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I turn away, only to catch Hazel watching me, her brows wrinkled in confusion. Great, now I’m being judged by Dean’s daughter. Could this night get any worse?

Clearing my throat, I lean forward, picking up my glass of water from the table. I take a quick drink just to do something before setting it back down.

“I want to be on Kassian’s team,” Nix says, making me look up at him again. He’s staring at me with bright, brown eyes.

“What game did you decide on?”

“Charades!”

I can’t help but crack the tiniest smile. “Your favorite.”

“Dean said he’s bad at it and you know how much I like winning.”

Hazel scoots over, making room for Dean on the couch. He sits beside her before passing out pens and paper. We all take some time to write out different things for the game. Then we toss them into a bowl in the middle of the table.

“You get two minutes,” Nix says, explaining the rules. “For every one your teammate gets right, you get a point. At the end of three minutes, if you’re still stuck on a prompt, the other team has one attempt to steal and that’s worth two points. We’ll go around so everyone gets a turn charading twice. At the end of that, we’ll see which team has the most points.”

“Sounds good,” Hazel says brightly. “I’ll go first!”

Nix comes and takes her place beside me on the couch. He puts a hand on my thigh, giving my leg a quick shake as he tells me how excited he is to beat them.

My heart clenches painfully inside my chest. I’m going to miss this when those two fall for each other and decide to leave me behind in the dust. I’m going to miss having Nix’s excitement around. I’m going to miss his easy touches.

Fuck, why did the universe or fate or whatever decide to do this to me? Why am I being left out?

Nix picks up the kitchen timer that we’ll be using for the game, setting it for two minutes. “Ready. Set. Go!”

Hazel picks up a piece of paper from the bowl. She lets out a really long sigh that makes me crack a smile. She holds up three fingers and Dean is quick to start guessing.

“It’s three words?”

Hazel nods her head. Then she puts up two fingers.

“The second word?”

Hazel grins, nodding her head again. Then she throws up another peace sign.

“The second word is to? Blank to blank?”

“Yes. Okay,” Hazel murmurs to herself. She puts up three fingers, letting Dean know she’s going to be miming the third word first. She forms an oh with her hand, sliding it up and then using three fingers to depict she’s holding something with three prongs, like a pitch fork. Then she gives herself little devil horns with her fingers and then finally points at the ground.

“Hell?”

Hazel taps her nose rapidly, grinning from ear to ear. Then she mimes that she’s driving a car and Dean gets it.

“Highway to hell!”

“Yes!” Hazel says excitedly. She goes to grab a second piece of paper but the timer goes off. “Oh, boo!”

Dean offers her a high five as Nix stands up, walking around the coffee table.

“Better than zero,” he tells her.

“I guess,” she says with a pout. “I have a feeling these two are gonna be really good at this. We should have separated them.”

“This is one of Nix’s favorite games,” I say with a shrug.

“Although,” Hazel says, more softly. “You two shouldn’t be separated. You’re a package deal.”