Page 43 of Holiday Home 3
“Fine, but Liam and I get veto powers, just in case. If we both think what you’re asking or making us do is too much, you lose your question or dare, and youdon’tget to have a replacement one, either.”
“Harsh rules,” Avril smirked. Her emerald stare glided toward him, though a lighter set held much of his attention. “You good with that, too?”
Wary as he was about how things might inevitably end up, who was he to argue with the majority?
“Sure, I’m down for it. I won’t let you win again like I did in the second round, though.”
“As if!” Avril snorted, crossing her arms. Yet, the longer she stared at him, the less confident she became that he’d been lying. Eventually, she glared sourly at him while passing out the cards.
Their fourth round was miles more competitive than its predecessors. During the first few additions to the stack, Anna and Avril might have shared a dozen blinks between them. Whenever it was one of their turns, he could practically see the electricity sparking in the air whenever their eyes met. Whenever it washisturn, they stared at him as though they suspected he would find a way to manifest cards from thin air with each claim he made.
“Bullshit!” Avril hissed as he set three jacks onto the pile.
Three revealed jacks later, Avril’s face was one of crackling displeasure.
“You don’t haveanyjacks, Anna? Really?”
“Obviously not,” Anna said, nodding at the table. “But you have four now, at least.”
Avril’s face briefly matched her hair’s vivacious hue, and she grumbled under her breath about having the rudest best friend on the planet as she gathered up a rather healthy stack of cards—and yes, three more jacks, allowing her to own the complete set.
Her luck didn’t improve. Nor did her mood. As he and Anna edged closer to victory, the vexed redhead made several risky ploys to fight her way back into the round. Most ended in disaster, but she did catch both him and Anna at least once, which prolonged the round by several minutes.
However, when all was said and done, he held the winning card—a Queen of Spades—in his grasp. Excluding the second round, his tactic remained consistent, which he imagined they were finally realizing. He rarely lied unless behind, and when he did lie, he always used his “worst” card, the one he’d need to wait the longest to play based on where in the sequence they were. He didn’t call Bullshit very often, just when he was confident he’d tracked the cards or when he absolutely needed to. Because of that, he suspected future rounds would be a bit more difficult, and he planned to adjust his strategy if they emulated him.
But not this one.
Setting down the austere queen, he smiled. Across the way, Anna half-heartedly sought to keep him from grasping victory, but she knew before he flipped it over that he’d claimed his third win in just four rounds.
“Please donotplay this game on New Year’s Eve,” she told her roommate.
Avril just grumbled to herself.
“So, I get to make you both pick truth or dare, right?” he asked the mastermind behind his current reward.
She glumly nodded.
“Okay, let’s start with you, then. Truth or dare, Avril?”
Lifting her chin, Avril course corrected her sour mood. “Dare.”
It was as much a dare to him as it was a request for a dare for her.
Set the tone,her gaze said.I’m sure you won’t wuss out.
I won’t,he thought.But it doesn’t mean what I’m going to have you do will make you all that happy.
“I dare you to swap places with Anna. I kind of want to sit next to her now.”
Shock rippled across Avril’s expression, short-lived as it was. A scowl hastily supplanted it.
“Jackass.”
He grinned and shrugged.
Behind her, Anna had seemed equally surprised by his first dare, though she hid her emotions as best she could when her best friend directed her attention toward her.
“Guess we’re changing places.”