Page 82 of Rough

“Good,” she said with a laugh. “Be sure to bring you’re “A” game. Because you’re going to need it.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Tegan

He lifted a letter from his rack, paused, and then put it back in place. “Can’t decide what to do.”

“Just spell something,” I said.

He shook his head. “Score’s too close. I can’t have you win one, kid. I’m trying to be strategic.”

I pointed at his rack of letters. “Just play something.”

“That’s the problem with your generation,” he said. “Always in a hurry. It’s all wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.”

I thought of Brad and I having sex, and laughed to myself.

“If I win, it’ll be the first time,” I said.

“I’m not looking to boost your ego. At least not yet.” He lifted the letters from his rack, shook them in his hand, and grinned. “Can’t believe I missed this. It was right there in front of me. Gimme the word score, doubled, plus fifty on this fucker.”

I watched as he placed all of his tiles on the board. He laid the I-M before an existing B, and then E-C-I-L-E.

“Imbecile. Just like the circus clown,” he said. “Fourteen, plus double word, plus fifty. Seventy-eight.”

I didn’t like hearing him say those things. Not at all.

“Don’t call him that,” I said flatly.

He reached into the bag of tiles, and then looked up. “Call who what?”

“Brad. An imbecile,” I said. “Or a circus clown. It’s not nice. And, he’s neither.”

“He’s Brad now, huh?” He tilted his head to the side. “Hell, I almost forgot. How’d the date go?”

I wrote down his score and then smiled at the thought of our night together. “Good.”

“Where’d he take you?”

“We went to eat. Then we just sat around and laughed and stuff.”

“What’d you eat?”

“Burgers.”

He chuckled. “He took you on a date, and you had burgers?”

“I picked the place. Well, kind of. We agreed.”

He shot me a look. “Out of all of the shit to eat along the coast, you picked burgers?”

“Well, we walked from my apartment. There weren’t a lot of choices.”

He pushed his letters aside. “You walked?”

“Uh huh.”

“His bike back in the shop?”