One Week Later…
We find Noah and Emma walking down their driveway, several boardgames tucked underneath Noah's arm.
"Sure you don't wanna take a Lyft?" Emma asked her husband.
"No, no," he replies. "I am not getting drunk tonight. I'm gonna stay alert and ready."
"Evening!" MacArthur says to them while holding Valentina, scaring the living daylights by her sudden appearance. This is made abundantly clear via a sharp gasp from Emma.
"Jesus, MacArthur!" Noah says, startled.
"Where are you headed?" she asked, suspiciously, prompting Noah to hide the games behind his back.
"We are going to, uh, to my brother's," Noah tells her as he opens the driver's door whilst Emma opens the passenger door.
"Another game night?" she asks, squinting at them, intently.
"No. No, absolutely not," Noah lies, throwing the games onto the seat while trying to further the lie. "We're going to, um… have some dinner."
"Eat," Emma reiterates, nervously.
"I see," MacArthur says, caressing Valentina, noting that she suspects something is off, but decides not to follow through on her assumptions. "Pity. I was going to invite you over for a dinner I'm hosting. I've purchased four lamb shanks… that I've been simmering in a broth of red wine and rosemary."
Emma feigns guilt towards MacArthur at this kind offer. "That sounds so yummy, though."
"Damn it," Noah also feigns guilt, hoping to swiftly end the growing awkwardness of the conversation.
"It was actually Brody's recipe," MacArthur clarifies. "I like to think he left behind his recipe cards as a gesture of goodwill, but… it was most likely an unintentional oversight." She turns towards Valentina, who proceeds to meow and nuzzle her nose, before MacArthur turns back towards Noah and Emma, who look momentarily confused by the spectacle before recomposing themselves and preparing for the night ahead of them.
"Well, here we go," Noah says. They wave to her and proceed to enter the car.
"What?" MacArthur says, regaining their attention and forcing them to exit the vehicle.
"I'm sorry?" Noah asked.
"I thought you said something," MacArthur said.
"No," Noah said.
"Nope, not us," Emma tells her, smiling innocently.
"Okay," MacArthur replies, wary of their true intentions for the night. They swiftly get in and start the engine. "Have fun," MacArthur says softly, whilst a sly smile creeps up on her face, hinting at an extra hidden variable at play.
Later in the evening, we see them drive up towards a large, swanky house on Wawanakwa Drive.
"Oh, fuck me," Noah replied, astonished by the lavish estate that lay before them.
"A guy who rents a house this big must be making up for something pretty small, I'd say," Emma says, holding up a rude hand gesture in the hopes of alleviating some of the tenseness plaguing Noah's nerves.
"No, no. No, I've seen his dick. It's pretty great," Noah tells her.
"Well, I tried," Emma shrugs, gaining a smile out of her husband.
We set our sights upon the front door, which opens, revealing Dave with big smile plastered upon his face.
"Hey!" he tells them.
"Hey!" Noah replies back, believing it to be the courteous thing to do.
"Hey!" Emma says as well, giving Dave a hug.
"How are you doing, beautiful?" he asked.
"Easy tiger. I'm taken," she tells him, pulling out of the hug to admire the household alongside Noah.
"Very nice house, Tony Stark," Noah replies, sarcastically. "Should we give our drink orders to Jarvis?" Noah chuckles while Dave closes the door and approaches his brother.
"No, I got the Tony Stark part, but then you went full nerd on me," Dave clarified, much to Noah's chagrin. "I kind of lost you, but please do come in."
"All right," Noah says.
"Thanks, Cap," Emma says to him, as she gives a bag of wine to Dave before heading over towards the living quarters alongside Noah where we see Ryan, Stephanie, Geoff, and a woman with blonde hair we assume to be Geoff's date are all sitting around a glass table.
"Hi, guys," he tells the group.
"What's up, guys?" Stephanie called out.
"Hey, man," Ryan said.
"Boy, could sleep four on that couch. Look at that," Noah said, surprised by the size of sofa while Dave goes off to the kitchen to put the wine in the fridge.
"'Sup, dudes," Geoff said to them, before turning towards his female companion. "Hey, let me introduce you to my date. This is Bridgette." She smiles at the happy couple. "Bridgette is head of company accounting at our office."
"Well, corporate communications," she cuts in to correct his statement.
"And she's a surfer, like me, but unlike me, she's a vegan, which means she's smart as shit."
"I'm actually a vegetarian," she clarifies.
"Same thing, right?" Geoff asked, prompting her to shake her head in response. She proceeds to stand and shake Noah and Emma's hands.
"Nice to meet you," Bridgette said.
"Nice to meet you, too," Emma responds before properly introducing herself. "I'm Emma."
"Noah," Noah introduces himself.
