“Guess that means you can’t escape this time!” Amara threw Riya a grin. “Come, come! Meet the rest of the fam. Just take off your shoes.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” said Kian, already removing his boots.
Nyra and Amara led Kian into the family room, with Riya trailing behind trying to grasp the situation unfolding in front of her. Kian was in her house. Kian was about to join her family in game night. Kian, whom she’d placed under a love curse.
Entropy, she thought. The second law of thermodynamics—and apparently the law that governed her family, too. Without fail, the chaos that came so naturally to them would only increase over time.
She suddenly felt a headache coming on.
Amara sat by her game setup, her lips pursed in thought. “Mm, maybe we should try something easier tonight, especially if Riya and Kian are going to join.”
“I’m good with anything!” said Kian cheerfully, taking a seat beside her on the carpet.
Riya hovered by the edge of the rug, frozen.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Kian wasn’t supposed to meet her sisters. Or sit cross-legged on their carpet like he lived here.
“What about Taboo?” Nyra suggested. “That’s always fun. We can do two teams of three. Come, Riya, sit!”
Riya sighed and relented, sitting across from Kian just as another voice asked, “What’s this?”
Riya’s mom and dad came down the stairs in their lounge clothes, Mom wearing her hair in a tight bun, signaling that she meant business, and Dad adjusting his glasses, squinting in Kian’s direction.
“You must be Riya’s dad and mom! I can see the familyresemblance,” said Kian, grinning. “You all have this... flair about you. Similar energy. And the same beautiful eyes.”
“Oh, I like him,” Riya’s mom said. That, apparently, was enough to stop her from asking further questions.
“I don’t remember having another boy in this family,” Riya’s dad observed.
“He’s Riya’s friend!” Nyra explained, grinning. “Come on, we’re all playing Taboo!”
Their game of Taboo was, as Riya suspected, utter chaos. The teams were divided thus: Mom, Kian, and Riya on Team 1, with Amara, Nyra, and Dad on Team 2. Riya was to keep time with the hourglass, as everyone agreed only she could be trusted to be incorruptible.
Mom and Kian scraped together a couple points; Riya hauled them ahead. Team 2 nearly clawed back, thanks to Amara and Nyra’s apparent hive mind, until it was Dad’s turn.
“It’s a machine,” he said slowly. “We have one at home. We use it a lot.”
“Blender! Microwave! Stand mixer!” fired Nyra.
“Hair dryer!” Mom yelled.
Riya gave her mom a look. “Mom, it’s not our turn.”
“It—it sucks things!” Dad blurted, frustrated. “It’s very loud!”
“Oh myGod, Dad, could you not have phrased that literally any other way?” Amara groaned.
Kian covered his face, his shoulders trembling from laughter. Riya had never seen him laugh like that.
“Why is Kian laughing so hard? Did I say something weird?” Dad whispered.
“Focus, Dad!” Amara said, exasperated.
Then Riya’s gaze flicked to the hourglass. “And... time!”
“The word wasvacuum!” Dad cried, throwing his hands in the air. “Vacuum, damn it!”
“You could have said, ‘You use it to clean’ instead of... sexual innuendos!” Nyra scolded him, her hands on her hips.
