“That’s okay, baby.” She gave him a kiss. “I needed anall of the aboveanswer.”
“Right?” Rush said. “You’d like all of those, so I just picked one.”
Olivia looked at Isla now, ready to see what her answer would be. Her card said,a movie at home.
I pumped my fist in the air. “Yeah, baby!” I turned my card over to show my matching answer.
I hadn’t been a hundred-percent sure what she’d choose, but as I tried to think of Isla and what she liked to do, I had a feeling she’d be the happiest with just cuddling on the couch watching a movie with me. I mean, with whomever she was really dating.
She took my face in her hands and placed a quick peck kiss on my lips. “That’s three for three.”
I smiled at how happy she was to be in the lead. I wouldn’t have pegged her to be a competitive person, but I was enjoying how happy our score was making her.
“To recap, Rush and Scarlet have one point, and Slate and Isla have three points,” Olivia told us. “We have three more questions, so it’s still anyone’s game.”
Olivia looked at Rush and me. “When we asked your girlfriend which is her favorite body part of yours, what did she say?”
Rush turned his card over with a smug grin on his face. “Easy.” His card readshoulders, and sure enough, Scarlet’s answer matched.
“Woohoo!” Scarlet yelled, giving Rush a high five.
This question had taken me a little bit to answer. I couldn’t remember Isla ever telling me a certain body part of mine that she liked. But then again, why would she when we were just friends? My first thought was to write down my eyes, since women seemed to comment on them and it was a feature I was known for, but then I’d thought back to the two times Isla and I had kissed and the way her hands had lingered on my chest, seeming to enjoy the feel of my pecs underneath her hands. I’d decided to take a gamble and write downpecs.
Turning over my card to reveal my answer, she smiled as she showed me that she’d written down the same thing.
Pushing my shoulder, her smile grew wider. “How did you know that?”
“How could I not know that?” I teased her. “You can’t keep your hands off them.”
She hit me playfully in the chest with the back of her hand.
“See?” I continued to tease her.
She laughed. “You’re out of control.”
“Only with you.”
Isla’s laugh slowly died as she looked at me. Her eyes searched mine, and I was worried about what she saw.
As soon as I said the words, I wished I could take them back. Not because it was a lie, but because it was the truth. And the truth was overwhelming, the thought almost crushing, the fear a bitter taste in my mouth.
I couldn’t dwell on any of that now, though. I had to pretend I was okay. I had to pretend I was pretending. Yeah, this wasn’t getting confusing at all.
Olivia’s voice broke our eye contact. “Next question is another fill-in-the-blank. Complete this sentence. Not many people know it, but my partner is really good atblank.”
I was still thinking about how I’d let my true thoughts slip out and how I hoped Isla hadn’t taken what I’d said as serious, and I missed the answers Scarlet and Rush had given. All I knew was they’d gotten it right, and now it was our turn to go.
I’d had to make something up for this answer. I couldn’t think of anything that Isla would write down. The number one thing I was good at was football, but everyone knew that. Most of the things I was good at, people already were aware of them. I’d eventually written downthe game of poolsince we’d played that recently for the first time together.
Showing my card, she shook her head, proving that I’d gotten it wrong. Surprisingly, it was our first wrong answer. Curious to see what she said, I waited for her to turn her card over.
Written in her flowy handwriting were the wordsbeing a boyfriend.
I continued to stare at the words, a weird, warm sensation moving through my body. She thought I was a good boyfriend? I didn’t even know what I was doing. But if I was being honest, it was easy to be her boyfriend. I genuinely liked making her happy. And compared to her shitty ex, it wasn’t that hard to be better than him.
I put my arm around her and kissed the top of her head, breathing her in.
“Last question.” Olivia looked down to read from the card. “The best way to flirt with you is…a tap on the bum, a wink from across the room, texting a sexy photo, or a little dirty talking?”
