Chapter 3 #3
She laughs awkwardly, brushing the back of her hand across her cheek. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to, anyway, you’ve just got that look, I guess is what I’m saying…”
Cal doesn’t react right away.
He just looks at her, and somehow that stillness says more than any words could.
It’s always been like that with him.
Cal doesn’t talk unless he has to, but when he watches you, it’s like being dissected by someone who already knows the answer they’re looking for.
Strangely, it doesn’t feel like he’s doing that though.
He isn’t analyzing her like a threat or trying to read her intentions like he does with every other stranger he comes into contact with.
There’s a quiet curiosity in the way his eyes linger on her, thoughtful and almost…gentle.
It’s strange, seeing that in him.
Finally, his head tilts slightly. “That’s a fair assessment. I’m retired from the military. So, you’re pretty spot on.”
She practically beams from the light praise.
“Oh, I’m dying to hear what you think of me, now.” I grin at her over the rim of my glass.
The words come out light and a little teasing, but there’s a slight heat beneath them I can’t quite hide.
A flicker of anticipation that has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the way she’s been watching all of us tonight rolls through me.
She turns her gaze on me, and just like that the air shifts again. For a second, the rest of the room fades into background noise.
“You,” she says, drawing the word out, tasting it like she’s testing the feel of it on her tongue.
Her gaze flicks down over my shirt sleeves rolled up to my forearms, the glass loose in my hand, the half-smile I can’t seem to drop, then back up again.
Her head tilts just slightly to the side. “You’re trouble.”
I let out a low laugh, leaning back against the couch. “Trouble, huh? That’s your professional opinion?”
“Definitely,” she says without missing a beat. “The way you walk, the way you talk…it’s written all over you.”
“Harsh,” I say, pretending to wince.
Cal snorts quietly, his voice cutting through with dry amusement. “She’s not wrong.”
She shakes her head, smiling to herself, and I can’t help the way my chest tightens watching her.
How easily she fits into this, how the laughter rolls out of her without effort.
When she looks at me, it’s not the same look she gave earlier.
The one under the mistletoe that made my heart stutter and my common sense vanish, this one’s softer but no less dangerous.
“Alright, my turn.” Her voice sounds steadier than I expect, but I can see the faint tremor in her hand.
She looks around the room, her gaze skimming over me for the briefest second before landing on the other side of the circle. “Grant. Truth or dare?”
“No longer using the bottle, huh?” He leans back in his chair, one arm draped lazily along the backrest, and gives a slow shrug. “Truth.”
For a second, she just watches him, her lips pursing slightly as she thinks. “What’s something you’ve always wanted but never let yourself have?”
It’s a simple enough question, but the way she asks it makes it sound like there’s another question hiding underneath the surface. It’s not just curiosity, it’s intent.
She’s reaching for something that she isn’t saying, poking around for an answer she probably doesn’t even know she’s asking for.
Grant doesn’t answer right away.
He just stares down into his glass, turning it between his fingers thoughtfully.
The firelight glints against the rim, catching the faint reflection of his face and warping it slightly.
For the first time tonight, I see something slip in his expression.
The careful calm he always wears starts to crack around the edges. His jaw tightens, eyes going distant, fixing somewhere in that glass of red wine.
“That’s a loaded question,” he finally says.
She just meets his gaze, chin tilted slightly upward, her tone soft but steady. “I’m dying of curiosity.”
Grant’s head lifts.
When his eyes lock on hers, it feels like the whole damn room changes temperature.
It’s like watching two forces collide in slow motion, neither one of them backing down or willing to be the first to blink. She’s testing him, but not in a childish way.
It’s curiosity laced with challenge.
I’ve seen Grant command a room full of people without saying a word, make grown men stop talking mid-sentence just by looking at them.
But this is different.
She isn’t shrinking from it.
She meets his stare head-on, chin tilted up slightly, that spark in her eyes bright and unflinching.
It hits me then just how rare that is. Most people see Grant as the steady one, someone you don’t cross.
But Noelle is pushing forward, daring him to break his own rules like she wants to know what’s underneath the composure he hides behind.
And damn if it isn’t fascinating to watch.
He finally sets his glass down, the clink of it soft against the wood. “Maybe we should relax for a bit. Things are getting a little rowdy.”
