Page 45 of Carrick
And mine finally started to match it.
10
Carrick
The day started quiet.Not the kind of quiet that brings peace—but the tense, unnatural kind that hangs like fog just before something explodes. In this house, quiet wasn’t a gift. It was a warning. A lit fuse, burning steadily toward some ridiculous spectacle that usually had Sully’s fingerprints all over it.
I was halfway through my second cup of coffee when the front door flew open with a bang, and Sully stormed into the kitchen like a man on a mission from God. “It is time,” he shouted, eyes blazing with chaos and caffeine.
Maddy jolted beside me, barely saving her tea from splashing over the rim. Deacon, who’d been leaning against the far counter like a silent, brooding statue, didn’t so much as blink. I just stared.
“Time for what?” I asked, already bracing for impact.
Sully pointed at me like he was naming the villain of a great prophecy. “Game night, you ungrateful bastard.”
I sighed into my mug. “No.”
“It’s happening.”
“I said no.”
He turned to the others like a war general rallying his troops. “He’s afraid, friends. Afraid of the battlefield. Of dice. Of destiny.”
Bellamy wandered into the room at that exact moment, looking sleepy and suspicious, holding a book and wearing her beloved hoodie like armor.
She paused in the doorway. “What did I just walk into?”
“An ambush,” I muttered.
“A cultural touchstone,” Sully corrected. “A time-honored tradition.”
“A war crime,” Deacon offered.
Sully ignored him and turned his charm on Bellamy. “My lady, have you ever danced with the devil in the hexagonal moonlight?”
She stared at him. “Are you having a stroke?”
“No,” I said. “He’s trying to rope you intoSettlers of Catan.”
Bellamy blinked. “You guys play Catan?”
Sully gasped. “Youknowit?”
“I grew up in group homes, dude. We didn’t always have television or electronics, but we always had board games. You learn fast if you don’t want to get eaten alive.”
Sully turned to me with the face of a man vindicated. “She’s one of us.”
Maddy sipped her tea, unimpressed. “One of you, maybe.”
Sully struck a heroic pose. “Tonight, we rise.”
“You rose last week,” Jax said, strolling in shirtless with a protein shake. “Then you lost the longest roadandyour dignity.”
“I threw that game as a strategy,” Sully muttered.
“You cried into your nachos.”
“Istrategically cried into my nachos,” Sully corrected.
