“Funny, but my Mom is very health conscious, so yes, we ate little meat or carbs.”
“Meat is good though, ain’t it?” he chuckles. "You're not a real Philadelphia girl unless you eat Kielbasa."
“I’m not going to lie.” I take another bite of the sausage, savoring the taste. “It’s damn good.”
“I’ve got an idea for after we eat.”
“What?” I chew suspiciously.
“Let’s play Uno.”
“You want to play Uno? We haven’t done that in years.”
“Do you have a deck in the house?”
“Of course, I do. Are we playing your rules or mine?”
“It’s been a tough few days for you so we can play by your rules this time, but we need to play for something. It used to be for Swedish Fish or pennies, but it needs to be something a little more substantial now. We’re grown.”
“Like what?”
“If I’m right about Jake, you have to do one thing of my choosing without any push back.”
“What do you mean, if you’re right? He may have changed his name, but that isn’t a federal crime last time I checked.”
“I’ll be more specific. If your father confirms that Jake is specifically targeting you, then I get one wish.”
“And if he isn’t?”
“Then I’ll do something for you. No questions asked. No debate.”
I consider his terms but then make a suggestion. “It might take a long time to find out anything definitive about Ben. Let’s just play the game like we normally do and winner gets the wish.”
“Agreed.”
After we finish eating, I pull out my favorite deck of Uno cards (I own three) and take a seat on the balcony. Knox maneuvers his big body on the balcony after he cleans up the kitchen, still dressed in nothing but a pair of basketball shorts.
“Aren’t you cold?” I ask facetiously.
“Never, I run hot.”
I feel the truth of that statement in every nerve ending of my body. He’s certainly hot as hell.
“Fine,” I mutter under my breath, wondering if there’s a chance that he’s purposely doing this to distract me. No, he has no clue that I’m attracted to him. He can’t possibly know. Hell, I didn’t even know myself until a few days ago.
We agree to play three rounds, which isn’t so bad since we’re playing by my rules (the official rules) and not stacking draw cards. The player with the least amount of points is the winner since the point of the game is to get rid of all of your cards. It was ridiculously fun and I felt like a kid again. I was animated every time I called Uno.
“Uno!”
“Yeah, Queenie, I can see that you’ve only got one card. There’s no need to yell loud enough for the neighborhood to hear.”
He was boisterous every time he dramatically threw down a Draw Four card on me too though.
“Take that!”
“Oh, brother.”
“One, two–“
