She clutched the hoodie to her chest, touched. It was so thoughtful. But it also reminded her that nighttime was coming, and they’d have to figure out sleeping arrangements.
She wanted to stay with him. Even if two rooms had been available, she would have wanted to stay with him. Not so she could jump him, but so she could spend more time in his sweet company. Also so he could protect her from ghosts, this place was definitely haunted.
“Do you like games?”
Jia paused in stroking the sweatshirt. “Um, what kind of games?”
Dev pointed to the bookshelf. “Board games?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh no, that’s not a good idea.” Not if she actually wanted him to like her back in any way.
And she did. Another kind of peace settled over her, at that admission to herself.
“Why not?”
“Dev...” Jia sighed and placed the bag on the couch. “I’m the youngest of five overachieving kids. How competitive do you want to think my family made me, when it came to board games?”
His eyes smiled, even if his lips didn’t. “I can handle it.”
“That’s what you think. And then when you’re crying and I flip the table and accuse you of cheating and someone’s holding another person’s clump of hair, then you’ll be sorry.”
“Is that what life with sisters is like?”
“Oh yes.” She crossed over to the table and picked up a french fry. “It actually made it really hard for me to learn how to interact with other people, having sisters. Because you can’t really go fromI’m going to kill youtoWant some ice cream?with anyone else in your life.”
His low chuckle filled the room, strumming the hairs on her arms. “I’ll take your word for it. I suppose I shouldn’t ask if you want to put stakes on it?”
Her competitive side clapped its hands in glee. “What kind of stakes are we talking about?”
He glanced at her from under his eyelashes. “If I win, I’d like to see the rest of your texts with my brother and cousin.”
Oof. Those were high stakes. Which gave her more incentive to win. “And if I win...”You take off your shirt.“I get to go leave a dozen bad reviews on your doofus cousin’s latest movie.”
His lips twitched. “I’m surprised you haven’t already. Is there a game that you don’t take too seriously?”
She perused the shelf skeptically. “We can try Scrabble. Monopoly and Life turn me into a capitalistic fiend.”
“ISWEAR,Ican make this into a word.” Jia perused the board carefully. She had two letters left, and she was only tenpoints away from beating Dev.
Turns out, she wasn’t less competitive at Scrabble. Which was why she’d been staring at the game board for over fifteen minutes on her last turn. She would get those ten points, damn it. She leaned forward, dangerously close to toppling off the couch, where she sat cross-legged.
“I’m sure you can,” Dev said patiently.
She placed the two letters around another. “Is that a word?”
Dev raised a thick eyebrow at her. He sat on the floor facing her, leaning back on his hands. “Is it?”
She shot him a narrow glance, trying to gauge how close he was to calling her on the word. Damn it. If he challenged her and consulted the dictionary on the shelf and she lost, she’d lose the game. She’d already lost three turns in this game by making up words. She was still pretty sorexopwasn’t in the Scrabble dictionary. “This is my first language, and your second, damn it. How are you beating me?”
“English is one of our national languages. Besides, I went to British schools. You went to American ones.” He shrugged, like that should explain things.
“Please don’t assert the colonizer’s supremacy here,” she grumbled. “I’ll make this into a word, darn it.”
After another fifteen minutes of silence, Dev stirred. “You know, if you’d made this wordstick, instead ofsticks, you could have used thesover here. With what you have, that’s fifteen points.”
“It is,” she muttered, frustrated with herself for not seeing that. She’d gone for short-term satisfaction over long-termgain! Story of her life, her sisters would chide her.
Dev sighed. Then he placed his finger on thesand slid it over to her. She glanced at him. “What are you doing?”
