14. Caleb
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Caleb
Ichop through the last of the cucumbers for the snack platter when there’s a knock at the door.
“I’ll get it!” I holler loud enough for Parker and Linny to hear from the living room. Our game night routines have become a ritual, and everyone has their role. I am on snack duty, Linny is the bartender, and Parker sets up the games.
Linny texted our group chat Saturday night saying that she made a new friend and invited them to join us tonight, so I made sure to swing by the store on my way over and grab enough food for a fourth person.
I hope Linny prepared them properly for what to expect, because this is no ordinary, friendly game night. Our game night is cutthroat.
Rinsing off my hands, I dry them quickly and head for the door.
I swing the door open and for a moment I think I’m dreaming. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the familiar combination of red hair and hazel eyes that I’ve been thinking about nonstop staring back at me from the porch, deck of cards and bottle of wine in hand.
Marnie’s fingers curl around the bottle nervously, like she wasn’t expecting to see me either, and her cheeks heat when we make eye contact. “Um, hi. What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
She looks past my shoulder, trying to see inside the house. “I’m here for game night. Am I at the right house?” She pulls out her phone and opens a recent text thread. “Is this 350 Orchard Valley Road?”
“Yeah, this is the right address,” I respond, still shocked to see her standing in front of me. Linny said she was inviting someone she met at Felix Neck, but I never would’ve suspected she meant Marnie.
The shock on her face slowly melts away into a shy smile, and I match her expression with a toothy grin.
“Caleb, invite the poor girl in,” Linny shouts from the kitchen.
I clear my throat. “Sorry.” I step aside and make room for her to pass.
“Long time no see,” she chuckles, brushing past me.
Marnie continues into the kitchen and approaches Linny, extending out the bottle of wine. “BYOB, right?” She holds up the deck of cards after Linny takes the bottle from her hands. “I brought both just to be safe.”
I come up beside Marnie and rest my arms against the counter, close enough to feel the warmth of her skin.
Linny is looking between us, trying to put the pieces together. “You two know each other?”
Marnie answers before I can. “Caleb is building the sets for the exhibit I am working on.”
“No kidding! What a small island.”
“So I’ve been told.” She looks at me like she’s holding back a laugh.
“I’m so glad you came.” Linny pulls her into a quick hug, taking the deck of cards and tossing them across the room to Parker. “Can you put those with the other games?”
Parker catches them easily and stacks them on top of the pile of games before returning to the kitchen.
Linny opens the bottle of wine and pours out four glasses, passing them around. “Parker, this is Marnie.”
“Nice to meet you.” He reaches out to shake her hand.
I carry the tray of snacks over to the table and place it on the end. Everyone takes their seat, one person on each side. Marnie takes a seat to my left, and when she scoots her chair in, I swear she moves it a fraction of an inch closer to me.
“House rules state we play Marnie’s game first since she is our guest,” Linny says as she fixes a plate of snacks.
Parker draws his brows together in confusion. “That sounds made up.”
“It is,” Linny says with a shrug. “But my house, my rules.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Parker laughs and gestures to the deck of cards sitting between us. “What are we playing?”
“Rummy,” Marnie answers. “But a modified thirty-minute speed round, and if no one is out of cards by that point, you just deduct points based on the cards in your hand and whoever has the most points wins.”
“Excellent,” he grins. “Let’s do it.”
I grab the cards off the table and start shuffling, effortlessly moving them between my hands as I cut the deck over and over.
We’ve had game nights for so long, this is like second nature to me.
I look up to deal the cards out and I find Marnie’s eyes watching my fingers intently, like she’s in a trance.
When she finally looks up at me and realizes I caught her staring, I smirk at her.
A blush creeps across her cheeks, and she ducks her head to try to hide it.
“So, Marnie,” Parker begins, grabbing a carrot off the tray and dipping it into the bowl of ranch dressing. “Is it true that Caleb works for you?”
“Not for her, with her,” I correct, dealing out seven cards to each player.
Marnie doesn’t interject, she just lifts an eyebrow in my direction, enjoying how this conversation is unfolding.
“But she’s in charge, so she calls the shots,” Parker says. “Therefore, technically, you do work for her.”
I roll my eyes, setting the remaining cards face down in the middle of the table, flipping the top card over to indicate the discard pile. “Well, when you put it like that, I guess. But I consider us more of a collaborative team.”
