Page 36 of Checking It Twice
“Uncle Mitch!” Sophie appears in the doorway, bouncing with the sort of energy that suggests she’s had way too much hot chocolate. “Mom says dinner’s in an hour, and we should start setting the table!”
The moment shatters, but not unpleasantly. Mitch ruffles Sophie’s hair as she climbs onto the couch between us, chattering about the snow fort they’re planning to build tomorrow.
But when our eyes meet over her head, there’s something there that wasn’t before. It makes my pulse skip and my carefully constructed walls feel increasingly fragile.
Chapter Fifteen
Game Night
Mitchell
Game night with the Drake family is cutthroat competitive chaos disguised as wholesome entertainment. Mom sets the Monopoly box on the table with a satisfied smile that says someone’s about to lose their shirt. Dad flexes his fingers and rolls his shoulders like he’s preparing for battle. And Maddie? She’s already organizing her money into neat stacks, that gleam in her eye usually means trouble for the rest of us.
I should have warned Clare.
“Remind me again why this seemed like a good idea?” she mutters as Mom explains the house rules—which include at least twelve modifications to standard Monopoly that have evolved over two decades of family warfare.
It’s a lot.
“Because you said board games sounded fun,” I remind her.
“I was thinking Scrabble. Maybe some nice, civilized card games.”
“Nothing’s civilized when it comes to family game night.”
She looks around the dining room table at my family’s game faces—Evan calculating property values, Maddie sorting her money with military precision, Dad already claiming the car game piece like it’s his birthright.
“I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
“Probably. But it’ll be entertaining.”
The first sign of trouble comes when we realize we’re one chair short. Sophie’s claimed the booster seat, Jake’s got the kitchen chair Mom dragged in, and the adults are left doing musical chairs with furniture.
“I can grab another chair from upstairs,” I offer.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mom says, waving me off. “Clare can just sit with you.”
The suggestion lands like a body check to the solar plexus. Sit with me. As in, on my lap? For the next two hours. While I try to maintain the fiction that this is all pretend.
While I try not to think about how she felt pressed against me in that tiny bed last night or how she looked straddling my hips in the snow this afternoon.
Cool.
Perfect.
Just kill me now.
“I can just stand,” Clare says quickly, probably reading the panic in my expression.
“Absolutely not,” Mom says. “Mitchell, don’t be rude to your girlfriend.”
Right. My girlfriend. The woman I’m supposed to be comfortable touching, holding, having in my personal space. The woman whose proximity has been driving me slowly insane for the past forty-eight hours.
I settle into my chair and pat my thigh with what I hope looks like casual confidence instead of barely controlled terror.
Clare hesitates, and I catch the way her cheeks flush pink. She’s thinking about it too—about the intimacy of the position, about how this crosses every professional boundary we’ve ever maintained.
“Come on, Clare Bear,” I say, injecting just enough teasing into my voice to sell the performance. “I don’t bite.”
