Chapter 12
TWELVE
CALEB
“Game night!” Mom announces brightly, clapping her hands after dinner, a couple of weeks later.
“Harper, honey, since you’re actually joining us tonight—” She pauses, eyes flicking toward Silas.
I know she’s wondering if he laid down some kind of ultimatum with Harper to get that to happen. “You get to pick the game.”
But I know what they don’t.
Harper’s leaving in a week. I think that’s why she’s actually participating in game night for once. Is this her starting her long goodbye? Or because, in spite of herself, she actually likes it here? She and Silas have even reached a sort of détente lately.
Harper leans back in her chair, the movement making her fitted black T-shirt ride up just enough to reveal a sliver of pale skin above her low-slung jeans.
My mouth goes dry. Sometimes it just hits me like this—how damn hot she is.
Stepsister. Leaving in a few weeks. Strictly off-limits.
So why is it even hotter that she’s off limits?
I love limits.
Usually, I bask in limits.
But part of it is the fact that she could be doing anything right now—vaping behind the garage, texting some loser who doesn’t deserve her—but she’s here. With us.
“Monopoly?” Helen offers, already halfway to the game cabinet. “Scrabble? Or—”
“Poker,” Harper cuts in, voice low and challenging. Her eyes don’t leave Silas’s.
Silas freezes mid-reach for his wine glass, his face twitching. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not, Dad?” Her smile turns lazy and dangerous as she leans forward, resting her chin on her fist. Apparently, détente doesn’t mean she’s completely lost her edge.
“You taught me how to play when I was six. Pretty sure that makes it a family tradition.” She pops one eyebrow.
“Unless you’re afraid I’ll clean you out of pennies. ”
For a second, there’s a standoff. Then Silas laughs—a real laugh, low and genuine—and it changes his whole face.
“You’re on, little girl,” he says, and for once, it sounds like a father talking to his daughter.
An hour later, we’re deep in the game and, against all odds, having actual fun.
Like, fun fun.
Mom deals with the casual precision of someone who definitely wasn’t just a mom in her past life. She moves cards like she’s shuffled high stakes before, and I catch myself wondering—what else don’t I know about my own mother?
But the real wildcard is Harper.
She’s curled into the chair across from me, legs folded under her, dark hair falling across her cheek. Every so often, she tucks it behind her ear. Each time I catch the flash of silver studs climbing her lobe, I want… things I shouldn’t.
Jesus. Stop.
I force myself to look at Mom instead. She’s glowing—glowing—and the sound of her laugh mixes with Harper’s in a way that makes my chest ache. This is the family she’s always deserved. The family she’s always wanted.
Then Harper laughs again when she outsmarts her dad and gets the pot of pennies. It’s not sarcastic or guarded. It’s easy and joyful. It rearranges her whole face as much as it does her dad’s, smoothing out the lines I didn’t realize are always so tight.
For a second, I see the girl she might’ve been before the lies and the abandonment and whatever other hell she’s lived through.
She could be that girl again. At least here in these walls. Safe with us.
I send that thought out to whoever might be listening like a prayer against everything waiting to go wrong. This moment right here is so perfect. Mom’s humming as she deals cards. Silas is relaxed and actually laughing, and for once Harper’s not looking for a fight.
If I could just hold this together… if I can keep my hands and my thoughts clean, maybe I could convince Harper to stay after all.
“Your tell is showing, Boy Scout,” Harper murmurs, catching me mid-stare. Her voice is low and husky. It does things to my insides.
I shift, trying not to look like I’m sweating. “I’m not showing anything.”
Her smile turns razor sharp, wicked and devastating. “Oh, sweetheart. You might as well be playing with your cards face up.”
The endearment lands like a body shot. I feel it in my gut. In my spine. In places I shouldn’t be feeling anything when we’re three feet away from my mom.
I try to focus on the rules of the game. I’ve always been good at rules. Rules are predictable—unlike Harper, who’s playing on instinct and chaos and somehow still beating me.
Rule #837: don’t notice how beautiful your stepsister is when she bends low with mischief glinting in those dangerous eyes of hers.
As soon as the game was announced, I thought, Awesome.
All those years of poker theory and probability calculations are finally going to pay off.
Except every time I’ve had a decent hand tonight, Harper’s folded before I could capitalize on it.
She’s called every bluff before I even get the words out.
It’s like she’s hardwired to see through me and my polished prep school bullshit. Straight into the parts I don’t let anyone glimpse.
By the time it’s down to just the two of us, the pile of pennies glinting in the center of the table looks ridiculous. Like treasure piled up in a dragon’s cave.
Harper twisted her hair into a messy bun half an hour ago, and I try not to get distracted by her bare neck as she studies her cards with an unreadable expression. She’s not just beautiful, she’s dangerous. Not because she’s reckless—but because she knows the effect she has on those around her.
“All in,” she says, her voice just above a whisper. Then she pushes her whole stack to the center.
I watch the pennies slide—trying to count them as they move, trying to calculate odds, trying to maintain control over something I can’t actually control. One, two, skip three, start over. One, two, three, four—
My pulse spikes.
My hand? A pair of tens. Not great, but not nothing.
I study her face, looking for a tell—anything to latch onto—but she’s still as stone. Calm and gorgeous. Watching me from beneath those dark lashes like she already knows how this ends.
I hesitate. She has to be bluffing.
