Chapter 21 #2
“Can I have one of those?” he asked, referring to the sweets in her hands.
“Um, sure.” She offered him the packet. “I’m not really sure where they came from.
” Course not, his Castle was an object magnet.
Things she passed magically stuck to her like in one of those running games that had been popular a few years back.
Paul opened the love hearts packet and claimed the first one.
He offered her the next. “Show me,” he insisted, turning his sweet to her so she could see the message printed on his, which read, ‘YOURS’.
“Not sure I should.”
“Why not?”
She gave her fiancé a sidelong glance. “Not interested in causing ructions.”
“It’s a good ’un, then.”
Cagily, she showed him. It read, “IT’S TRUE.”
“Deffo,” he agreed, chuckling. “Love Hearts never lie. Ask Ronnie, he’ll tell you how prophetic they are. Aren’t they Ronnie?”
Ronnie nodded, “Way better than an eight ball. Are they mine?”
“Jodi’s,” Paul replied, before she had a chance to say otherwise. She looked down, fighting a smile. He passed Ronnie a single sweet.
“Let us have one,” Nash stuck out a hand. Paul dutifully gave him one.
“Well, that’s shit. I never get the good ones. HARD LUCK. What did you get, Jo?”
Jodi popped her first selection in her mouth and chose another. “YES, DEAR.”
“Game time,” Spook announced, entering the living area from one of the side-rooms, arms full of socks.
“Are they mine?” Luthor asked.
“You don’t mind, do you, Luthor?”
“As long as I get them back undamaged.”
“So, who’s in?”
“What’s the game?” Balin asked, eye cocked at the mound of sockage.
Ash roused from the sofa. “More importantly, what’s the prize?”
Spook pointed at him. “Ah, interesting that you asked. That would be this here beautiful, ‘Get Out of Jail Free Card.’” He showed them all the ancient orange Monopoly card.
“Obviously, it won’t get you out of actual jail, but it can be used in a range of circumstances to do-over, or defuse a situation, or simply to defenestrate your opposition. ”
Xane gave him a clap.
“Thank you.” Spook gave a bow. “Now, who’s in? It’s a simple game. A very simple game. No complicated rules… Suitable for all ages and flexibility levels.”
“I’m not playing Twister,” Ash said.
“It’s not Twister.”
“I think we need to hear the actual rules.” Lee was turning his head, looking at each of them, clearly trying to get a handle on what was likely to happen. “Is this an every man for himself game or a—”
“It’s a team game. Black Halo versus the Ghost Boys. A friendly, obviously.”
“There are six of you and only four of us,” Nash pointed out. Fucking rules lawyer.
All attention turned to the bathroom and the sounds of heaving.
“And one of us isn’t exactly at his best.”
“I’m not playing, I’m adjudicating,” Spook pointed out. “So Black Halo are down their best man too.”
“Ooooh!” The sound was made by a combination of voices, disputing that claim. Although, depending on the measure, Spook was the best among them—best guitarist, best hair, best mediator, best at knots. Both tying and unravelling them. The list went on.
“I can play,” Jodi offered, shuffling forward on the sofa, and accidentally bumping up against him in the process. Just that tiny bit of contact gave him an all-over happy glow.
“She is an honorary Ghost Boy,” Lee confirmed.
“Yay, Jo-Jo.” Balin raised his hand for a high five.
“That’s not fair,” Ginny complained. “I want to join in. I’m as much a part of Black Halo as she is the Ghost Boys. More so, even.” She flashed her wedding band and engagement ring combo.
“Three teams,” Spook proposed. “Black Halo, Ghost Boys, and the ladies.”
“That still doesn’t give an even number of players per team,” Nash pointed out.
Yup, definitely a rules lawyer.
Ginny wasn’t going to be thwarted. She nibbled her lip. Then her face lit. “Dani?”
Dani shook her head and waved her arms before her but was soon pulled from Xane’s lap and drawn into a huddle with her best friend and his Jodi. “And Ronnie can join us and be an honorary lady,” they declared after a quick conflab. “That’s okay, ain’t it? It makes the teams even.”
Ronnie was promptly parted from a glass of what he called a Shoggoth, which was vodka, vermouth and on this occasion, crème de menthe combined with a bag of Golden Bears.
Previous incarnations had involved peach schnapps, Tequila Rose, and Appletini.
“Well, yes, I suppose. I mean, girls are cool. What are we doing? Is this a sock game that girls are even capable of playing?”
“Ronnie!” Ginny clipped him around the back of the head.
“What?”
“Everybody in the room is equipped with the requisite body parts for participation,” Spook clarified. “And if you’ll all fucking shut up a minute, I can get as far as the rules.”
