Page 50 of Carrick
Her eyes met mine, heat flickering low and slow.
“Maybe.”
I swallowed. Hard.
Yeah. I was so far gone, it was laughable.
And she knew it.
Bellamy and I won.
To be fair, Bellamy won, and I had the good sense to stay out of her way. Her final move—playing a knight card to steal Largest Army from Deacon and clinch her last two Victory Points—was surgical. None of us saw it coming. It was a thing of beauty, brutal in its elegance.
Sully shouted something about a rematch. Jax immediately demanded an audit of the resource pile. Deacon stood in silence, gave a single nod, like a bored god retreating from mortal affairs, and walked upstairs without a word.
Bellamy leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, grinning with calm satisfaction. “That was… not what I expected.”
Sully flopped face-first onto the rug with a groan. “I feel spiritually annihilated.”
“You did that to yourself,” Bellamy said.
Jax pointed a finger at her. “You are terrifying. I want you on my team next time.”
“You can’t have her,” I said, without thinking.
Everyone froze.
Maddy grinned slowly. “Oooh.”
Bellamy’s eyes cut to me, curious. A little amused.
I cleared my throat and stood, collecting loose cards and rogue road tiles. “We were a good team.”
“You’re a control freak,” she said, rising too, gathering the plastic cities.
“And you’re chaos in lipstick.”
“That’s why it worked.”
I turned to face her, and suddenly she was closer—closer than the game had allowed, closer than I’d let myself notice until now. Her expression had softened, the edges less guarded, her mouth curved in a way that made something low in my chest ache. I wanted to reach for her. Just a touch. Her hand, her hair, the curve of her cheek—anything to ground myself in the quiet pull that had been building all night. But I didn’t move. Instead, I offered her a card.
“Development bonus,” I said.
“I don’t need pity cards.”
“It’s not pity,” I said. “It’s… a reminder.”
Her brow furrowed. “Of what?”
“That you’re allowed to have fun. That not everything here has to hurt.”
Something shifted in her expression. Not a smile, not quite, but the weight in her shoulders loosened, the edge in her posture softening just enough to feel like trust. Maddy passed behind us on her way upstairs and called over her shoulder, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t narrate later.”
Bellamy snorted. I said nothing.
The room felt quieter now—just the two of us, the scatter of game pieces, and the soft hum of something unspoken hanging in the space between us. She helped me pack the last of it away, our fingers brushing once, then again, slower the second time, like neither of us wanted to pull away too quickly.
When we finished, she leaned back against the table, arms folded, eyes on me.
