Infinite Rebate: I Get Richer Every Time I Spend

None of them looked at him.

The Uno cards kept moving across the table in short little snaps ~ draw, place, skip, reverse ~ like the game itself mattered more than the man standing a few feet away. Mia’s eyes stayed on her hand. Daisy shifted a card between her fingers without lifting her head. Debbie only spoke when it was about the game.

Lucas waited a second longer, then exhaled through his nose.

Fine.

If they wanted to freeze him out, he could at least stop smelling like a crime scene while they did it. Up close, the earlier fight still clung to him. Faint iron. Dust. Sweat. The leftover heat of violence that a long day refused to release on its own. Standing in the living room like that suddenly felt stupid.

He turned toward the stairs.

The moment his foot hit the first step, Mia finally spoke ~ not to him, but to Daisy.

"See?" she muttered. "He doesn’t even care."

Daisy answered immediately, voice low but sharp enough. "Exactly. Look at him. Just walks off. Probably already thinking about some other girl."

Debbie gave a quiet hum of agreement and placed another card down harder than necessary. "Mm. Explains a lot."

They kept going, half-playing, half-prosecuting him in soft voices, building a full case out of his silence, his lateness, and whatever version of the day they had decided was true.

Lucas heard every word.

His enhanced hearing caught it all before he even reached the top of the stairs ~ the tone, the timing, the way they were feeding off each other’s annoyance. A small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. So that was the mood. Not danger. Not disaster. Just the familiar, complicated weather system of three women with too much time and too much shared opinion.

He didn’t stop walking.

---

In the bathroom, he stripped out of the day’s clothes and stepped under the shower.

The water hit cold first, sharp enough to wake the skin, then settled into a steady pressure that ran over his shoulders and down his back. Pinkish traces loosened from his knuckles and disappeared into the drain. The smell of the lounge fight ~ blood, alcohol, dust ~ finally started leaving his body. He stayed there longer than he needed to, letting the noise of the water cut the rest of the world away for a few clean minutes.

By the time he stepped out, the mirror was half-fogged and his head felt clearer.

He dried off, pulled on a pair of boxers, then stepped into short trousers and a plain singlet. No attempt to look formal. No attempt to look apologetic either. If he was already on trial downstairs, he might as well face it comfortably.

At the bedroom doorway, he paused just long enough to rub a towel once more over his hair.

Even with a system, even with sharpened senses and more information than most people would ever know what to do with, there was still one problem left unbroken by any upgrade:

No man alive fully understood women.

Lucas tossed the towel aside and headed downstairs to find out what exactly he was guilty of this time.

---

By the time he came back down, all three of them looked up for half a second.

Just long enough to confirm it was him.

Then they immediately pretended they hadn’t seen him at all.

Mia’s eyes dropped back to her cards. Daisy adjusted the stack like it suddenly required perfect concentration. Debbie placed a card down with exaggerated seriousness, as if the fate of the afternoon depended on it. The shift was so obvious it was almost impressive.

Lucas noticed. Of course he noticed. He just didn’t call it out yet.

He walked over and sat down near them anyway, glancing at the scattered Uno cards without fully understanding the current state of the game. Numbers, colors, skips, reverses ~ none of it mattered if no one was willing to explain anything.

"I want to join," he said.

No response.

He tried again, a little clearer. "Deal me in."

Still nothing. Just the soft snap of another card hitting the table.

So he changed methods.

The moment Debbie leaned forward to play her next card, Lucas moved. His fingers found the side of her waist and tickled without mercy. Debbie jolted hard, a sharp laugh bursting out of her before she could stop it.

"Stop~! Lucas, stop!"

He didn’t. Not immediately. Only after she twisted and shoved at his hand did he ease off, already turning toward Mia.

Mia tried to hold her ground. Her mouth tightened like she had decided in advance that she would not give him the satisfaction. That lasted less than three seconds. Once his hands got past her defenses and found the right spot, the seriousness cracked. She laughed despite herself, twisting sideways on the couch as the card in her hand went flying.

Daisy saw what was coming and immediately stood up.

"No. No, no, no~"

She was already moving for the stairs.

Lucas went after her at once. She only made it a few steps up before his arm hooked around her from behind. He lifted her cleanly off the staircase with almost no effort, carrying her backward while she kicked lightly and slapped at his shoulders.

"Put me down! Stop~ Lucas!"

Her voice had no real anger in it, only flustered protest. He carried her all the way back to the couch and set her down in the same spot she had escaped from, like the entire attempt had been pointless from the start.

By then the cold atmosphere had already collapsed. All three of them were laughing in different degrees, the earlier silent treatment broken whether they wanted to admit it or not.

Lucas stood there for a moment, looking at them.

"Alright," he said. "Now that we’re done pretending I don’t exist ~ what did I do wrong?"

---

Mia was the first to answer, still catching her breath but clearly ready for the complaint she had been holding onto.

"You’re not spending time with us anymore," she said. "It feels like you don’t even care about giving us attention."

Daisy nodded quickly. "Exactly. You leave, you come back, and half the time it feels like your mind is somewhere else."

Debbie made a sound of agreement while fixing her clothes. "We’re right here, you know. It’s not like we’re hard to find."

Lucas stared at them, briefly lost.

Last night. The same bed. Hours of it. And somehow, by late afternoon the next day, the verdict was already neglect.

He was smart enough not to say that part out loud.

There were battles a man could win with logic. This was not one of them.

He let them finish the full round of complaints ~ overlapping, emotional, strangely coordinated ~ while the living room still held the leftover mess of cards and laughter. Mia talked with her hands. Daisy kept cutting in whenever she felt a point needed reinforcing. Debbie added smaller comments that somehow landed harder because of how calmly she said them.

From the outside, it might have looked like an argument.

To Lucas, it felt more like being sentenced by a committee that had already reached its conclusion before he entered the room.

He waited.

Not because he had nothing to say, but because interrupting too early would only make the list longer. He had learned that much, at least. When the energy finally started to thin out and their voices slowed, he spoke.

"Okay," he said. "My bad. We’ll spend time together again."

The simplicity of it seemed to catch them off guard more than a long defense would have.

Mia blinked. Daisy opened her mouth, then closed it again. Debbie watched him like she was checking for sarcasm and found none.

Lucas bent down and started gathering the Uno cards scattered across the floor and table, stacking them back into a proper deck with neat, unhurried movements. A yellow five from under the couch. A blue skip near Debbie’s foot. A red reverse that had flown off during Mia’s laughter. One by one, the mess returned to order in his hands.

"Let’s play," he added. "But not the normal way."

He straightened the edges of the deck and looked at the three of them.

"We’re changing the rules."

That got their attention properly.

The leftover irritation in the room shifted into curiosity almost at once. Mia sat forward. Daisy’s eyes narrowed slightly, already suspicious in a way that meant she was interested. Debbie rested her chin against her hand and waited.

Lucas remained calm, still holding the deck, still looking like a man who had walked downstairs only to shower, get accused, and somehow end up in charge of the next game anyway.

Outside, the afternoon light continued to move across the floor.

Inside, the silent treatment was over.

And whatever new version of Uno he was about to introduce, all three of them were already waiting to hear it.

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