Zoe

It wasn't too long after Amy arrived that River returned. She had expected a lot of needling from him, and even for him to give Cass a hard time like he always did with her other friends or Rian when they came to visit.

Instead, he was cordial at first, introducing himself and playing nice. He joined the family in the living room, as was expected, and the conversation continued, thankfully having mostly moved on from her and Cass' relationship.

Zoe kept expecting River to change the subject with some kind of jab or sneaky remark to get her parents back on her case about Cass, but the remark never came. Cass had been fully present in the conversation with Zoe's family, as if it wasn't her first time here at all. And to Zoe's eternal bewilderment, that seemed to be keeping River in check.

There was a part of her in the back of her mind that wondered if River had always been awful to Rian and her other friends because of how they acted. Having not spent time with her college friends in a while, Zoe could see how that could have been the case. Her college friends were party girls, and she loved hanging out with them. But whenever they visited during breaks, they had always been aloof and disinterested in anything her family did. Rian especially.

And while Zoe could admit that her residual hate for Rian might be coloring her thoughts on her other friends now, there was a part of her that could see why River had never liked them.

In direct contrast, Cass was engaged. She didn't have her phone out while Zoe's family chatted around her. She wasn't ignoring them. She wasn't trying to keep Zoe in their own, separate conversation. She was seated neatly beside Zoe, their shoulders and thighs against one another as if in support, and was fully engaged in the conversation, cracking jokes and contributing.

Over the following two hours, more of the food was brought in. Everyone was taking turns running into the kitchen to check on the hors d'oeuvres that were going into the oven or the deep fryer, bringing whatever was finished into the living room for sharing, and popping the next batch of whatever into the appropriate cooking vessel.

The coffee table in the living room had ended up littered with all sorts of treats. Potato skins, jalapeno poppers, wings, various puff pastries, fries - and they still had more cooking. Zoe had taken her last trip into the kitchen to put some mozzarella sticks into the deep fryer when she heard the door bell ring.

"Someone got that?" She called without thinking.

"Yup." River responded.

And when Zoe returned to the living room having lowered the basket of mozzarella sticks into the oil, River had come back in with Ellie, a childhood friend of his.

Zoe had to immediately hold her tongue. River hadn't poked or prodded at Cass a single time all day so far, so she wasn't about to go poking him. River and Ellie had been friends since they were little, and just about everyone in both families had been waiting, fully expecting the two of them to date when they grew up because they were constantly flirting in the way younger kids do.

Their dating never materialized, and it was a common route of retaliation for Zoe and Amy whenever River got too uppity. Instead, the two remained best friends through all of school, and neither had traveled away for college, so they were still inseparable.

"Hello everyone!" Ellie said as she walked in. She hugged Zoe's parents and presented the massive cheese cake she had brought as an offering to the desert table.

Zoe slipped back over to Cass, who was watching with a pleasant smile on her face. But as soon as Zoe was in whispering distance, she asked, "Who's that?"

Zoe chuckled and leaned in. "Sorry, I didn't realize she'd be here. Her name is Ellie, she's River's childhood friend."

"Gotcha." Cass said. "You said he had no girlfriend, so I wanted to be sure."

"Zoe! Long time no see!" Ellie said, coming over to give Zoe her turn with a hug.

Zoe gave the girl a squeeze. They had basically grown up like sisters, and Zoe thought of Ellie like a younger sister in most cases. "Hey! I know, right? I thought I'd see you at Christmas, but you never showed."

"Blame River." She said, shooting him a glare. "He said that he forgot to get me a present and refused to see me until the day after when he could get one. Which sounds like a big ol' lie, but I still don't know why."

Zoe mirrored Ellie's glare, suspecting it was because he didn't want her to get caught in the crossfire when he brought up her date in the city.

Zoe shook her head, and motioned behind her to Cass. "Ellie, this is my girlfriend, Cassandra."

Cass stepped up and seemed unsure of whether to offer a handshake or a hug. "Hi, Ellie. Cass is fine."

Zoe saw the sudden light in Ellie's eyes and her body ran cold. "Cass then - I'm Ellie. Zoe told me about you. A while ago, admittedly, but it's nice to finally meet you!"

Cass aimed a curious look at Zoe, but thankfully Ellie didn't say anything more. Because, indeed, Zoe had told Ellie about Cass a year ago around Christmas break in a bit of a drunken rant. She had entirely forgotten, but thankfully, it seemed like Ellie was content to let it go. At least for now.

"Well, now that everyone is here, we have even teams." River said conspiratorially.

"What, you wanna get beat that bad again?" Amy tainted immediately.

"Hey, we ended Christmas in a 2-2 tie. And this time I have my actual partner with me." River declared, as Ellie crossed the room to stand beside him triumphantly.

"Ellie minored in art and design at college." Zoe explained. "And the two of them are basically undefeated at a certain drawing game."

River, hearing Zoe's explanation, stood up straighter, puffed out his chest, and placed his hands on his hips. "And you'll all fail to take us on this time, too!"

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"Save the gloating for after you win, dumbass." Amy said.

Cass grinned maniacally, the smile slowly splitting her face to show teeth. "I bet we trounce them." She said, declaring war.

The entire room turned to face her, including Zoe. "Cass, are you even good at -"

"I am. I love sketching and doodling."

Zoe hadn't expected to see Cass' competitive streak show up for family boardgames, but she wasn't opposed. Especially when they were guaranteed to be teaming up for it. She shrugged. "Then let's get 'em."

