Chapter 6
I t was Jazz’s idea, obviously.
She clapped her hands and sat forward on the porch cushion like someone had just handed her a mic and a captive audience.
“We’re playing Spill or Sip,” she announced, her eyes bright behind her wine glass. “Don’t fight me on it. It’s happening.”
“God help us,” I muttered, already regretting this entire vacation and possibly my friendship with Jack.
Charlie perked up like she was planning to get drunk on tea and wake up without a hangover. “We’re doing it with the group cup, right?” she asked, pulling her knees up to her chest. “Because that’s the only version that matters.”
“Obviously,” Jazz said, standing to fetch the large tumbler from the kitchen like a priestess retrieving her holy relic.
Everyone was buzzed enough to go along with it. Jack grinned. Sloane looked vaguely bored but willing. Charlie was suddenly glowing like she lived for structured chaos. And Thatcher— Christ —was all in .
Jazz returned with the Group Cup—a massive crystal tumbler that looked like it had been stolen from someone’s southern wedding registry. “Everyone gives a splash,” she said. “Don’t be shy.”
“I love games,” Thatcher said, already pouring his tequila-LaCroix hybrid into the communal tumbler like it was a sacrifice to Dionysus. “What are we mixing with?”
Rosé. Bourbon. Bordeaux. Tequila. Lime soda. It sloshed together like a nightmare sangria, and I watched Charlie pour in a neat shot of the whiskey like she wanted to watch the world burn.
The game started. The deck sat in the middle of the coffee table, with an inconspicuous burgundy design on the side facing up and provocative questions on the underside.
Jazz motioned to Jack. “You go first. Set the tone.”
He reached in, flipped a card, and read aloud with a grin: “Who in this group would you least want to be stranded with on a deserted island, and why?”
Jack laughed, already glancing at me. “Fitz. No hesitation.”
“Incredible,” I said flatly.
“You’d complain about the heat, the sand, the lack of turn-down service,” Jack said, grinning. “And you wouldn’t know how to do a single useful thing unless it involved a contract or a monogram.”
Charlie snorted. Jazz cackled. Even Sloane smirked.
“Yeah yeah whatever,” I said, sipping my bourbon. “But I’d also be the only one smart enough not to die eating a poisonous berry, so. You’re welcome in advance.”
Thatcher leaned back, already too comfortable, draping his arm behind Charlie’s chair.
“I don’t know, man,” he said. “I think I’d make a great island guy.”
“That wasn’t your card,” I muttered, but no one heard.
Jack passed the deck to Sloane. The game had begun, and something told me it wasn’t going to end clean.
Sloane sat to Jack’s right, her Bordeaux balanced in one hand as she reached for the next card with the other, her perfectly manicured fingers sliding across the stack like she was picking out jewelry.
She read the card in silence first. Then she smiled—but not warmly.
“ Describe your partner’s biggest turn-on ,” she read aloud.
She didn’t look at me. Not right away. She took a slow sip of wine, like she was building suspense. I could sense Charlie’s posture change beside Thatcher—shoulders just a little tighter. Jack made a mock-cringing sound, but Jazz looked intrigued, grinning behind her glass.
“That’s easy,” Sloane said finally, turning toward me. “Fitz gets off on control. Being in charge. He won’t say it, but he likes it when things go his way—especially in bed.”
Jack let out a low whistle. “Jesus,” he said, half-laughing. “Isn’t that just called being a man?”
“Fitz makes dominance look...curated,” Sloane said, her voice smooth. The group laughed. I smiled, because that’s what I was supposed to do. Sip. Nod. Endure. But my gaze flicked sideways—to Charlie. She was silent. She didn’t look at me, but I saw her hand curl tighter around her drink.
The deck passed to Thatcher, and I already hated whatever he was about to say. His fingers drummed the back of the card like it had a punchline waiting just for him.
“Okay, let’s see…” He read it, smirked. “If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
I sipped my drink. Safe enough. Until he opened his mouth again.
“Well,” he said, shifting his arm behind Charlie like he had some goddamn claim, “I think I’m gonna have to go with Charlie’s sweet little?—”
She swatted his arm before he could finish. “Nope,” she said sharply. “Absolutely not.”
My grip tightened around my glass. Jack sat forward, clearly trying to piece together whether he’d heard what he thought he heard.
“Her peach cobbler,” Thatcher clarified with a grin that made me want to snap a bottle neck off. “Warm, soft, a little tart...melts on the tongue, if you know what I mean.”
