Chapter One — Alex
I fire up my laptop and type the following into Google:
Liar’s dice
It’s the game Callum and I will be playing next.
Callum texted me about it earlier today, proposing it as our next game. I’ve never heard of it.
I’ll admit, Callum’s text threw me off guard. After what happened in the church the other day… I kind of thought Callum and I were past these games.
I guess not.
I thought we were both catching feelings, but maybe I’m wrong. Yeah, Callum said I love you the other day in the church, but it was in the middle of sex. Men say all kinds of crazy things during sex. It doesn’t mean he meant it.
Unless Callum ends this competition and calls the games off, they’re still on. I need to remind myself of that and stop getting distracted.
Besides, even if he did want to call them off, could he? I mean, we both signed a contract. And really, he’s the only one who would benefit from ending the games. After all, if I win seven of them, I’m entitled to a million dollars…
And I’ve won six so far.
So really, it’s not Callum’s place to end the games prematurely. I’m pretty sure one of the terms of the contract said that I’m the only one who can do that.
But if I do end the games early… I could walk away with nothing.
Should I?
A part of me really, really wants to.
I hate how transactional these games feel.
At first, it was just fun and flirty, but now that I’ve developed real feelings for him, every time I play a game, I’m caught between wanting to prove my loyalty to Callum by throwing the game and showing I don’t care about the money…
and between being smart and capitalizing on a business opportunity, i.e. a million fucking dollars.
Just thinking of that makes me wonder if I’ve lost my mind. Any person in their sane mind would be doing everything in their power to win these games, right? Even if they were in love with the man they’re playing against…
I mean, a million dollars is a million dollars. I’d be foolish to walk away from that… right?
Despite my rational brain saying all these things, I can’t help but still feel confused. The heart wants what it wants, and what my heart wants is to say to hell with these games and tell Callum I love him.
But until I know where he stands, that would be risky.
What if the last few weeks has all been an elaborate ruse on his end?
What if Callum has been consciously manipulating me?
What if he’s been trying to get me to fall in love with him so I’ll quit the games and forgo the million dollars?
I hate even thinking that. It gives me a sick feeling in my stomach, but I have to consider all the possibilities here.
And unfortunately, that’s one of them.
Because we’re still technically in a competition. And I’m one game away from winning a million dollars.
Yeah, I’m in love with this man and I think he feels the same way… but can I trust my intuition on that? My feelings could be clouding my judgment. Also, I don’t lose anything by winning the money. I mean, if he’s the man for me, then why would a million dollars change that?
Even as I tell myself this, though, I know it’s not quite true…
There would be something symbolic about quitting the games, about choosing Callum explicitly over the money.
I know he doesn’t trust people in general and women in particular.
Which makes sense. When you’re as successful as he is, you have to learn to have your guard up, to be skeptical of people’s motivations.
The one way to prove to him that I actually love him and not his money would be to quit. I know that.
But quitting now would be a massive gamble on my part. Because a million dollars is at stake. And as much as I want to make the gamble, I just can’t. It would be foolish. That money could change my life.
I have to put my feelings aside and focus on winning this next game.
Once the million dollars is in my bank account, I can reassess. But until then, I have to be cold, rational, and strategic.
I need to focus on winning at all costs.
So I resume my research and delve into the rules of Liars Dice.
I skim the Wikipedia article first. The rules are straightforward, but there’s clear strategy involved. It’s mostly a psychological game, but there’s a mathematical component to it too.
It’s just the kind of game I love. And the kind Callum loves, too. It’s a game about probability, lying, and reading people — things both of us are very good at.
It works like this: we each get five dice.
We roll them and hide our rolls under cups.
Then, we take turns bidding. For example, if it’s my turn, I could say something like, “I think there are at least two twos between the two of us.” Then Callum has two choices: either he can raise me by bidding a higher amount, by saying something like “I think there’s at least three twos,” or he can challenge me and call my bluff, i.e.
call me a liar. If he calls my bluff, we reveal our dice.
If I was lying, I lose one of my dice. But if I was telling the truth, he loses one of his.
Whoever loses bids first on the next round. It continues like that until one person’s out of dice.
There are different variations to the game.
In some variations, you can raise the bidding by bidding on a different number.
For example, if Callum bids on there being two twos, I could raise him by bidding on there being three ones or three fours etcetera.
But under the rules Callum has proposed, it’s pretty straightforward.
You can only raise the bid on whatever dice number the other person originally bid on.
Additionally, there’s special rules if we both get to the end of the game and each have one die.
I spend the afternoon memorizing the likelihood of different rolls.
For each die, there are six possibilities: one through six.
Between the two of us, there are ten dice.
It’s pretty straightforward to calculate the odds.
The odds of rolling at least one of a particular number across all ten dice is about 84%.
At least twos is about 52%. After that, the odds drop quickly: at least three is 22%, at least four is 7%, and at least five is 1. 5%.
What makes it more complicated is that for each round, I have some information because I know what I rolled.
That’s a big part of this game: knowing your numbers.
The second part is knowing the other person, and that’s tough because Callum is hard to read.
He has a pretty good poker face, like I do.
I beat him in our first game of poker, but in large part that was because he underestimated me. I don’t think he’ll be making that same mistake again.
As the clock ticks down, I get more and more nervous. Callum sent a car for me. I’m going to his place. It’s where we played our very first game, which was chess.
Callum threw that one in an obvious fashion. In fact, he threw it so badly that he wasn’t even able to tell whether or not I was any good. I am quite good at chess, but it was obvious by the way he was playing that he was expecting me to have no idea what I was doing.
I found out later from one of the girls he’d seen that he always throws the first game. A lot has changed since then.
It’s five minutes until the car arrives. My phone buzzes and I look down. It’s a text from Callum: Has your ass recovered yet, sweetheart? I’m planning your punishment for when you lose the game and want to know how much you can handle…
I blush. I look in the mirror and quickly lift the hem of the short red plaid skirt I’m wearing.
I’m wearing a black thong underneath, and when I flip my skirt up, I can see my ass is still pink.
The other day in the church, I got spanked a few times.
I’m mostly back to normal, but there’s still a faint pink sheen. He doesn’t need to know that, though.
Don’t worry about it, I text him back.
And why’s that?
Because I don’t plan to lose.
Ha. Well, things don’t always go to plan, sweetheart.
Oh, you should know that better than anyone, I text back. Remember that first game of poker? I smile thinking back.
Are you trying to rile me up before our game? he texts.
The brattier you are now, the worse your punishment will be, he texts back.
I squirm, my face heating up. How can he have such an effect on me through words alone?
My phone buzzes. The car is here. I grab my purse and skip out the door. Just as I’m stepping out, my phone buzzes again. Another text from Callum. It’s pictures of two different paddles. One is hot pink and the other is purple. Which do you like more? he says.
I text him back without thinking: Fuck off, you’re trying to distract me.
Ooh, someone’s definitely trying to get in trouble! Alright, the bigger one it is.
I slide into the backseat of the car, and the driver looks at me.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, why?” I mumble.
“You look really red,” he says.
I look down at my hands, even more embarrassed. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I mumble. “Just drive.”
He looks at me quizzically for a second, then starts driving.