Chapter 17 Behavioral Drift
BEHAVIORAL DRIFT
LILA
Emily has commandeered the sitting room, a bottle of pinot open on the coffee table and a true-crime documentary already queued up. She claims she likes the ones with voiceovers that sound “authoritative but hot.”
I briefly wonder if she knows her cousin moonlights as a true crime podcaster. I feel like she would’ve mentioned that by now. Then again he strikes me as the type who makes his own family sign NDAs.
Theo’s sprawled at the far end of the couch, sleeves rolled to his elbows, pretending he’s above this.
He’s so not.
His wine glass is half-empty, and he’s been side-eyeing the screen ever since the narrator pronounced fibula wrong.
He’s not fooling anyone. He loves this kind of thing just as much as I do. What I wouldn’t give for one weekend with him. Face masks, charcuterie, the whole-ass, slightly indulgent self-care fantasy.
The mental image that pops into my head is filthy in a way it has no right to be, Theo lounging back with a smear of guacamole-colored face cream on his absurdly perfect cheekbones, cucumber slices covering his eyes.
Of course, this kind of thing requires the most comfortable attire, and my mind takes a swan dive straight into grey sweatpants territory.
Namely: do they make them long enough for his legs and…
the rest of his architectural advantages?
Because if not, I’m willing to crowdfund a custom pair at this point.
“Do you ever get tired of this stuff?” Emily asks, yanking me out of my dirty thoughts by the collar. She gestures to the screen as a detective explains blood spatter trajectories.
“Often,” Theo says.
“Never,” I answer.
They both look at me.
“What?” I say. “It’s both educational and entertaining.”
Theo makes the faintest sound of disapproval. “He mispronounced spatter too,” he mutters. “Splatter is what toddlers do with paint.”
Emily rolls her eyes and drains the rest of her glass. “You two are insufferable. I’m putting on something normal next.”
“Define normal,” I say. “Also, you picked this.” I tried really hard to discourage it for her sake, but she was insistent.
“Something that doesn’t involve bodily fluids.” She cringes.
I bark a laugh. “I mean. Not all body fluids are crime related,” I offer. “Some are recreational.”
Theo chokes on his wine, which makes me giggle even more.
Before she can fire back, the front door opens. The sound carries through the hall—heavy steps, the muted jingle of keys.
Emily’s smile catches halfway, fragile and bright all at once. “Bear’s home,” she tests the words.
I can tell she wants to be excited about it, but is unsure whether she can be or not with the current company.
Theo gives me a disgruntled look, but doesn’t say anything.
Emily’s already halfway to the door. “You’re back! We’re in here. Did you finish up early?”
“Something like that,” Baryn’s voice carries down the hall.
He rounds the corner, travel coat still on, expression as pleasant as I’ve ever seen him, which isn’t saying much. “Well. This is cozy.”
Theo leans back, the picture of irritability. “Welcome home.”
The words hang there—without a response—a beat too long before Baryn’s gaze drifts to me. “Careful, Lila. Hang out around here for too long and people will start talking.”
“And deprive you of the thrill of being the center of every rumor? I’d never,” I answer evenly.
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?”
Emily groans. “God, here we go.”
Baryn ignores her and looks directly at Theo. “How can you tell if a lawyer is lying?”
Theo just glares back at him and doesn’t respond.
“Their lips are moving,” Baryn looks far too pleased with himself.
Emily bursts out laughing, definitely having had too much to drink. I don’t want to, but it slips out—a small, involuntary snort.
Theo continues staring at him, unimpressed.
“New rule,” Baryn declares, tapping the table. “If you don’t laugh at one of my jokes, that’s a drink. Disrespecting the President is treason.” He raises his glass. “Drink, Grayson. That’s the law.”
Theo takes a long drink, eyes still on him over the rim of the glass, then says, “If you have to make it a rule for people to laugh at your jokes, that doesn’t make it funny. Maybe a cry for validation.”
“New rule,” Baryn says again, already pouring more of the amber liquid into Theo’s glass. “Theo drinks whenever he challenges a rule.”
Theo downs it without flinching.
It goes downhill fast. Baryn keeps inventing rules, each one designed to make Theo drink, and each one more ridiculous than the last.
I’ve lost track of how many times Baryn’s said, “new rule” and how many times Theo’s taken the bait and downed another glass.
Theo is not a small man. Statistically, he should process alcohol more efficiently than the rest of us mere mortals.
The bourbon seems to be winning, though.
Emily’s crying laughing, barely shuffling the deck between rounds. “At this point, you’re just trying to kill him.”
“Tempting, but not worth the effort,” Baryn says.
By the time we finish another round, I can’t focus on anything but Theo.
He’s somehow still upright, though his tie’s crooked and he’s squinting at his cards like they’re written in another language. He plays one at a time with this intense, over-focused determination.
Baryn leans back, victorious. “Mr. President retains power.”
“For now,” Theo grumbles.
I stand and clap my hands once. “Nope, that’s enough democracy for one night.”
Emily giggles into her wine glass. “You just don’t like losing.”
“I like my liver,” I counter, standing. “And you—” I point at Theo, who’s slumped lower than he probably realizes, collar open, eyes a little unfocused—“have had enough to drink.”
He lifts his head, that crooked smile breaking through the last of his composure. “You worried about me, Jennings?”
“Worried about the carpet,” I say, grabbing his glass and scooting it out of his reach.
Theo grins wider, “You’re beautiful when you boss me around.”
My heart skips a beat, but I keep myself composed enough to say, “Get it together, Grayson.”
He doesn’t. He just gazes up at me, eyes warm and utterly unfocused. “Can’t. You’re too far away.”
His hand catches my sleeve. The tug is clumsy, uncoordinated, and before I can balance myself, I’m pulled backward.
Right 0nto his lap.