Chapter 88: Jake
Madeline turns to me, eyes catching the light when she smiles.
“You didn’t listen, did you?”
For a second, all I can think about is her kneeling there on the floor, head tilted back toward me—
and in front of—
No.
“Come sit up here,” I tell her, patting the cushion next to me. In other words, you need to get the fuck away from the thoughts I'm having.
She pushes herself up, moving light and careful, and slips onto the couch beside me.
“I didn’t listen to a single word,” I admit, voice low.
She giggles, soft and bright, the sound sinking under my skin.
She looks at me then, curious. “Can you and Reid really talk without talking?”
I glance across the room at him. He’s half-leaning forward in his seat, face unreadable, eyes flicking from Charlie to the others. Always alert.
“It’s not really that,” I say. “We just… think the same way most of the time. Or we’re good at reading each other. Every movement or look—it’s easy to decode.”
She nods thoughtfully. “That should be studied.”
A low chuckle escapes me. “Pretty sure it’s been.”
Her lips curve and she leans a little closer. “So, the rules,” she says, patient and amused. “Each team has to come up with a story—either true or false. Something that really happened to one of us, or something we make up. Then you tell it to everyone. After all the stories, each team decides who’s lying and who’s telling the truth. Anyone who’s wrong has to chug their drink.”
I blink at her, deadpan. “I can’t believe this is my evening.”
She laughs. “That’s always our evenings here. Either games like that, card games, or movie nights. They’re all kind of allergic to doing nothing.”
“Really.” I lift a brow.
“Yeah,” she says, smiling down at the rim of her soda. “If it’s quiet too long, someone starts something. Finn usually.”
I tilt my head. “What about you?”
She shrugs, that little movement that always looks shy without meaning to. “I could gladly just sit and read a book for hours. But most of the time, I’ll hang with them.”
I nod slowly.
Of course she would.
We lean in, heads almost touching, while the rest of the room argues about who goes first. Her hair brushes my arm when she moves.
“Let’s just make something up,” she whispers. “Something believable.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know—something that could’ve happened to either of us.”
“Alright,” I say, voice low. “But you’re the one telling it.”
She shakes her head fast. “No way. You’ll have to. I can’t keep a straight face. I’m awful at lying—my emotions give me away.”
I smirk. “Yeah. I’ve noticed.”
She elbows me lightly. “Be nice.”
A few minutes later, everyone drags themselves back around the coffee table. Finn’s hiccupping, Charlie’s trying to referee, and Sloane looks about done with all of them.
Charlie claps her hands. “Alright! Story time. Sloane and her chaos crew first.”
Liam’s already half out of his beanbag, waving his beer. “So there we were—on the boat—and Finn says—”
He never finishes. Their story devolves instantly into overlapping nonsense about whales, lightning, a near-death sandwich, and what might’ve been a ghost or a seagull. By the time they’re done, everyone’s in tears laughing—everyone except Reid and me.
“Ten out of ten for effort,” Charlie wheezes.
Then it’s Charlie and Reid’s turn. She takes the lead. “Once, in Nova Scotia, this man nearly got arrested—”
Reid groans. “It wasn’t—”
“—for parking illegally in front of the fisheries office,” she finishes. “And when the director came out to yell at him, instead of apologizing, Reid decided to argue about jurisdiction.”
That one earns a round of applause. Even Finn claps.
Charlie bows, triumphant. “You’re welcome.”
Then all eyes turn to us.
I nod her way. “Alright, the story we're telling is hers.”
Liam squints. “Then why isn’t Madeline telling it?”
“Funnier this way,” I say.
Madeline hides a smile behind her hand.
I keep my tone even. “Okay. A few months ago, Madeline was out taking plankton samples alone on the shore—late afternoon, rough waves. She wasn’t supposed to be that far out on the rocks, but she thought she saw something in the distance. A buoy that didn’t match the charts.”
The room quiets just a little.
“She gets closer, water going too high” I go on, “and realizes it’s not a buoy—it’s a seal tangled in fishing line. Half drowned. She swims to it, cuts it free, brings it back to shore, and gets reamed by her supervisor for being out past field hours.”
Charlie blinks. “Wait, that sounds real.”
“Exactly,” Finn says suspiciously. “That’s too specific.”
Madeline’s trying not to smile, eyes down on her lap.
“Could be real,” Liam argues. “She’d do that.”
“Would she?” Sloane cuts in, voice flat. “She barely listens to orders on a good day.”
That makes Finn laugh again.
“Guess you’ll have to vote later,” I say easily.
Madeline’s giggling now, trying and failing to hold it in.
I take a sip of my drink, watching her from the corner of my eye. “You’re terrible at pretending.”
“I told you,” she whispers, still smiling.
Charlie claps her hands, loud enough to cut through the chatter.
“Alright! The stories are told, so now everyone’s gotta split up and decide what’s true and what’s a lie.”
There’s a chorus of groans and laughter, the usual mix of protest and drunken enthusiasm.
Charlie’s already delegating before anyone can argue.
“Reid and I will take the kitchen,” she says, pointing like a commander. “Sloane and the boys, you get the living room. Jake and Madeline—” she grins, wicked—“you two go somewhere upstairs. Anywhere you can’t hear the rest of us.”
Across the table, Reid’s head turns. Slowly.
That look—sharp, deliberate—lands on me first, then shifts to Madeline.
He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to.
It’s the kind of look that says are you fucking serious? without a sound.
And for a second, I almost tell Charlie we’ll take the porch, or the hall, anywhere that doesn’t make that vein in Reid’s temple stand out like that.
But Madeline’s cheeks have gone pink, her hand half-covering her mouth. She’s looking anywhere but at him—or me.
“Upstairs works,” I say finally, steady.
Her eyes flick to mine, wide, uncertain.
I tip my head toward the stairs. “Lead the way.”
She hesitates just long enough to make the air shift. Then she gets to her feet, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The movement’s small, nervous.
Charlie’s already turned back to Reid, too busy explaining something about fairness to notice the tension she’s left behind.
Madeline glances at me again—just once—and starts toward the stairs.
I follow.
The laughter behind us fades, replaced by the creak of the steps and the quiet rhythm of her breathing just ahead of me.
And all I can think is how this is a terrible idea.
A small, closed room, no one else around.
Just her. And me.
And a whole lot of things I shouldn’t be thinking about.