"So, you can't always judge a book by its past covers, can you?" Geoff said, indicating all the times they made fun of his previous dates, all of whom were idiots.
"Almost a saying," Noah says.
At this time, Dave returns with two glasses of champagne, which he proceeds to give to Emma and Noah. However, before taking his glass, Noah proceeds to show Dave the games he and Emma brought with them tonight.
"Hey, Dave," Noah said. "We didn't know if you had any games, so we thought we'd bring you a few of our favorites." He proceeds to give the games 'Scrabble, Clue, and The Game of Life' to Dave while Dave gives him a glass of champagne.
"Hey, look at that," Dave said, admiring the old school games before hastily throwing them off to the side, causing several pieces to scatter all over the floor in the background, much to everyone's shock. "I told you we're taking it up a notch," he tells his brother. Emma proceeds to set her glass down before heading over towards the spilled game pieces and trying to put them back into their original boxes. Meanwhile, Dave turns towards the group to explain the events of the evening. "The game that we're gonna play tonight is so epic that we don't need a board, and we do not need pieces."
"Still didn't need to throw them across the room," Noah tells him.
"I was being theatrical," Dave responds.
Emma, after getting everything reorganized, rejoins Noah as the two of them get seated on the couch alongside their group of friends.
"Holy shit! Are we doing a fight club?" Geoff asks, now fully invested in what the night has to offer.
"A what?" Dave asks, confused.
"It's when rich people pay poor people to fight each other—" Geoff begins before Ryan cuts him off.
"Hey, hey, hey! Geoff, Geoff, Geoff. Stop with the fight club, okay?" Ryan says, sternly. "It's nonsense." Geoff tries to continue, only to be stopped by Bridgette.
"Geoff believes everything he reads," Bridgette explains.
"Thank you," Geoff said, unaware that she was stating the facts and not at all complementing him.
"So, what are we playing?" Emma asked, curious.
Dave smiles, cryptically, before standing in front of a chair adjacent to the rest of the group. "In the next hour, someone in this room is going to be taken," he begins. "And it's gonna be up to you to find them before they are murdered." Everyone immediately becomes invested upon hearing the details of the night's festivities.
"Oh!" Ryan says, catching on to what Dave is laying down. "It's a murder mystery party." Noah and Emma look slightly annoyed by Dave's extravagance immediately winning everyone over, while also slightly peeved they never did anything like that for their game nights.
"Not just any murder mystery," Dave continues. "I found this company. They do it super real. They use legit actors. You're not gonna know what's real and what's fake."
"Fun!" Stephanie says, excitedly.
"But that's not all," Dave tells the group, regaining their already enraptured attention, "because whoever finds the victim wins the grand prize." He digs around in his pocket before holding up a set of keys, showing them off in all their glory. "The keys to the Stingray."
"What?" Noah asks, bewildered.
"Wow," Emma says, astonished.
"Just the keys?" Geoff asks, confused, as Dave looks incredulous at Geoff's incompetence, though he keeps his composure.
"No, Geoff, the whole car," Dave clarifies.
"Oh, yes!" Geoff says, excited while everyone's still amazed at the fact her didn't realize that Dave was offering the whole car as the grand prize and not just the keys. He turns towards Bridgette, pumped at what might occur this very evening. "You're so lucky I brought you to this game night and not one of Noah and Emma's." They look over at him, clearly offended by this comment.
"Hey!" Emma responds, indignant, while Noah holds his tongue, knowing he may say the wrong thing.
"No, I just mean, 'cause this is better," Geoff clarifies.
"Oh," Emma nods, clearly still annoyed by Geoff's response. However, Noah's mind is wandering somewhere else at the moment.
"You're not gonna actually give away your car?" Noah says, not buying this whole gambit from Dave.
"Oh, it's just a tax write-off," he tells his brother as he pockets the keys. "And the Audi, it's more practical.
Stephanie nods her head in understanding. "Yeah, that makes sense to me."
"Okay," Bridgette says, now fully invested with what's instore for tonight. "How do we start?"
"We just wait for it to begin," Dave explains as he grabs his glass of champagne and sits down across from the group. "Maybe play a drinking game to pass the time?"
"This group does not play drinking games," Noah says, sharply, while Emma removes her jacket due to the warm temperature of the room.
"Tonight we do, Noah," he says, sinisterly, as he takes a sip.
"Oh! 'Never Have I Ever'." Ryan suggests, which everyone seems onboard with.
"Good one!" Geoff vocally addresses.
"Can you believe this guy?" Emma whispers to Noah as she picks up her glass and takes a sip.
"Yeah, he's ridiculous," Noah whispers in agreement before looking to admire his surroundings. "Beautiful house, though."
"Good champagne," Emma says, signifying that, despite Dave's pompous behavior, he still has good taste.