Marnie hums in acknowledgment.
Everyone picks up their cards and begins arranging them in their desired order, fanning them out but curving them so no one can get a peek.
Parker peers over his cards to look across the table at Marnie. “So, you’re just here for the summer?”
“Yeah,” Marnie nods. “I’m working on an exhibit for the historical society that opens in late August, and then I’m heading back to Boston.”
Linny and Parker make eye contact, sharing a conspiratorial look. I immediately know where this is heading, but I’m too slow to stop it.
Parker places a card in the discard pile and takes a fresh one from the deck. “Are you seeing anyone?”
The table grows quiet, the two of them awaiting her response. I already know her answer, but I don’t want this to turn into an interrogation.
“No,” she replies sheepishly. “I’m not currently seeing anyone.”
“What a coincidence,” Parker says, rearranging his cards. “Neither is Caleb.”
He’s lucky he’s closer to Linny than he is to me. If he wasn’t so far away, I’d kick him in the balls.
The smug bastard knows it, too, judging from the shit-eating grin plastered on his face.
At the conclusion of the thirty-minute timer, no one is out of cards, so we tally up the point values associated with everyone’s sets and subtract the value of the leftover cards. Linny comes out on top by two points over Marnie.
“Nice job, Linda,” Parker praises. “We should add this into the game night rotation.”
“Call me Linda again and you’ll be banned from all future game nights,” she retorts.
Marnie lets out a snort while Parker holds his hands up in defense.
“Sorry, Linny,” he corrects as he pulls the Clue box off the floor and places it in the middle of the table, unfolding the board.
Linny places each character pawn on their starting spots and randomly scatters each weapon in a different room, holding up the dagger toward Parker for good measure to match the ones her eyes were just shooting at him.
I shake my head. “I don’t know why you keep bringing this game, man, you know Linny wins every time.”
He looks me dead in the eye. “One of these times, I’m going to be victorious.”
“No chance,” Linny adds, placing the dagger back on the board.
As usual, Linny wins. Professor Plum in the conservatory with the wrench. This makes eighteen consecutive victories across our many game nights.
Parker is staring at his cards, once again not believing the outcome. “You’ve got to be cheating. There’s no way someone can win that many times in a row. You must be doing some equivalent of card counting. It’s statistically impossible to be that good at a game.”
“Not impossible, just improbable,” Linny counters with a shrug. “What can I say? I’m an overachiever.”
Marnie laughs at that. “Parker, I hate to say it, but there’s no way she could’ve cheated. I shuffled and you each picked a card to go in the envelope.”
“Parker, sweetie, it’s just simple deductive reasoning.
” Linny reveals her score sheet in the center of the table.
Amidst the x markings and a few check marks, there are tiny notes and initials scribbled in the corners of the boxes and in the margins.
“Each time a card is revealed, even if not revealed to me, I make a notation. It helps me narrow things down later in the game, and I keep track of patterns in everyone’s guesses.
It’s really a simple strategy when you break it down. ”
The logic makes sense, but I have no idea how she keeps it all straight, especially with so many scribbles.
The explanation does not settle Parker.
“It’s alright, man. Turn that anger into motivation and spell out some revenge words during Bananagrams,” I tell him.
My encouragement doesn’t settle him either.
Bananagrams is my favorite game, and I, like Linny is with Clue, am the current reigning champion. It’s easy when Parker takes too long to find a starting point and Linny tries to make the longest, most advanced starting word and then can’t use her outlier letter tiles.
I give everyone a refresher on the rules while turning the tiles face down and push them to the center of the table. Everyone counts out their starting tiles, and then it’s game on.
Several minutes pass as we each take our time assembling the tiles, carefully aligning and intersecting words for the best advantage.
“Pick,” Marnie says out of nowhere. Her words materialized in a matter of seconds since I last looked over.
“Watch out, Caleb,” Parker warns. “Marnie might give you a run for your money.”
I glare at him. “You talk a big game for someone with ten tiles left and nowhere to place them.”
“Pick,” Linny shouts.
Everyone moves to retrieve another tile. I catch sight of one towards the middle of the table, but Marnie beats me to it, and I accidentally grab her finger instead. It’s soft and smooth and I linger a second too long to savor the touch, watching her eyes shift to me in my periphery.