Every muscle in my jaw locked. Silence stretched thin across the porch. Jazz stared into her spritz like it could save her. Jack looked seconds away from a stroke.
“For fuck’s sake,” Jack said, standing like he might throw himself off the railing. “That’s my sister , dude.”
“I mean—it’s a compliment!” Thatcher laughed. “She’s a total snack.”
I didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Just stared at him, calculating the odds that anyone would notice if I shoved him into the ocean.
Charlie was stone-faced beside him. Her entire posture had shifted—tight shoulders, narrowed eyes, jaw clenched so hard I could feel it in my own teeth.
“Charming,” Sloane said from the other side of the table, lifting her wine with the calm precision of a sniper. “Did you workshop that euphemism in a fraternity group chat, or just go with your gut?”
“Off the cuff,” Thatcher said proudly.
“You don’t say,” she replied with a barely contained eye roll.
I finally set down my glass, and reminded myself that murder wasn’t allowed on family vacations.
Jazz reached for the next card, eager to shift the focus and the mood back to something breezy and playful.
She’d tucked her legs under her on the cushion and still somehow managed to look elegant doing it.
“Ooh,” she said, eyes flicking up to the group with a flush.
“I wanted something fun and flirty. And this is—well, not that.”
Jack groaned. “Do I need to cover my ears?”
“No, you’re way too golden retriever energy for this to be about you,” she said sweetly. Then read the card aloud: “Who in this group do you think is hiding something?”
A beat. The porch went still. Even the breeze held its breath. Jazz swirled her wine and then looked right at me. “Fitz,” she said, smiling like it was a compliment.
I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“You’re stone cold tonight,” she said. “Like—too measured. You’ve been holding back.”
“Maybe I just know how to behave,” I said evenly.
Charlie coughed into her glass, but it sounded suspiciously like bullshit.
“Come on,” Jazz said. “No need to be so buttoned up and tight lipped.”
Sloane raised a brow, but said nothing. Jack laughed. “Fitz has been hiding things since grade school. It’s called his personality.”
“I may be reserved, but that doesn’t mean I’m secretive. I’m an open book,” I said.
“Mm,” Jazz said, tilting her head. “You’re a locked journal with a Yale watermark and a confidentiality clause.”
I opened my mouth—and didn’t say what I wanted to. Not with Charlie looking at me like she wanted to dig through the pages. Not with Thatcher still beside her.
“So, Fitz, Mr. Open Book, are you going to sip or spill?” Jazz said, like she was offering an innocent invitation rather than a dare.
Fuck this. I reached for the Group Cup. I’d rather down the putrid concoction than fess up to some embarrassing or overly personal detail that most of the group had no business knowing.
The only person I’d actually admit anything very personal to was Jack — except the one thing I wouldn’t admit to anyone, hardly even to myself.
My fingers curled around the glass tumbler, already inwardly grimacing at the filth I was about to swallow. But before I could take a sip?—
“You must be kidding,” Charlie said. Her voice sliced clean across the circle—not loud, not sharp. Just intentional. Like a stone dropped in still water.
I looked up. Everyone did.
She was leaning forward, elbows on her knees, her drink dangling from her fingers. Her sun-streaked hair was slipping over one shoulder, and her bare legs were tucked beneath her like a girl who didn’t know she was dangerous.
“If you’re such an open book,” she said, eyes locked on mine, “then the least you can do is answer a stupid party game question.”
I tilted my head. Smirked. “Maybe you just don’t know the language.”
“So translate,” she said.
Sloane lifted one brow. Jack looked mildly alarmed. Jazz looked delighted.
So I reached for the next card. No flourish. Just flipped it, read it silently, and hated the universe a little. Then, in a quick monotone, I read the card to the group. “ What’s the worst thing you’ve ever wanted, knowing you couldn’t have it?”
I didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. But the air shifted around me.
Charlie’s expression stilled—mouth slightly parted, drink forgotten in her hand.
“Something I still want,” I said. “But that’s all you’re getting from me.”
Then I picked up the Group Cup and drained it in one long swallow. It tasted vile—a mix of bourbon, wine, regret, and whatever the fuck Thatcher brought to the table.
Charlie’s eyes stayed locked on mine the whole time. And the silence after? It was louder than any answer I could’ve given.
I walked into the house under the guise of using the restroom, but really, I just needed to let the fucking heat leave my face.
What the hell was I thinking with that admission?
Okay, I hadn’t really said anything—but wasn’t that even worse?
Now Jack, at the very least, and probably Sloane too, would be turning that line over in their heads like it was some kind of code.
And I had no fucking clue what I’d tell them if they asked.