13. Noah
NOAH
NOVEMBER PRESENT DAY
After we ordered, I watched my little rabbit get up and explore the room.
She ran her fingers along the edges of the boxes of each game, reading the names and gathering the ones she thought looked like the most fun.
When she had four in her arms, she scampered back over to the table with the biggest grin on her face.
She took off her black jacket, showing off the see-through lace fabric covering her arms. The black bodice and skirt of the dress shimmered slightly as the lights illuminated her.
When she sat down, she looked over each box in silence for a moment.
I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. Fuck, I hardly even breathed.
I just watched as her eyes lit up while reading over the different games.
“Okay, I grabbed four different ones. Stratego, Sequence, Life, and Risk. Which would you like to play while we wait?”
“Have you ever played any of these?” I ask as she looks over the boxes again.
“I’ve played Life and Sequence.”
“Well, unless the owner lets us stay here until tomorrow morning, we don’t have enough time for Risk, so I think that one’s out for now.”
“It takes that long? And I thought Monopoly was the longest game in the world. Have you played Sequence before?” she asks as she places the Risk box back up onto the window’s ledge.
“Can’t say that I’ve ever heard of it.”
“It’s one of my favorites. My grandparents taught it to me when I was younger. We used to play it every weekend.”
“Then let’s play that one. How do you play?”
She spends the next couple of minutes explaining the game. The rules are simple. Play a card, place a chip, connect two lines of five. It’s also a simple enough game where I can still keep her talking about herself. I want to know everything. No…I need to know everything.
Where has she been? Why did she disappear? Why is she back? Not that I’m complaining about that last one.
She opens the board and gives me my chips while I shuffle the deck and deal out seven cards to each of us. She picks up her hand and smirks before lifting her drink to her perfect lips.
“Damn, that’s good,” she hums. “How do you like it?”
“Oh. I haven’t tried it yet.”
I pick up the drink and stare at it for a moment. The liquid looks almost creamy, and the swirls of caramel give it a slight burned color. It smells good, and when I take a sip, I can’t help but repeat what she did and hum from the taste.
“You’re right. Damn good.”
She looks up at me and smiles. When that smile hits her eyes, the rest of the world goes quiet.
It’s the smile that I remember from my childhood.
The one I’ve seen every fucking time I’d dream of those memories.
The one she’d give me when I gave her my dessert at lunch or offered to carry her backpack for her as we walked home from school.
Fuck, Little Rabbit…Why don’t you remember me?
She goes first and plays a queen of spades, then places her chip on one of the corresponding spots on the board before drawing a new card.
“So, you said you grew up in the thumb area?” I ask as I play my card, lay my chip on the king of clubs, then draw another.
“Yeah, up near Port Huron.”
She plays her card, places a chip on the two of spades, then another on the corner spot right next to it. Apparently, the confusion is written all over my face because she lets out a small laugh.
“Sorry. I forgot to tell you. The corners are free spaces. So when you play a card that is next to the corner, if you’re the first person, you also get the corner. Get it?”
“Ah. Okay then.” After she draws her card, I play mine. A six of diamonds. I place my chip, then also place one on the corner spot. “Like that?”
“Perfect.”
“So, when did you move away?” I ask.
“When I was just a kid.”
“Why did you move all the way to Texas?”
She drops her chip, and it bounces on the table before falling to the floor. She stares at the board for a second before reaching down under the table to grab the chip.
“I had to go live with my grandparents after my parents passed away,” she says while her face is hidden from view by the edge of the table.
Interesting. For someone who practices law, she still has a hard time concealing her emotions.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I lost my mom when I was young, too.”
“You did?” her head pops back up, and she places her chip down on the board, covering the five of clubs.
“Yep. When I was ten.”
“What happened to her?” she asks softly before taking another sip of her Butter Beer.
“Cancer. We caught it too late. So it’s just been my dad and me ever since.”
I lay my next chip on the Ace of Spades, blocking off one of her paths.
“I’m sorry. My grandma died five years ago from cancer, and my grandpa didn’t last two months without her. I moved up here not long after that. I couldn’t stand being in that big house all by myself, plus I wanted to come back to my home state.”
She lays a chip on the six of clubs, and I block her path with a seven of clubs.
“Did you always want to be a lawyer?” she asks as she lays a chip on the three of spades.
“Kind of have to when your father, cousin, uncle, grandfather, and great-grandfather all became lawyers. I think it might be genetic at this point…Or a curse.”
“Well, your future children will have to break that curse,” she says, laughing at her own joke, and I can’t help but think about our future.
Our children, Little Rabbit. They will be ours.
She gives me that adorable smirk, then glances down at the board. I blocked her path again by placing my chip on the four of spades.
“You know there’s a four of spades right next to where your chip is covering the king of clubs, right?”
“I do.”
“And yet you still played it on my side of the board?” she tilts her head at me, and a small smile tugs at the corner of her lips.
“What can I say, I like a challenge.”
“That’s not a challenge,” she huffs as she places her next chip on the four of spades next to my king.
“Ah, but you see, this is a game of strategy. I have to preemptively block your path to stop you from winning, even if it means not always going for the quickest win myself. And I was right.”
“What? You knew I had the other four of spades? Are you a mind reader?”
“No, but you have a small tell, almost like a shitty poker face.”
She looks mildly shocked at my statement before laughing.