"Mom, go get the box." River said, drilling holes into Zoe with his eyes.

"Go get it yourself, you little jackass." Their mother said. When River turned to her in mild shock, she just laughed. "Don't forget that your father and I are no slouch, either. And I need to check the food."

River deflated, walking off to go retrieve the game box from the game closet.

"Oh my god, River, come on." Ellie said, her pencil furiously scribbling on the piece of printer paper.

"What do you mean 'come on'? That's clearly a boat. A ship? A cruise liner. A…a sailboat?" River rambled, still trying to fall into the right answer.

Ellie, not allowed to really respond verbally while drawing could only roll her eyes as she angrily circled her rather good drawing of a boat over and over and over, the graphite circle gradually getting darker and angrier with her.

"And….time." Zoe's mother said.

"Bro. How are you this useless?" Ellie said, throwing her hands up. "I swear, you said every fucking word for a boat except the one we needed."

"It was yacht." Cass said with a shit eating grin.

Ellie turned to her and motioned with both arms as if giving a big reveal. "Thank you!"

"How's that a yacht?" River said, looking at the image and moving his head around for different angles.

"Big ship plus a martini glass? What else would it be?" Ellie asked, still clearly annoyed.

"Oh. That's a martini glass?"

"What the hell else would it be? I even drew a toothpick in the glass with an olive!"

"I dunno, man." River sighed.

"I thought it was pretty obvious…" their mother muttered to herself.

"Shut up, mom." River shot back.

"Anyway, it's the girls' turn." she said, ignoring her son.

"Who's drawing now?"

"Me." Cass said. "Go ahead and roll." She grinned and mimed throwing the dice. As instructed, Zoe picked up the die and tossed it. The game was pretty close, all things considered. All four teams were pretty well clustered around the end of the board, a far cry from the blowout that River had promised. And the six that Zoe rolled had gotten them to the final space, assuming Zoe could guess correctly. Of course, it was tradition for the final guess to be a round where everyone participated and make the potential winning team actually have competition to finally win.

"Object. All you, hun." Zoe's mother said as she drew the card to look at it, as the closest to the deck. She blinked at it, clearly not happy with the word they would need to draw, then slid the card facedown across the dining room table to Cass.

Cass nodded and picked up the card to read it. Zoe thought she caught the start of a grin as she read the word on the card before she placed it back on the table face down, and slid it over to River.

River visibly blanched at the word, muttering about not even being sure what it was. But he still passed the card over to Amy. If he genuinely didn't know the word, he was meant to say so outright so they could draw another, but as he didn't do that, Zoe assumed it was just a difficult word.

"The fuck is this?" Amy said, looking at the card.

"Do you not -"

"No, I know what it is…" she sighed. "But there's almost no chance Max says it."

"Hey!" Max said, clearly upset.

"Don't worry Max, John won't get it either." Zoe's mother chuckled.

"If I don't have any shot at getting it, that's the drawer's fault." Her father said with a little smile.

"Don't you go pinning this one on me, hunny, I'm not sure you know this word." Her mother responded.

Zoe looked over at Cass who, at this point, had a big grin on her face. Zoe tilted her head in confusion, and Cass chuckled. "No worries on our end. You've got this. No contest."

"What's that supposed to mean?" River half-shouted. "You better not cheat!"

"No cheating here." Zoe said, holding her hands up.

"Nope, none." Cass agreed. "I just know Zoe knows the word."

"Can we just get on with it, then?" Ellie said. "Let them win so we can change teams. Someone get me away from this uncultured idiot." She pointed at River. There wasn't any real heat in her words, just still annoyance from him not getting 'yacht'.

"Hey!"

"Alright, Dad, you got the timer? Good. Ready? Go."

As their mother spoke, pencils went flying on the page. Cass immediately drew a dagger, and Zoe - along with everyone else at the table - started shouting.

Everyone shouted knife and dagger immediately. Then River, Zoe's father, and Max all started shouting knife-adjacent things as everyone moved onto secondary images. Zoe remained stuck on the knife, though, moving through other weapons that she could recall from games. Misericorde, stiletto, main gauche, kris, jambiya, khukuri. Honestly, she was running through the list of knives she could remember from one particular game she really liked.

And then Cass' secondary image finished; a witch's hat. And Zoe laughed.

"Athame!"

Cass whooped and pointed at Zoe. "We got it."

"Oh, come on. The fuck even was that word?" River whined.

"Sore loser." Zoe taunted, sticking her tongue out at him. "You're just mad we beat you."

"And that we'll do it again." Cass said with a smug grin. Zoe thought it looked really great on her.

"Okay, we can;t let that stand." River said, hopping from his chair. "Come on, Ellie, we gotta get them back."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "Fine. We can go again. But I swear, River, if you miss another softball like 'yacht' I'm disowning you as a teammate."

"Alright, alright you two. Reset the board." Their mother said, trying to gather all the discarded cards from around the table while their father pushed the tokens back to the start.

Cass leaned in and threw an arm around Zoe's shoulder, pulling her close for a side hug. "Nicely done. Knew you'd get that one."

Zoe snorted. "Honestly, it almost feels like cheating. Getting 'athame' for the last round was almost too perfect."

"Hopefully our luck carries through to the next game, yeah?"

"That'd be nice. I'd love to make River eat his words real good." Zoe said, throwing a taunting grin his way.

"What?" He asked.

"Nothing. Just looking forward to putting you in the ground again." Zoe shrugged.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Bring it on."

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