His lips stayed curled up as he finally fell into a deep sleep, tucked safely in my arms.
EPILOGUE
JETT
This was a very bad idea.
Teaching my cousins and siblings any game was a recipe for disaster, but doing it after we’d spent the better part of the day at one of Alex’s wine tastings was taking it to a whole other level.
I’d tried to warn Locke, but he was too naive for this crowd. The man was a baby lamb in a room full of rabid and tipsy wolves hell-bent on initiating him the Marian way.
“It’s not a horsey,” Lennon explained to Ella. “It’s a rook.”
“Knight,” Locke murmured, reaching for his scotch and taking another gulp.
The huge patio table on the deck behind my grandparents’ lodge in Montana was big enough to hold everyone. The summer sun was setting behind the mountain, shooting warm rays across the yard and deck. Chill music played softly from hidden speakers, and various dishes of appetizers dotted the table between practice chess sets.
“It’s literally a horse,” Ella said, holding the knight from the red set. “And it’s pretty. I’m naming it Frank.”
Locke finished helping my cousin Rosie with the yellow pieces, which she kept knocking over since she couldn’t stop staring at my hot fucking boyfriend.
“Eyes on your board,” I told her.
Locke’s hand moved under the table to my upper thigh and then quickly toward my inner thigh until his fingers were nearly brushing my balls. “Mm,” I hummed in a too-highly-pitched tone. “Mmhm.”
“Okay,” he said to everyone, as if he wasn’t causing a nuts situation under the table. “Who remembers the eight types of pawns?”
Tommy started rattling them off. “Positive, negative, requesting, offering?—”
His fiancé, Foster, stage-whispered, “Kiss-ass.”
Their dog lifted her head from the floor by Foster’s feet, sniffed when she realized he wasn’t talking to her, and put her head back down with a huff.
Avery took a sip of wine while her wife raced around after their toddler in the grass. “I’ll trade someone all my pawns for their queen,” she said seriously, shooting me a wink.
“That’s not…” Locke took a deep breath. “That’s not an allowed movement within the game regulations.”
Gabe shot me a look before blinking innocently at Avery. “I’ll trade you my queen if you’ll let me have your first few moves.”
“No,” Locke said. “Let’s, ah… let’s play a round without variations first. Okay? Good.”
Benji nodded and focused on the board in front of him. “Agreed. And there’s no point in trading for the queen when she can only trade with the bishop anyway.”
I almost snorted.
Locke’s forehead crinkled. “No. The queen doesn’t trade at all. And neither does the bishop.”
Lennon leaned forward. “Unless it’s the blue one, right?”
Locke looked at me with wide eyes. The sheer frustration and overwhelm was kinda cute, I had to admit. “I’m not sure we should…”
“It’s fine. They’ll pick it up when we get going. Let’s start with a sample game. A trial run.”
JJ nudged his wife. “You start. You’re the one with the pink race car piece. That one always starts first.”
All of us waited a beat while the ridiculous line finally clued Locke in to what was going on.
Suddenly, his face cleared. “You assholes!Fuck, you’re all horrible human beings. I can’t believe you had me going.”