“I do not have a shitty poker face,” she laughs as she waits for me to place my chip.
“Oh contraire, Little Rabbit,” I say as I lay my next card and place a chip on the four of clubs, blocking off another path of hers. “Your eyes lit up when you looked at your opening hand, meaning you already saw a pattern in your cards that might set you up for a win.”
Her eyes narrow on me, but that adorable half smile stays on the corner of her lips. She plays her card, a two of diamonds.
“See. Now let me guess, you have the five of spades, or maybe the king of spades?” I ask as I play my card, a five of clubs.
Those beautiful green eyes narrow even tighter on me like little daggers piercing my heart. She plays her card and places her chip without even looking at the board.
A five of hearts.
“Wrong,” she says.
“Hmm. Interesting. Even though your path is blocked off, you’re still trying to continue it. Which could only mean one thing. You have a one-eyed jack.”
There. Right there. My little rabbit’s eyes slightly widen. Those pupils dilated just a small amount that to most would have been missed, but not me.
I play my next card, the three of diamonds.
Then she plays the three of clubs, blocking off my path.
This goes back and forth for a while. I play the seven of diamonds, then she plays the ten of spades.
I play the ten of diamonds, and then she plays the four of hearts.
I play the ace of diamonds, her three of hearts, my queen of diamonds, then she plays the two of clubs.
I play the ace of clubs, then she plays the nine of clubs. Back and forth, back and forth.
“Same question you asked me,” I say as I place my chip on the eight of hearts.
“What question?” she asks, staring at her hand, then at the board.
“Did you always want to be a lawyer?”
“No. I think when I was younger, I wanted to be a vet or maybe a zoologist. I don’t know, I’ve just always preferred being around animals.”
I remember how much she loved animals when we were kids. All the barn cats at my family's farm were her friends.
She plays a two-eyed jack, a wild card. She lays her chip on the three of clubs, and that half smile turns into a full grin as if she knew I was thinking of that card. Who’s the mind reader now?
“Then why law?”
“I wanted to make a difference in this world.” Her voice is lower now as she keeps her eyes on the board.
I stare at my hand and contemplate my next move, then play the other queen of diamonds. She plays a seven of hearts, and I play the other three of spades, trying to go for a diagonal. She plays a four of diamonds, then looks up at me.
“I decided when I was younger that I wanted to make sure that bad people got what they deserved.”
There’s no way she has the second four of clubs, right? If she plays it next, she’ll have another four in a row. Do I use my only wild and block her, or wait and see what she does?
I risk it, playing my eight of diamonds next. I can play my wild on the eight of clubs next turn and win, as long as she doesn’t…
Another two-eyed jack falls from her hands. She places her chip on my eight of clubs winning spot and smiles triumphantly. Now I have to rethink my plan.
“Unfortunately, even in our line of work, the bad guy sometimes gets away,” I say as I place my chip on the other ace of clubs.
She quickly lays down the ten of clubs, then I play my wild on the six of hearts, winning me my first sequence out of two needed to win the game.
She places her elbow on the table and props her head in her palm as she stares at her cards, then down at the board. It’s getting trickier now. So many spots to choose from. One wrong move could cost you the whole game. I think this is becoming one of my favorite board games.
She places her chip on the four of clubs, then I play an ace of hearts, she plays a ten of hearts, then I play my king of diamonds. That’s when I realized I fucked up and should have played my wild jack to block her off.
In this game, it’s two decks of cards put together. Eight jacks total. Four two-eyed wild jacks and four one-eyed removal jacks. She already played two wilds, and I had the one in my hand that I used for the damn six of hearts. If she has the two of hearts or a wild, she wins.
There’s no way she’s holding the last wild, is there? Her eyes haven’t lit up at the sight of her cards in a while now, not ever since I called her out on her shitty poker face…Did she really shut it off that easily?
“That’s why you need me on your team, Noah. I don’t plan on letting any of the bad ones go.”
She places her card down on the pile and picks up her chip.
The last two-eyed jack.
She places her chip on the two of hearts, winning her the game in one move by connecting two sequences of five with the same card.
“I’ll always win.”
Her voice is steady and sharp. She lays down her hand, revealing her remaining cards to me. A king of hearts, a five of spades, an ace of hearts, a five of diamonds…and a two of hearts.
When I look at the board, I realize she had the winning piece to complete not just one sequence but multiple, depending on how she played. She had the two of hearts in her hand, but she decided to use the wild to show she was always going to win.
“You set me up?” I ask as she sits back against the booth and smiles at me across the table.
“No.”
That’s when I see it, the way her eyes light up…She was baiting me.
“You baited me.”
Her smile grows, lighting up her face and making her eyes shine. It’s fucking beautiful, and I’m left speechless.
“No. I simply showed you what you wanted to see. What was it you said? That I had a shitty poker face?”
She gathers up the cards and stacks them in the box before starting to grab her chips off the board.
“I simply played the cards I was dealt and waited patiently until I had everything in place to win. Did you notice how I barely tried to block you after the eight of clubs? That’s because I didn’t need to.”
I think back. She’s right. After she blocked my sequence on the eight of clubs, she didn’t go after a single spot on my paths.
She randomly scattered her chips across her side of the board and kept talking.
Asking me questions about my dad and the law firm.
All the while, she was setting herself up for the win.
Fucking hell. Now I know I’m in love.