Team Gracie with a resigned sigh and a reluctant smirk, me wedged between Maya and Bea in a round of ruthlessReverse Charades, I keep feeling him. Watching me. Not in a creepy way. In a way that’s impossible to ignore.
I keep laughing at the wrong times. Missing clues. Guessing things that aren’t even close. I mistake “lawn mower” for “zombie crab” and make Maya fall to the floor wheezing. I can’t focus.
Every time I glance over, there he is. Quiet. Still. Eyes locked on me like he’s trying to solve a puzzle with no edges.
And I don’t know if it’s the fact that for one night I’m pretending I’m not a walking secret, but I can’t stop looking back.
Knox Knightly doesn’t belong here. Not in my mom’s living room. Not in this small town bubble of board games and baked goods and nosy neighbors.
But somehow, tonight…
He does.
And it’s messing with my head.
Because I’m not just watching him.
I’m thinking aboutus.
And that’s the most dangerous game of all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Knox
When Jace toldme about game night, I laughed in his face.
Literally. Laughed. Out loud. The kind of laugh you give a man who suggests you willingly walk into a buzzsaw and call it recreation.
“Game night?” I said. “What am I, seventy?”
But somehow, here I am, standing just inside the Timberline Inn like I accidentally time-traveled into a Norman Rockwell painting, blinking under string lights and the smell of cinnamon, watching half the town shout over trivia while the other half argues about Jenga physics.
And it’s fun.
Which is confusing. Because fun, at least once upon a time, used to come with bottle service, velvet ropes, and a bill that could feed a small country.
But this? This is better.
I’m not even sure when I realized it. Maybe when Bea shoved a slice of strawberry chess pie into my hand like it was a mandatory toll. Or when someone handed me a Sharpie and told me I had to label my cup or suffer “consequences.”
Or maybe it was the exact second I saw her.
Josie.
Damn near knocked the breath out of me.
She was laughing at something Maya said, head tilted back, lips painted just enough to be dangerous, hair curled like she stepped out of a dream I haven’t admitted I keep having.
And then she saw me.
Her eyes locked on mine, and the whole damn room faded. Like someone turned down the volume on the world just so I could hear my own heartbeat.
Which was a mistake, because it’s going about a hundred miles a minute.
She looked stunned. Like she wasn’t expecting me.
Like I was a ghost from a dream she didn’t want to wake up from.
