Chapter Text
Lia’s POV
I slip into Sloane and Cassie’s room with practiced ease, a mug of steaming hot coffee in hand. As expected, Sloane is awake and perched cross-legged on her bed. She’s dealing out a deck of cards into columns to set up a game of Solitaire…with all the cards face down.
Leave it to Sloane to try a card challenge first thing on a Saturday morning.
“Good morning, Lia,” Sloane replies, not looking up from the cards, “The probability of you being awake at this hour is 43% since your normal waking time on a Saturday is around 12:30 - 1 PM.”
Of course Sloane knows exactly what time I normally wake up.
I smile gently as I set the cup of coffee down on Sloane’s bedside table. “I brought something for you.”
Sloane pulls her eyes away from the cards on the bed and towards the mug. Her eyes go wide as her attention fixates on the aroma of fresh coffee drifting out of the mug. She reaches for it, but I move it out of her immediate reach.
“You know how this works, Sloane. This is a bribe,” I answer smoothly.
She pouts at me, a very adorable sight, before asking, “A bribe for what?”
“I’m going to check out Cassie’s wardrobe, and you’ll sit here quietly drinking your coffee instead of waking Cassie.”
Sloane’s eyes don’t leave the mug, but she nods in agreement. Pleased, I place the mug into her waiting hands and make my way towards their shared closet.
I find a dark navy blue gown on Cassie’s side of the wardrobe. Pulling it off its hanger, I hold it up against my body to check the size.
It looks like it fits well enough. Time to add this to my collection!
I quickly change into the dress and admire myself in the mirror attached to the back of the closet door.
If there’s one good thing about her arrival, it’s her closet full of dresses and more feminine wear. Sloane is the only other girl living in this house, and she only wears jeans and t-shirts.
“What are you doing?” I hear Cassie’s muffled voice through the closed closet door.
Looks like our resident sleeping beauty finally decided to wake up.
“Solitaire,” I hear Sloane’s reply followed by the sound of shuffling cards.
“But all of the cards are facedown.” Even through the door, I can hear the confusion laced in Cassie’s voice.
I hear Sloane take a sip of her coffee before replying simply, “Yes.”
“How can you play Solitaire if all of the cards are facedown?” Cassie’s voice is followed by the sound of a creaking mattress. I imagine her red hair in a tangled mess as she sits up straighter in bed.
“How can you play with some of them faceup?” Sloane answers like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and I decide to make my presence known.
“Sloane is something of a card shark. Briggs found her in Vegas,” I answer, my voice turning silky smooth as I stick my head out of the closet.
Cassie’s gaze shifts to me, and I can see the exact moment she registers one very important fact.
“Hey,” she says, her eyes narrowing at me as she observes my current attire, “That’s my dress.”
“Correction: it was your dress.” I flash her a smile and cock my head at her. “Didn’t the FBI warn you that I have sticky fingers? Kleptomania, pathological lying — it’s all the same, really.”
My smile turns into an amused smirk as I watch Cassie try to process if I was telling her the truth or not. After a few seconds, I decide to put Cassie out of her groggy misery.
“Kidding,” I add as I smooth the silk dress down. “About the kleptomania, not about the fact that I have no intention of giving this dress back. Honestly, Sloane is the klepto in this house, but this really is more my color than yours.”
This blue is quite the pretty color and matches my highlights perfectly.
From the corner of my eye, I see Cassie shift her attention back to Sloane, who is now playing far faster and more aggressively than before.
“Sloane,” Cassie says in a flat tone.
Sloane doesn’t bother looking up from her cards. “Yes?”
“Why is Lia poking around in our closet?”
Sloane tears her gaze away from the cards, but her hands don’t stop playing. “Motivation is really more your domain than mine. I find most people somewhat bewildering.”
Leave it to Sloane to take Cassie’s question quite literally.
Cassie rephrases the question. “Why would you let Lia poke around in our closet?”
“Oh,” Sloane says quietly, understanding the meaning of Cassie’s question. “She brought a bribe.”
“Bribe?” Cassie questions, one eyebrow arching upwards. A look of realization dawns on her face as she quickly gets off the bed.
“You brought her coffee?” Cassie’s voice climbs higher in disbelief.
I smooth a hand over the front of my newly acquired dress and flash Cassie a devilish smile. “Guilty as charged.”
Michael’s POV
Cassie, Sloane, and I are watching some medical drama in the media room after dinner. Or rather, we’re trying to watch it, but it’s proving rather difficult between the fact that the actors clearly hated their jobs based on their subtle facial expressions of disgust and irritation and Sloane’s rapid fire statistics.
I need to lock up the coffee from both Sloane and Lia from now on.
Apparently, our darling liar decided to give our resident statistician a forbidden cup of caffeine this morning, resulting in Sloane pouring out rapid-fire statistic after statistic for the past eight hours.
I’m getting Lia back for this later.
I shift my gaze to Cassie who is intently focused on the TV screen. She hasn’t looked at me once since I arrived in the media room, so I decide to change that right when an actress picks the perfect moment for a ‘heartfelt love confession’.
“Her mouth says, I love you, Darren, but her posture says, I can’t believe the writers are doing this to my character — she would never get involved with this schmuck!” I say mockingly as I pop another piece of popcorn into my mouth.
Cassie glares at me, and my smirk widens as I read the irritation written plainly all over her face. “Do you mind?” she asks, gesturing towards the screen.
I flash a grin back at her. “Not at all.”
She rolls her eyes before shifting her attention back towards the screen, but I can tell her interest in the show is waning.
“We could switch to reality TV,” I suggest.
It would have far more realistic emotions than this silly medical drama filled with terrible actors.
“Roughly one percent of the population are considered psychopaths,” Sloane announced from her position on the reclining chair. “Recent estimates suggest that over fourteen percent of reality television stars are.”
“Whose estimates?” I ask.
Sloane smiles like a Cheshire cat, a smile I don’t see on her too often but I adore far too much. “Mine.”
My grin grows as I put my hands behind my head and lean back against the worn leather sofa. “Forget studying killers. Let’s arrest fourteen percent of all reality television stars and call it a day.”
Sloane slouches in her chair and toys with the end of her blond ponytail. “Being a psychopath isn’t a crime,” she replies.
“Are you defending psychopaths?” I ask, arching one eyebrow as high as it will go. “This is why we don’t give you coffee,” I add, a light teasing tone in my voice.
“Hey,” Sloane says defensively, “I’m just saying that statistically, a psychopath is more likely to end up as a CEO than a serial killer.”
In the middle of this wonderful discussion, I hear another voice announce their presence with an “Ahem.”
There’s only one person in this house who announces their presence like that.
I turn to look at Lia who is wearing a silk blue dress that falls to her knees and hugs her curves just so. She looks at each of us in turn, wrapping a strand of blue hair around her finger in a dizzying motion.
“Judd just left for a night on the town with an old friend. We have the house to ourselves,” Lia informs us and clasps her hands together in front of her body. “Living room. Fifteen minutes. Come prepared.”
Come prepared.
Though Lia and I were not on the best of terms at the moment, I was not one to question such invitations. Cassie on the other hand…
By the time Cassie asked what we should be prepared for, Lia was already out the door.
“That probably does not bode well,” I say lightly, more amused than worried about whatever Lia has planned. I push myself off the sofa and dust my pants. “I’ll see you ladies in fifteen,” I add with a wink at Cassie before strutting out of the room.
As I enter the hallway, I can hear Cassie’s voice ring out, “Any guesses what we’re getting ourselves into?”
“Based on previous experience,” Sloane answers, “my guess would be trouble.”