Chapter 8
EIGHT
X anthe eyed Slater as he came back out through the kitchen onto the patio. For all his other faults, rudeness didn’t seem to be one of them.
That private phone call must have been important for him to leave the table in the middle of Mae’s dinner party. Maybe he’d just closed on another big business deal that would benefit him and his rich cronies at someone else’s expense.
Or maybe he’d taken the call because he was a jerk.
“All good?” Mae asked him.
“Yes. Sorry for the interruption.” He glanced at the empty dishes on the table. “Unless anyone wants more, Tripp and I’ll clear up.”
“I appreciate that, thank you,” Mae said. “Then we can play a game before dessert.”
Everyone stilled, and Xanthe barely suppressed a groan. She hated board games. Or bored games, as she called them. She also hated stupid icebreakers and team-building exercises. They were always dumb and cringe and pointless, and normally most of the others involved hated them as much as she did.
“Now come on. Don’t you all look at me like that,” Mae said with a laugh. “This is the perfect opportunity for us to get to know one another better. It’ll be fun.”
Doubtful. She already knew the people she cared about in this room well enough.
She shot a look at Willow, who appeared frozen in her chair. Next to her, Tripp’s dismayed expression smoothed out as he stood and reached for the nearest serving dishes. “I’ll just take these into the kitchen.”
“What game?” Xanthe asked as he and Slater left the table, already dreading it but trying to be polite.
“It’s called Who Can Do It. Ever played it?”
“No.” Safe to say she hadn’t played 99.999 percent of the games out there though.
“It’s fun. You’ll like it.”
No, I won’t. She pasted on a polite smile, hoping they wouldn’t have to play long. And that the dessert would make it worth it. Though based on their delicious dinner, it would be.
Mae topped up their wineglasses. “While the boys are busy tidying up, tell us more about Nootka.”
Xanthe’s mood lifted slightly. She could talk about whales all night. Still pumped about the rescue, she immediately launched into what she knew about the humpback.
All too soon, Slater and Tripp emerged from the kitchen. “What’d we miss?” Slater asked.
“Whale talk,” Mae said. “Now sit, and I’ll explain the game.
” She picked up a rectangular box. Xanthe eyed it warily as Mae placed it before her on the table.
“It’s simple. I’ll read a card aloud, and everyone gives an answer to whatever I say.
Then I judge who has the best response. First person to reach seven points wins. ”
“Wait, how come you get to be the judge? I volunteer to be judge.” She would rather do that than be a player. She could even try to be impartial when it came to Slater this one time in the interest of fairness. Maybe.
“I’ll start, but we all take turns being the judge.”
Okay, that wasn’t completely terrible.
“Everyone got it? All right.” Mae picked up a card, cleared her throat. “Simply explain Darwin’s Theory of Evolution with one phrase, in an accent.”
“Survival of the fittest,” Slater said in a posh British accent.
“We evolved from monkeys,” Willow added with a grin, sounding…the same.
“What kind of accent was that?” Mae asked.
“Californian.”
Tripp chuckled. “I think it’s apes, actually,” he said in a Southern drawl.
Xanthe shook her head and answered in her best South Boston accent. “Basically, he said that all life stems from a common ancestor, and species evolve through something called natural selection. He was wicked smaht.”
Everyone laughed, including Slater. And damned if he wasn’t twice as hot when he laughed. She scowled mentally.
“Clearly Xanthe had the advantage with that question, and I’ll forgive ignoring the phrase requirement. But even if her answer hadn’t been the best one, I’d have had to give her the point for her accent alone,” Mae said.
“ Yes ,” Xanthe said, smiling.
Willow nodded. “Fair. My turn? Okay.” She picked up a new card. “First person to say a word in three different languages.”
“ Privet , mrhbn , salaam alaikum ,” Slater said before Xanthe had even drawn a breath.
Willow looked at him in astonishment, startled at how fast he’d answered. “Ah, okay. What did you say?”
“He said hello in Russian, Arabic, and…Pashto,” Tripp said.
Wow. Xanthe grudgingly had to admit she was secretly a little impressed. He’d answered instantly, without having to think about it. And dammit, now she wanted to know what languages he spoke and how well. Probably had to do with his military intelligence background.
“Well, Blaine clearly won that one,” Willow said with a smile, and passed the box to Tripp.
Okay, so she and Slater were tied. She couldn’t have that.
Tripp picked a card. “Unfollow someone toxic on social media.”
“What, right now?” Xanthe asked.
“Apparently.”
“That’s easy,” Mae muttered, fishing her phone out of her pocket. “I’m gonna unfollow the first celebrity or politician I see in my feed.”
Xanthe snickered as she picked up her own phone to open her socials. “Savage, Mae. But probably warranted.”
“Ooh, I’m gonna unfollow a high school classmate I should have unfollowed a long time ago,” Willow murmured, tapping away on her phone. “She’s catty and two-faced. I can’t stand that. And yes, I realize I run the risk of looking catty now too, having just said that.”
“We’ll look past it,” Mae said.
