“Maybe your true calling is as a guidance counselor.”
Sidney tips her head to the side and smiles devilishly. “I shouldn’t be counseling anyone on how to make good life choices.” Her eyes dart to where Lindsay sits and then back to me. “My track record has been less than stellar lately.” She turns toward me, her nose grazing my shoulder, and I still. She makes the tiniest noise, and when she lifts her head I can feel her breath against my cheek. “I’m surprised you don’tstillsmell like fish.” She smiles and turns back to the board.
When Kara finally arrives, Sidney’s second cup of punch is almost empty. We’ve already taken most of Hannah’s treasure, and we’re deep in an invasion of Trevor’s northern territories.
Sidney’s sitting with her legs tucked under her, and we’re shoulder to shoulder as she reaches for another of our battle pieces. I roll the dice, and as two sixes appear, Sidney lets out a little whoop. She marches our piece forward into the territory, knocking another piece out of the way with a little slap of her tiny bronze figurine.
“Point awarded!” she yells as she slides the blue chip into its place, stretching so far across the table, she can barely reach.
“No, no, no,” Trevor mutters, trying to find a way out of what just happened.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Sidney whispers, a strange combination of sweetness and utter annihilation.
She throws her palm into mine as she sits back down on her heels. Kara is behind her, frozen in place, like the two of us are sitting in this basement naked or something.
“What are you guys doing?” she says, her voice mirroring the confusion on her face. I watch her eyes dart from me to Lindsay, and back to Sid.
“We’re winning!” Sidney says—practically yelling—at the same time that I say, “Playing a game.”
“I canseeit’s a game, Ash.” Kara rolls her eyes, and then opens them wider as she tips her head toward us. “What are youdoing?”
I look at Sidney—so close she’s touching my entire right side—and back to Kara, seeing for the first time what she’s seeing. How strange this must look. Probably as strange as it felt when we sat down. But after an hour of playing together—smiling and laughing and pillaging castles—it doesn’t feel that strange anymore. Before I can say anything, Sidney’s voice—slightly higher than usual (a side effect of her second drink?)—cuts through the basement.
“We’ve called a truce,” she says, very matter-of-factly, her body twisted in her chair toward Kara, who is now standing beside her. “He wrote me a note, and we had a midnight meeting, and rules weren’t really discussed, but we’ll get to that at some point, I suppose. But either way—” She nods at Kara, like she’s confirming this. “We agreed on it. We’re not enemies,” she says, and then turns to me with a mischievous smile. “For now.”
“Why?” Kara sounds perturbed.
“Top-secret reasons,” Sidney says as she twists an imaginary key at her closed lips. Apparently drunk Sidney is even more paranoid and neurotic than sober Sidney. But she’s also a lot nicer and kind of adorable. She’s first-summer Sidney again, the one who didn’t constantly scowl at me, or assume I was mocking her. “I’ll tell you later, though,” she says in a conspiring whisper to Kara.
“Interesting,” is all that Kara says, but she looks to me like she’s expecting more information.
I shrug. “Sid pretty much covered it.”
“Sid?” Kara looks like her brain is about to explode.
“Also, we’re kicking butt,” Sidney adds, her eyes on Trevor, who is taking his turn again and moving troops closer to our most valuable piece of land. Hannah lost the last of her territories twenty minutes ago and left the table. “Trevor’s about to see just how much butt we kick if he puts a single troop in our capitol.”
Trevor mutters, “Next time, you don’t get a partner.”
Sidney’s eyes light up. “Next time?” But she looks to me, not Trevor, for an answer.
I’m not sure how I feel about Sidney becoming a permanent fixture at the game table. Especially as an opponent. As an ally—a tipsy ally—this is fun. But I don’t know that we need another way to compete. We’re just barely pulling ourselves out of the awkwardness of this fragile truce. And who knows if we’re even capable of continuing that when we’rebothsober. Are there enough chocolate-chip pancakes and conquerable territories in the world to make that happen?
“What are you thinking?” Sidney asks, her brows furrowed.
“I’m thinking about your pancakes,” I say, and Sidney breaks into uncontrollable laughter.
“Sooo…” Kara’s eyes move from Sidney, to me, to the table full of cards and metal trinkets, and settle back on Sidney. “Are you coming with me, or…” Her eyes are back on me.
Sidney pulls one leg off of her chair, and then stops. She rubs the blue chip between her thumb and forefinger, and lets it roll into her palm. “Actually… do you care if I just finish here?”
“We’ll play all night, but you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. I can go solo.” I don’t want her to feel like she’s stuck with me after I basically dragged her down here. Especially if Kara is going to hang around all night looking at us like we’re some sort of science experiment gone wrong.
She looks to Kara and raises an apologetic brow. “Do you care? I sort of got sucked into this.”
Kara smiles, but it looks more nervous than happy. “Sure, no big deal. I’ll be upstairs if things get to be…” She looks from Sidney to me again. “Too much, down here.”
Sidney gives her a thumbs-up, and turns back to the table. “Let’s do this, Marin.”
