“Whether I won twenty bucks or not is not the problem. The problem is that you’re blasting music and other guests are trying to sleep. It’s late. You sound drunk. You should do the same.” His voice has mollified. If I listen hard enough, I might even hear care in the pauses between words.
Fighting the whole way, I climb up on the bed, flop onto my back, and stare at the gross popcorn ceiling. I swear a fleck of it falls into my partially open mouth. I spit it out before saying, “Can’t you just give all the other guests complimentary earplugs? I’m unraveling. Let me have this.” I know it would be easy enough to slip on headphones. I don’t want to. If I’m miserable, everyone else should be, too. “Plus,” I glance over to the desk, “I’m out of good snacks and alcohol.”
When he doesn’t say anything right away, I fear he might’ve hung up on me. This is the first human interaction I’ve had since jogging through the lobby hours ago. It’s semi-soothing, feeling like I’m not completely alone.
“I can help you out with one of those things,” he says finally. “There’s a 24-hour pizza joint nearby. If I bring you a pie, will you pipe down?”
“Do they have sausage? Oh, and roasted red peppers? If they have sausage and roasted red peppers, then yes, I’ll pipe down.” I know I’m being demanding, but my shattered heart is piercing me from the inside out. Besides, Leo fucked around with me earlier. Now, it’s my turn.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he says. The line goes dead. My hand goes limp. The phone flops out of my grip, and the off-the-hook beep blares in a steady monotone against Taylor’s croons. I turn off the song and lie there in silence, buzzing, hoping he comes through.
When I find the strength to open the door twenty minutes later, Leo stands in the hall holding two boxes. His smile falters when he sees my disheveled state—shirt half unbuttoned, hair sticking up at all angles, Goldfish dust crusted under my fingernails.
Truth be told, he’s not looking any better. His untucked shirt goes down past the edges of his thighs, making him look like a child playing dress-up in his dad’s work clothes. I hadn’t noticed how cartoonishly large it was on him earlier today, probably because I was too busy staring at his forearms and being frustrated.
“What’s that?” I point my chin toward the second box. “Can I eat that, too?”
“It’s Monopoly, so no, please don’t eat anything in here. It says not to right on the box. The pieces are choking hazards. Of course, that warning is forchildren.” The hot pizza box gets thrust in my hands as he pushes his way inside. He peers around like he’s never been in one of the rooms before, which I guess could be the case considering he bounces between stations.
I shut the door. “Why did you bring Monopoly?”
“You said you liked games.” He raises an eyebrow at me as if this should’ve been obvious. “Figured you could use something to take your mind off whatever happened.” I set the pizza down on the bed, while he opens his box and unfolds the game board on the dinky table with not one but two wobbly legs.
I’m half-heartedly touched by this gesture, though I’m afraid I’m in no state to play a game, especially not one where I have to make smart decisions and be careful with my money. That’s paper, play stuff. My real money was all tied up in this trip, which is imploding more every second.
In a saintly act, Leo lets me be the Scottish terrier. After a period of deep decision, he decides on the battleship. I’m tasked with setting the tokens on GO. It takes three tries, but I finally get it right. As Leo counts out our personal banks, he asks, “So, ‘All Too Well,’ huh? It was that bad?”
“Let’s just play,” I sigh and roll the dice.
Four
An hour later, I’m in jail, desperately attempting to roll doubles so I don’t have to pay bail. I’m low on funds (the irony) after collecting three properties and placing houses on them. Wishful thinking only gets me so far.
“Pay up,” Leo says with a wicked smirk, gesturing to the pot in the center of the board. Begrudgingly, I slap down my $50 and roll again. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Do I want to talk about the fact that I flew all the way out to LA because I booked a nonrefundable trip for me and my now-ex, and then I feebly convinced myself our old friend might be willing to compete on a TV game show with me?” I ask stiffly. “No, sorry. Not looking to play a round of 20 Questions over my many miscalculations.”
“Woof. That’s—Wow.” His concentration face becomes more compassionate. Maybe it’s a trick of the light, but I swear he’s experiencing empathy, especially by the way his pupils dilate as they land on mine.
There’s genuine connection here, as tangible as the plastic pieces in front of me. It’s so unlike all the disengaged conversations I had with Buckley before the breakup and all the frustrating interactions I have with customers at Fab Fitness Flair who routinely treat me like their personal assistants.
Leo is seeingme. Granted, he’s seeing me at my worst, but that’s not what matters right now. What matters is that Leo doesn’t have to be doing this. Any of this. And yet he is. Whether it’s out of pity or kindness, who cares? His presence is more than appreciated. I obviously misjudged him.
Leo forces me to drink more water. I’m two glasses in and my bladder is near bursting, but I don’t want to get up. I’m afraid if I do, I’ll miss something. If I disappear for a second, Leo will be gone by the time I get back. Loneliness is a monster lurking under the bed, and Leo is the light here to scare it away.
Gradually, I realize that since we began playing, I stopped stewing. I don’t have the urge to cry or blast breakup anthems. The foremost thought in my mind is beating Leo—smugly sexy Leo whose forearms are not-so-secret weapons which I think he realizes judging by the way he rolls up his sleeves a little more each time I land on a property he wants. Is it flirtation or a tactic? I can’t tell, but the distractions of this game and his strong-looking, flexed hands are welcome.
I wonder, only momentarily, what those hands might feel like bracketing my waist.
“You really came all the way out here to audition for a game show when you didn’t even have a partner?” He finishes off the burnt crust on his last slice of pizza, crumbs tagging themselves to the edge of his pale pink lips.
“What can I say? I’m an optimist.” I shoot him with my best half-hearted sneer.
“I can tell.”
“I guess I was hoping people would surprise me,” I say, resigned.
Leo lands on one of my properties and curses under his breath. “In my experience, surprises aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”
