Page 139 of End Game

There are too many people in this house.

Too many schedules. Too many relationships. Too many ways for something to go wrong.

For most of my life, security has meant understanding the variables well enough to predict the outcome. Rules help. Plans help. Knowing where things belong and what is expected of me helps considerably.

Five people do not offer that kind of certainty.

Five people can’t be reduced to a diagram, no matter how much easier an org chart would make things feel.

I don’t know exactly what Christmas will look like. I don’t know what dinner with another polycule household will look like. I don’t know what happens when one of us eventually wants something the others aren’t prepared for.

I do know Micah’s hand is still in mine.

I also know the others are in the kitchen. I know Cami is laughing. I know Griffin is telling Dex to stop touching something, which means Dex is almost certainly touching it more.

And I know that when we sit down at this table again next week, I’ll have to rewrite half the campaign because none of them did what I thought they’d do tonight.

Apparently, planning for people doesn’t mean predicting them.

Sometimes it just means building a world sturdy enough to survive their choices.

I look down at Micah’s hand in mine.

And I think I can do that.

Chapter seventeen

Holiday Campaign

Micah

There are five people living in this house, and apparently none of us owns a normal amount of Christmas decorations.

I discover this when Griffin comes down from the attic with the fourth plastic tote balanced against his chest.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.

His head appears around the side of it. “What?”

“Nothing.”

I step backward to let him pass, watching him maneuver the giant red and green monstrosity through the hallway without taking out either the wall or Cami, who is sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by enough tangled strands of lights to restrain a small army.

“Is there more?” I ask.

Griffin sets the tote down with a heavy thud. “Two.”

“Two more?”

Across the room, Dex stops halfway through hanging what appears to be a tiny crocheted penis wearing a Santa hat on the tree.

Griffin notices it at the same time I do. His eyes move from Dex to the ornament dangling between his fingers, then slowly back to Dex’s face.

“That is NOT going on the tree.”

Dex looks down at it. “It’s festive.”

“It’s a dick.”