Luthor sighed as Alle began handing out socks.
“You had the biggest socks. And the biggest collection of socks. You have like forty pairs.”
“A man can’t have too many socks.”
Xane leaned over and gave his boyfriend a kiss. “Especially when he has a girlfriend who steals them in order to read and drink tea in.”
“Said girlfriend always puts them in the wash afterwards.”
Spook clapped his hands together. “Okay, listen up. Rules.” He got a familiar gleam in his blue peepers that sent a shiver of anticipation down Paul’s spine.
“You guys should probably know that despite appearances, he’s a complete sadist,” he said to those in his vicinity. “Let’s hope there’s still some arnica in the first aid kit. Okay, go on, spill. We’re listening.”
“Rule One: everyone take your… shoes off and put a sock on one foot. No, I don’t care which one, just as long as it’s on a foot. Hands don’t count, Ronnie. No, Rock Giant isn’t allowed to put his on his extra appendage.”
That earned him some side-eye from Nash, who maybe hadn’t heard he had a big one.
Spook waited until everyone was done. “Aim of the game—remove the socks from the other participants. Winning conditions—be the last person still wearing a sock. Rule two” —he gestured, raising his index fingers on both hands— “you are not allowed to use your hands under any circumstances to remove the socks. You can use them for other purposes, like balance. Cheating will be met with severe consequences.” Alle passed him a wooden-backed hairbrush, which Spook tested against his palm in a way that made a loud clap. “Okay, go.”
Paul dived into the thick of things, avoiding the temptation to use the game to snuggle up against Jodi.
He soon wrestled the socks off two of the Ghost Boys.
A combined assault from Ginny and Dani soon put Ash out.
Dani soon followed. Then Xane. Then Luthor.
He noted the three of them slipping away into one of the bedrooms. No need to ask what for, all this wriggling about and grinding up against other bodies definitely got the blood pumping.
Ginny caught his gaze. Her sock was already wrinkled around her ankle. All he’d have to do to get it off her was pin her beneath him and use his toes to drag it off her foot. Easy peasy. He had both a weight and height advantage.
“Truce?” she mouthed at him and cast a glance at the other remaining players—Jodi and Nash were contorted around one another. Jodi’s delectable arse in the air, Nash all elbows and legs. There was a lot of grunting going on.
“’kay,” he mouthed back, already doubting the wisdom of the agreement.
If he went after Nash, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that the game wouldn’t devolve into fisticuffs.
Whereas, if he targeted Jodi, then…then Nash would likely see that as him making a move, and…
bruises and bloodshed were inevitable. So, he was basically fucked whichever way he played things.
He let Ginny dive into the melee first, before joining in.
If things were going to kick off, they might as well happen now as later.
Goddammit, she was all curves and soft bits, and heat.
Heat that spilled over him and rushed through his veins.
It’d been ten days since he’d seen her. Ten days during which he’d been self-medicating with Ronnie’s concoctions because it was fucking miserable thinking of her and wondering if they’d ever get a happily ever after, or if his punishment for overstepping the mark would be eternal solitude.
“Don’t you dare.” Jodi turned her head and bared her teeth at him when he grasped her around the midriff.
Sitting with his back to her he used his heels to drag the sock down her shin.
She twisted relinquishing her all fours position over Nash, so she could kick free of Paul’s hold on her, while also drumming on his back with her forearms.
She smelled of autumn.
Nash, thinking he’d won a reprieve, succumbed to Ginny’s ingenuity. She clamped her teeth around the toe of his sock and lurching backwards, took it clean off his foot. Unfortunately, she also fell on her arse right in front of Jodi, who used her forearms to steal her already floppy sock.
That left just the two of them. No. Wait. Was it just the two of them? Ronnie smirked at him from his seat on the coffee table. The bugger was still sporting a sock and apparently taking a breather while the rest of them battled it out.
“That’s hardly engaging with the spirit of the game, Ron.”
“Tactics,” he responded.
Paul levelled a kick in his direction.
“Ow!”
“You could help,” Jodi said to Ronnie. “We’re supposed to be a team.
” On her knees now, she was leaning over Paul’s shoulder, straining to reach his feet…
his legs…some manner of purchase. Paul tucked his knees beneath him, and stood, lifting her up with him, so she was held in a reverse fireman’s lift.
While she squirmed and kicked, Ronnie finished his drink.
“I’m gonna give you a countdown,” Spook told him. “Engage or I’m disqualifying you.”
“If I go for his ankles, he’ll fall over,” Ronnie protested. “I don’t think you should be making me do stuff that’ll risk my teamie being dropped on her head.”