“Xanthe?” Tripp said.
She grunted, busy deleting someone. “I’m unfollowing a certain official from a certain government agency who just got our funding cut again—for the third time.
Among other things, the money was going to replace our derelict drone and cover some badly needed repairs at the station.
” Not that they’d have to worry about the leaky windows and roof for much longer, since it was going to be bulldozed sooner rather than later thanks to Slater and his gang.
“Ah, sorry to hear that,” Tripp said. “Blaine? What about you?”
“Sorry, can’t do this one. I’m not on social media.”
Xanthe looked over at him as Mae spoke. “Not at all?”
“Nope.”
I knew it. “Why’s that?” Xanthe asked him.
He shrugged. “I don’t like other people knowing my business.”
“Or maybe it’s because of your background in military intelligence.”
He lifted an eyebrow at her instant comeback. “You been checking up on me?”
“It’s always smart to do research on your adversary.” Doing research was her jam. She was damned good at it, too. Which was why finding nothing had annoyed her so much.
One side of his mouth curved upward, making him even hotter. “So true.”
Tripp cleared his throat to dispel the slight tension around the table. “All right, that point goes to Xanthe for unfollowing the idiot who got her funding cut. And you’re also next.” He handed her the box of cards.
Up by one point. Still winning.
In your face, Slater.
Xanthe pulled one from the middle of the deck and immediately regretted it. But fine. She suppressed a sigh, already dreading Slater’s response. “Read your latest text message in the sexiest voice imaginable.”
Tripp smirked as he looked at his messages on his phone. “Eggs. Milk. Butter,” he added in a deep, sexy baritone that had them all grinning. “And some of those sweet things I like.”
“Tripp!” Willow giggled and smacked his shoulder, her cheeks turning pink. “My turn, and it’s not very exciting. ‘Okay, see you at the library tomorrow.’” She shrugged.
“Yeah, sorry, that was pretty much the opposite of sexy,” Xanthe said. “Mae?”
“Does it have to be the latest one?”
“The very latest.” Mae’s hesitation piqued her interest. “Why, what’s it say?”
Mae stared at her phone another moment, then cleared her throat before speaking in a sultry murmur. “I enjoyed our night together. Wish you’d let me stay over more often.”
Xanthe gasped and reached out to snatch the phone from her. “It does not say that.” Willow leaned over to read the text with her. But it did, indeed, say exactly that. “Oh my God, Mae. Who is it?” The name on display at the top read “Stud.”
Mae lifted her chin. Sniffed. “Never you mind. I don’t kiss and tell.”
Willow playfully smacked her on the shoulder. “Mae, how dare you keep this a secret from us. How long has this been going on? Is it serious?”
Mae took her phone back. “That’s for me to know and you not to, young lady. Blaine, I believe it’s your turn.”
“Coward,” Xanthe accused, then reluctantly braced herself and turned to her opponent. “All right. Go ahead.”
Amusement gleamed in Slater’s hazel eyes as he read from his phone. “Me again. I’ll be there by eleven tomorrow,” he began, and oh, damn, his voice was like deep, dark velvet, all smooth and alarmingly sexy. “Can’t wait to see you. It’s been too long.”
He looked up at her, and Xanthe’s cheeks flushed at the glint in his eyes. She glanced at Willow, cursing her fair complexion while telling herself she absolutely did not care whoever the woman who’d sent the text was, or the status of their relationship.
“Nah,” she and Willow said at the same time, grinned at each other. “That point goes to Mae.”
“Yeah, okay,” Slater said. “So who is he, Mae?”
“No one. My turn again?” She took a card, effectively ending that train of conversation. “First person to do an unassisted handstand wins the round. Go.”
Score! All her yoga was about to win her another point.
Xanthe jumped up and rushed for the nearest clear space on the wall, put her hands on the floor and boosted her legs up. It was harder than normal because her muscles were still tired from earlier. But this was happening.
Her arms and shoulders burned as she locked her elbows and straightened her legs until her heels rested against the wall.
Upside down and feeling smug, she looked to the right and saw Slater doing one in the middle of the patio. Dammit . Freaking former Marine. “Who was first?” she gritted out, arms starting to tremble as she held the pose. She’d fall on her face before quitting in front of him.
“I dunno, you were both really freaking fast,” Tripp said, still sitting at the table with Willow. “I think that was a tie.”
“Yep, tie,” Mae agreed. “You can stop now.”
Grumbling under her breath, Xanthe came down from the wall and pushed to her feet, shooting Slater an annoyed look as she tugged the hem of her fleece down to her hips. He grinned and sauntered back to the table.
She absolutely did not notice all the muscles filling out his shirt and the back of his pants. Because that sort of thing was beneath her.
Mae studied her in amusement as she came back to the table. “I see someone’s competitive nature is coming out.”
Xanthe folded her arms and stared across the table at Slater. He stared back, challenge and a hint of amusement gleaming in his eyes.
She hated games, but it turned out she was pretty good at this one, and there was no way in hell she was losing to him.