Noelle laughs quietly. “Why do you say that? You guys are the ones that agreed to all of this. But now you’re getting cold feet? What’s with that?”
“Alright,” Cal says suddenly, his voice slicing through the haze. His elbows rest on his knees as his shoulders square, his grey eyes sharper than before. “I think we all know where this is heading…”
He’s not wrong.
There’s a pulse thrumming through the room, impossible to ignore and even harder to justify.
It’s electricity crawling under my skin, tugging at something deep in my gut.
I can’t tell anymore if it’s excitement or madness because if we cross that invisible line, there’s no going back.
And we all know it.
Noelle opens her mouth to say something, but whatever answer she was about to give us suddenly dies on her tongue.
I lick my lips, anticipation making me twitchy. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
Cal’s gaze flicks to me, then to Grant who meets his stare silently, then finally back to her.
For a second, I swear I can see the wheels turning behind his eyes. I brace myself for it.
For him to shake his head, fold his arms, and put on that moral high-ground act he does so well.
It’d be classic Grant, ever the voice of reason. The one who always knows where the line is and won’t cross it no matter how far the rest of us try to tug him over it.
But then, just when I’m sure he’s about to defuse the moment, he surprises the hell out of me.
He leans forward, forearms braced on his knees, the firelight cutting across his face throwing a partial shadow over his eyes, but the gleam that catches them is unmistakable.
“Noelle… Truth or dare,” he asks.
Her eyes widen because she didn’t expect him to be the one asking. Hell, none of us did.
“You’re really going to ask me that?” she says softly.
He nods once. “That’s the game we’re playing, isn’t it?”
What surprises me most is that none of us step in to tell Grant to cool it.
Normally, that’d be Cal’s cue to roll his eyes and call it before we got in too deep, fucked ourselves over, and made a mess of an already dicey situation.
Or mine to crack a joke and deflect, lighten the mood like I always did because that was always easier than facing the truth head-on.
But strangely neither of us do.
Not this time.
Whatever’s happening right now feels…inevitable.
There’s something in the air that keeps all of us frozen in place, waiting. Grant’s tone wasn’t teasing and Noelle isn’t laughing it off either.
Her fingers are twitching where they’re clasped together in her lap, her throat working as she swallows around the lump that’s seemed to form there.
Noelle leans back slightly, crossing one leg over the other, her chin lifting a fraction. “Alright. Truth.”
Grant inclines his head slightly. “Who, out of the three of us, do you want the most?”
I can hear the blood rushing through my ears.
The right answer, the safe answer, would be for her to shrug this all off and call it a night.
To break us up and tell us to retire to our rooms and leave her the hell alone until Richard got back.
The wrong answer is any version that includes our names…and would be the one option I’m desperately hoping she picks.
What would happen if she finally stops pretending this is just a game?
How could we come back from this and act like everything is normal once Richard walked through that front door?
I tell myself I don’t care.
That I’m just curious and just watching the chaos play out like some fascinated outsider, detached and entertained.
I tell myself I’m nothing more than a spectator to the tension winding itself tighter between them, like it’s a movie
I’ve already seen a dozen times and I’m only here for the rewatch.
Except…that’s a lie.
Every heartbeat that stretches out the silence pulls at me. The space between us feels too still, too intimate. I can feel the pulse in my throat, a steady thud that betrays how not detached I really am.
The truth is, every second she hesitates makes me want to move.
Makes me want to do something like reach across the space separating us and slide my hand along the curve of her neck and pull her back into me like I did under that damn mistletoe and kiss her again.
She breathes out slowly.
Her eyes sweep over each of us—first me, then Cal, then Grant. There’s a flicker of something vulnerable there before her gaze settles fully back on Grant.
“Right now… I don’t want to choose,” she finally says.
My eyes widen.
Her words don’t knock the air out of me so much as change it, warping it into something else entirely.
The atmosphere in the room shifts, charged with a current I can feel humming beneath my skin.
It’s no longer just tension, it’s invitation.
“Okay. Then we don’t make you,” Cal responds.
My eyes snap to him immediately.
Cal’s posture shifts as he leans forward, elbows resting on his knees. He tips his chin toward Noelle, not in challenge but in a way that feels almost like an offering. “Ground rules: we’re all adults but you’re in charge here. One word ends it. Nobody’s crossing any lines you don’t want us to.”