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Emily tugs at his sleeve. “Come sit with us. We’re watching murder documentaries and pretending to have fun.”

I tuck my annoyance out of sight. She’s been good today—chatty, almost like her old self—and I’m not about to ruin that by suggesting her cousin should keep his psychological warfare to himself.

Even though he definitely should and probably won’t.

Baryn drops his coat over the back of a chair and heads straight for the liquor cabinet.

He holds up a bottle of bourbon. “You three started without me?”

Emily grins. “Wine night, of course we did.”

He glances at Theo’s glass. “Didn’t peg you as a pinot guy, Grayson. Thought you’d be more of a—” he twists the cork—“scotch neat sort of man. Or are you doing tasting notes now to impress the ladies?”

Theo’s brow arches. “Didn’t realize drinks came with gender assignments.”

The way he says it is dry, borderline argumentative. I don’t know why Baryn’s sole mission in life is to provoke the nearest human being, and I don’t know why Theo keeps taking the bait. Every. Single. Time. It’s so unlike him.

Emily, sensing the shift, goes for distraction.

She digs through the end-table drawer until she finds a battered deck of cards, tapping them once against the table before dumping them into her palm and fanning them out.

“Let’s play Asshole,” she says. “For the benefit of the uncultured—Lila—I’ll explain. The goal is to become President. And to do that, you get rid of all your cards first. The last person left is the Asshole.” Her explanation is clinical.

Baryn slouches into the couch, arms stretched across the back. “Fitting, since at least half the people in this room qualify for that title already.”

Theo scootches over next to me, elbows on his knees, frowning at the deck as he seems to work over the rules in his mind. “So it’s just… capitalist Uno?”

Emily blinks. “Exactly. But drunk. At least tonight.”

Grand. Emily wants to drink again.

I mean we are drinking.

But wine night and a drinking game are two very different things.

This cannot end well.

She deals the cards with obvious enthusiasm, whether for the game or the alcohol she’s involved, I’m unsure. “The person to the left of the dealer starts.”

Lucky me.

It starts with a few scattered laughs despite the elephant in the room (Baryn), Emily pretending she’s not secretly cutthroat, and Baryn sipping his bourbon with an energy that suggests he’s already planned on winning the next three rounds.

I keep playing mostly because watching Theo is more entertaining than the game itself. He’s trying so hard to be a good sport.

Until he isn’t.

I should’ve known he’d be competitive.

But I wasn’t prepared for the shift. The moment Baryn slaps down a pair of fives, Theo’s entire demeanor changes. One second he’s relaxed professor Theo, the next he’s courtroom litigator Theo, about to dismantle the person in front of him. He lays down his cards with surgical precision. It’s like watching a closing argument unfold in real time, except the stakes are a half empty bottle of bourbon and the glorious title of President.

Emily’s giggling, oblivious. Baryn’s feeding on it, loose-limbed and self-satisfied.

By the time the pile resets for the third time, the room feels warmer, looser. The documentary prattles on in the background. Emily’s cheeks are flushed; I briefly wonder if she’s losing on purpose.

Baryn, meanwhile, has clearly decided this is his night. He’s President by round five, which is when I find out the President can just make up random rules. I assume that’s what Emily meant when she said it was a bit chaotic when Katherine mentioned playing the game while we were at her house.

His gaze sharpens with intent. “Wanna hear a joke?”