"Rough night."
"Define rough."
"That new hero versus game dropped a patch at midnight." I grabbed a protein bar from the communal basket and tore the wrapper with fingers that moved at eighty-eight percent of their usual speed. "Played until my eyes stopped working."
Caden turned around. His expression shifted from casual concern to something brighter and more dangerous, the particular grin that preceded observations Caden had no business being sharp enough to make. He leaned one hip against the counter and crossed his arms and his hazel eyes crinkled at the corners with the specific frequency of a man about to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong volume.
"Gaming." Caden nodded slowly. "Sure. Gaming." He uncrossed his arms and executed a series of hip thrusts against the kitchen counter, his entire body rolling forward in a motion so aggressively suggestive that Percy’s pen stopped moving and Finn opened one eye from the couch. "Or were you up all nighttttttt?"
"It was the game, Holt."
"Was it though?" The thrusting continued with escalating commitment. "Was it the game, or was it the four separate women I watched walk into your hallway between nine and midnight from the common room couch where I was eating cereal and watching everything?"
Percy’s pen started moving again with redoubled intensity.
"Four is a strong word."
"Four is a number, Lukas. An accurate number. I counted them. Felicity first at approximately nine oh eight, then Camille at nine thirty-one, then Lang with the planner at eleven forty-seven, and Cross trailing behind her at eleven forty-eight." Caden stopped thrusting and held up four fingers. "Four women. Your room. Saturday night. And you come downstairs looking like someone drained you through an IV."
"We played cards."
"Cards."
"Wavelength, specifically."
"Is that what the kids are calling it?"
Finn sat up from the couch with the boneless fluidity of someone whose spine operated on suggestions rather than structural requirements. "I heard laughter through two walls at approximately twelve-thirty. Multiple voices. Then I heard a sound that was either Lang protesting something or Lang experiencing something, and I made the informed decision to put my earbuds in and accept that whatever was happening in room 205 was none of my business."
"That was the game," I said. "Petra lost a round."
"Petra does not lose at things."
"She lost at this."
Caden settled his chin on his fist with the posture of a man who had arrived at a restaurant and discovered the menu exceeded his expectations. "So you’re telling me that you hosted a Saturday night hangout with Hardy, Ortega, Lang, and Cross, in your room, and played party games until one in the morning, and nothing happened."
"Card games. Party card games. With a point system and everything."
"Was the point system clothing-based?"
"No, Caden, the point system was not clothing-based."



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