25. Rose
rose
I was not prepared for Jovie to show up holding Risk. I really wasn’t prepared for Reed to show up with his baseball cap on backwards again.
We pushed off game night for almost a week.
I’ve fully recovered and returned to work, but Reed said I should be at full strength for an evening with Jovie.
We’re situated around my dining table, drawing country cards and placing our army pieces on the big game board between us.
We’ve been at this for twenty minutes already and we’re still in the set-up phase. This game is going to take forever.
But I don’t care. Jovie made a playlist for our game night on her phone—mostly girly pop songs that I’m pretty sure she chose specifically to mess with Reed.
Every time a new song comes on, she watches his reaction, smirking away at him.
He sighs each time as though they rehearsed her excitement and his pretend annoyance.
She gets up every other song to do a dance and tell us the music is just too good to resist. At this rate, we might never get our armies prepared to battle.
But Reed puts up with it all because he obviously loves the heck out of her.
Her giggling and chattering cracks his grumpy facade, letting his affection for her shine out.
He’s gentle and patient, and she clearly knows she rules the roost with him.
If my heart wasn’t already lost to this man, tonight would be the night.
“Would you rather always be sticky or always be smelly?” Jovie uses the time between her turns to ask unhinged “Would you rather” questions.
I’m starting to suspect she does it to distract us from whatever strategy we should be developing on the board.
If it’s possible to have strategy in this game?
I’m still trying to understand how you can plan ahead if the battles are all determined by dice throws.
“I guess…sticky.” I pop a Nerds cluster in my mouth. I’ve got several bowls of different types of candies along with three kinds of chips set out at one end of the table like I expect five more pre-teens to show up. Overboard is the theme tonight.
“Smelly.” Reed has both his elbows on the table, wheels turning behind his eyes as Jovie places her army units. Is he actually formulating a plan? “Not much of a change for me.”
Jovie giggles. “I’d choose sticky, too. I don’t want to be gross all day like Uncle Reed.”
He reaches over to lightly tug at the end of her long braid. “Thanks, nugget.”
My turn comes around again, and I roll the dice to find out how many army units to place on which country. If everything is predetermined by cards and dice, how am I supposed to skew the play in my favor? “This is a really confusing game.”
“If you think this is bad, do not play board games with Graham. His favorites come with one-hundred-page instruction manuals.”
“Haven’t you played Risk before?” Jovie asks me.
“Maybe once at a friend’s house? I don’t think we used the rules.” I remember laying out all the pieces but not the actual game play. Judging by tonight, that’s probably as far as we got.
“A free-for-all would be quicker, but Jovie’s a stickler.” Reed softly smiles at his niece, and I think my heart gives out.
“Who’s your best friend?” Jovie wants to know.
“My best friend, Brianna, got married three years ago and moved to Utah. I don’t really have a new best friend yet.” I’ve tried, but making small talk over produce at the grocery store is more of a weirdo tactic than a solid way to create new friendships.
“You can make another best friend.” Jovie’s big green eyes get even wider than when I told her I’d rather always be healthy than always be rich. “Maybe it’s Uncle Reed!”
I meet his gaze over the table and will myself not to let all my emotions show on my face.
He’s proven himself a good friend several times over this last month.
He’s here for me when I need him, listens when I overshare, and uplifts and encourages me like best friends do.
He brings me sweet treats, too, an important quality skewing the scales in his favor.
“Maybe he is my best friend.”
As he stares back at me with those brown eyes that have become my new favorite color, “best friend” doesn’t feel like a strong enough term.
“Would you rather fight one bear-sized chicken or ten chicken-sized bears?” Jovie asks, scanning the board to decide how to place her pieces.
I snort, breaking out of my stare down with Reed. “I feel like I’d be dead either way.”
“Ten chicken-sized bears is the way to go,” Reed says.
“I would love to see that fight.”
The pizzas arrive, and Reed gets up to accept the delivery. Jovie takes advantage of the moment, leaning closer to whisper to me. “Are you in love with Uncle Reed?”
Nothing gets past this little gal. But I can’t very well answer her when I haven’t answered the question for myself yet.
“I think he’s really wonderful,” I whisper back.
“I bet he’s in love with you.”
Hope unfurls in my heart like the endless petals of a peony bloom.
