Page 95 of Holiday Home 3
“Certainly,” Tess agreed, nodding.
“Yep,” Anna said.
“Wait, you’dallkill me?! That’s messed up. I can’t even get fucked or married once?”
“I’d feel wrong killing anyone else,” Anna said.
“We’re best friends!”
To which Anna merely shrugged.
“Your family comes with too much baggage for me to have another go around,” Victoria said.
“Okay, that one is fair,” Avril said. She still huffed about their willingness to “do her off” but not “do her” for the next few minutes, even during her dealing of the next hand.
Their curiosity about the manner of escalation they could expect was answered soon enough. Before that, Tess responded to her second question: whether she’d ever used her looks back in college to improve her grades.
“Once or twice, but nothing likethat,” she’d said, hastily attaching the second part as her exquisite features turned crimson. “I touched a shoulder, batted my eyelashes, that sort of thing. I was a good enough student not to need to do things like that very often.”
“Now that you’re a professor, does it ever work on you?”
“No, so don’t try it this upcoming semester,” was Tess’s rebuttal.
For Victoria’s next question, Avril went even more personal.
“When’s the last time you got cozy with a guy?”
Her brother’s former fiancée stared at her flatly. “When is the last time I had sex, you mean?”
“Pretty much.”
Victoria thought momentarily, took another drink, and then answered without missing a beat. “Six years.”
Avril looked almost disgusted. “That streak is way too long for someone as sexy as you are.”
“It’s likely to keep going even longer,” Victoria said, shrugging. She dropped her gaze to her drink, finger ruminating across the rim. “I’m pickier now than I used to be.”
For fear of the mood collapsing, Avril let the issue go. The next few questions repaired that, and it also saw the first one of them exit the game.
“I’ll just drink quietly and think about the answer for myself,” Tess said, much to Avril’s dismay. The question had been about the naughtiest thing Tess had done since her divorce, which she obviously couldn’t share. However, Liam couldn’t help but wonder whether she considered the naughtiest act to be sex in an igloo on Christmas Eve, playing a game involving ice cubes and whipped cream on her couch, or the car ride home from Costco. He also couldn’t help but grow a bit excited as his memories of those events played out in his mind.
Her capitulation was the catalyst for the winding down of the game's final round. When asked about her bra size, Victoria refused to answer, staring flatly at Avril.
“You already know that answer,” she’d said.
And then it’d been down to him and Anna. And then it’d just been Anna, who had by far improved the most throughout the three rounds they’d played.
After a couple of bad hands in a row on his end, they were roughly even in chips. But from the corner of his eye, he could see that midnight was only a handful of minutes away. So, before he even saw the flop, he suggested to her that they settle things with one final hand.
“Neither of us answers the question, no matter who loses?” he offered.
Anna’s riveting green eyes had gleamed at the prospect. “Deal!”
Her pair of sixes beat his utter nothing of a hand, and he in no way, shape, or form would haveeveranswered Avril’s question about if he’d had a wet dream about anyone at the table. Unlike the rest, he hadn’t had anything to addle his self-restraint. Even though she’d just won the final round, Anna sighed at her friend, who threw her hands up and defended herself ineffectively.
“The final tally is Liam, two hundred and fifty, Anna, one hundred and fifty, Victoria, seventy-six, and Tess, fifty-two,” Avril announced a short while later. “Remember those numbers here in a few minutes; you’re going to need them.”
In a few minutes, they would. For now, though, the year was ending. A year unlike any he had ever expected he might experience.