She won with an ace high last hand, and the odds of her pulling two incredible hands back-to-back are insane. But her body language doesn’t twitch. Doesn’t waver. It’s that same confidence she carries through life.
I fold.
And immediately regret it as I watch her pull all the pennies from the pot toward her stash.
“New hand,” she chirps, smug like she was bluffing, and I try not to growl under my breath as Mom deals again.
I pick up my cards. Two queens. Two sixes.
My brain immediately lights up like a Christmas tree. This is it. This is the one. A full house is just a heartbeat away.
Keep it cool.
The first two community cards hit the table: a queen. A jack.
I’ve already got the full house in my hands.
I keep my face blank, but inside I’m a riot of math and adrenaline and finally. This is how I win. This is how I prove I’m not always the careful one. I can take risks and still come out on top.
The final card drops: six of hearts.
Full house. Queens over sixes. Practically unbeatable.
I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood, trying to school my expression into disappointment. Even throw in a fake sigh for flavor.
Then Harper pushes in her pile again.
“All in.”
She says it the same way she did last hand—cool, effortless, and like the outcome’s already decided. And this time I don’t wait. I shove everything I have into the center, too.
“Call,” I say, trying to sound bored. I can taste the win already.
But Harper starts laughing.
That big, musical laugh again, like I’m the punchline and she’s been setting up the joke all night. But so goddamn sexy.
“Hey!” I reach for the pennies, half-rising out of my chair. “I called. I said call.”
She grins, wide and wild. “Oh, right. The grand reveal.”
Then—slowly, deliberately—she flips her cards.
Ten. Jack. Queen. King. Ace.
All spades.
Royal flush.
I feel my mouth drop open. I stare at the cards like they’re cursed.
“You—how—?”
Harper shrugs, already pulling her winnings toward her in easy, practiced handfuls. “Luck,” she says breezily. “And the fact that you, sweet overachieving Boy Scout, fell for every single bluff. I’ve had absolutely shit cards all night before this hand.”
“That’s cheating,” I say, even though I know it’s not.
“That’s life.” She stands and stretches, and I can’t stop my eyes from tracing the curve of her waist as her shirt rides up. “You think if you play safe and clean, you’re guaranteed to win? That’s not how the world works, Caleb.”
That’s when we hear it.
A crash from upstairs. Then what sounds like something rolling down the stairs—a series of rapid thump-thump-thump-thumps followed by a skittering sound.
Oh no.
Everyone’s heads turn toward the doorway.
Sox appears like a gray-and-white missile, moving at full speed, clearly fleeing from whatever she just destroyed upstairs. She’s gotten huge since I first met her—all legs and teenage-cat energy—and she’s hauling ass.
How did she get out?
She spots the dining room. And the table.
Spots what must look like the world’s greatest toy: a pile of shiny pennies.
“No—” I start, already moving.
Too late.
Sox launches herself onto the table with zero grace, scattering cards and pennies in every direction. Pennies rain down like the world’s cheapest slot machine jackpot, plink-plink-plinking across hardwood.
“What the—” Silas jerks back.
Sox does a victory lap through the remaining pennies, batting them with her paws, tail up, absolutely delighted with the chaos she’s creating.
“Is that a CAT?” Mom half-stands, hand to her chest.
“SOX!” Harper lunges for Sox.
But Sox, being Sox, sees Silas—the one person at the table who’s not actively trying to grab her, probably because he’s the one person allergic to cats—and decides he looks like the safest option.
She leaps.
Directly onto Silas’s chest.
“JESUS CHRIST—” Silas throws his hands up as Sox scrambles for purchase, claws out, climbing him like a tree.
“Sox, NO—” Harper’s around the table in a flash.
“Get it OFF—” Silas is half-standing, cat attached to his button-down like velcro, and that’s when he sneezes. Violently. Directly into Sox’s face.
Sox, offended, digs her claws in deeper.
“OW—fuck—I’m allergic to cats!” Silas sneezes again.
“I’ve got her!” I’m there, trying to pry Sox’s claws from Silas’s shirt, but she’s locked on like her life depends on it.
“You’re making it worse!” Harper shoves me aside, reaching for Sox.
Sox sees Harper coming and makes an executive decision: time to abandon ship.
She launches herself from Silas—leaving four perfect claw marks through his shirt—directly at me.
I catch her on instinct, which is a mistake because Sox is not interested in being caught. She’s a furry pinball of pure chaos, all scrambling paws and indignant yowls.
“Caleb, hold her still—” Harper’s hands are reaching.
But Sox twists like a feral demon, claws raking across my forearms, and I yelp and lose my grip.
Sox hits the ground running.
“Grab her!” Harper dives.
Sox jukes left.
“I’ll get her!” Mom moves right.
Sox goes straight down the middle, shoots between Mom’s legs, and disappears under the couch with a final indignant mrrrow.
Silence.
We’re all frozen: Harper on her knees by the dining table, me clutching my scratched forearms, Mom bent over like she’s mid-lunge, and Silas still standing with his shirt shredded, eyes streaming, staring at the couch like it just declared war.
Then Silas sneezes.
Then again.
Then three more times in rapid succession.
“So,” Mom says slowly, straightening up. “That’s a cat.”
“That’s a demon,” Silas corrects, dabbing his eyes with his napkin. “That is a demon from hell who just used me as a scratching post.”
“Someone want to explain this?” Mom asks with an eyebrow arched.