“What are we whispering about?” Reed matches our tone, bringing the pizzas to the kitchen.
“You.” Jovie presses her hands to her red cheeks as if she’s trying to hold her laughter in. I put a finger against my lips, only half joking that we need to keep this conversation between us.
I get up to help him with plates and glasses. We move around the kitchen the way we do behind the counter at Perk Me Up—sliding against each other unnecessarily.
“Rose thinks you’re wonderful!” Jovie blurts out my secret like holding it in those thirty seconds was the worst pain she’s ever experienced.
Probably a good thing I didn’t admit to more.
He meets my gaze, a smirk working its way along his mouth. “What else did she say?” he asks Jovie.
“That was it,” she chirps. “But I told her I think—”
“She thinks you’re definitely going to win this game because you already have an unfair advantage.
” I make big eyes at Jovie, trying to send her the mental note not to mention anything about our supposed mutual love.
Just because I’m hoping for it doesn’t mean I’m ready to tell him directly and find out which way he’s leaning.
“Because my armies are in prime position for world domination?” he asks.
“You got the best cards.” He’s got a large coalition of adjacent countries ready to wipe Jovie and me out. “My guys are sitting ducks.”
He faces me, one hand moving to my hip to draw me closer. “I’ll show you mercy if you ask nicely.”
I would very much like to find out how Reed defines “asking nicely.” And then follow through with an extremely polite request.
“I don’t know,” I say, echoing the touch at his side, my fingers splaying across his shirt. “You’ve been pretty ruthless tonight, and the game hasn’t even started.”
I reach up to run my other hand over his baseball cap, turned around to show off his rugged face. His dark, messy waves always tempt me to run my fingers through them, but something about this look awakens an even stronger pull.
The man grins at me. Grins. I swear time slows so I can memorize the stretch of his lips.
The crinkles at the corners of his eyes.
The way his whole face loses ten years in the soft expression.
He’s boyish and free, and I’m using all my self-control not to throw my arms around his neck and make out with him here in my kitchen.
It’s a good smile, if that wasn’t clear.
He leans a touch closer, and I sway toward him, ready to meet in the middle.
“I’m not above using an advantage when I can get it.” He pats my hip, turning away to take Jovie’s dinner plate to her.
Okay. So the man plays dirty. Good to know.
We finish setting up the board, taking our time getting into the game while we eat.
Honestly, I don’t care about the game—I’m definitely going to lose—but hanging out with Reed and Jovie activates some kind of comfort setting inside me.
I’m warm and relaxed like I just had a massage, and completely at ease.
Every time Reed makes eye contact with me, my heart pounds in my ears, but other than that, I’m completely at ease.
“What did you do for your first date?” Jovie takes a bite of pizza, dragging it away from her face to get a long string of melty cheese before gobbling it up bit by bit like the dogs eating spaghetti in Lady and the Tramp.
I glance to Reed for backup, but he just ticks an eyebrow.
Letting me steer this ship, for good or ill.
I’ve been on plenty of first dates—I should be able to come up with a believable version of what ours would be.
I could easily say movies. It’s a common enough activity, and we do have experience with it, even if our mid-sickness snuggling wasn’t an official date.
But there must be something more specific to Reed that we might do.
“He took me fishing.”
By the way both his eyebrows lift, that wasn’t in the potential date rotation for him.
Jovie giggles, slapping one hand over her forehead. “Uncle Reed. Ew.”
“I asked him to,” I hurry to add. He’s not the kind of guy who would plan dates around what he wants to do without thinking about my comfort. Your wants and needs are valid, too. “I’d never been before, and I told him that I wanted to try. So he took me to the river.”
Never mind which one, since I couldn’t name a good fishing river if I had hours to plan. Maybe they’re all good for fishing? Who even knows.
“Did you catch anything?” she asks.
“I caught one this…” I hold my hands six inches apart. How big are fish? I stretch my hands wider, watching Reed with my eyebrows raised, silently asking him to tell me when to stop. My face twists into a deeper cringe the farther apart my hands get, but he doesn’t say “when.” “This big?”
Over two feet separate my hands. I don’t want to imagine how gross the imaginary fish between them would be.
Reed nods solemnly. “You caught a sturgeon.”
Even the name sounds slimy.
Jovie is ecstatic, though. “Did you release it?”