Chapter 8

“Dean would you like to play?” Kia was the first to approach me after breakfast. I was feeling good. I was feeling like a tool. I hadn’t help make the food. I hadn’t help clean up. Renee and Connie turned down one bed. Xiomara and Andrea turned down the other. Suzi and Kia returned from the games locker.

“Yeah, of course,” I smiled. Kia sat down on my right. Suzi took the corner to my left. Pat rushed to fill the stool across from Suzi.

“I didn’t want to learn a new game right away,” Kia said as she unfolded The Scrabble board. I shook up the bag and drew a tile. Suzi reached her hand into the bag with mine.

“I got an E,” She said when I looked at her.

“I got an A,” I slid the bag over to Pat.

“J! Going first!” She shouted and waved her tile around.

“Um, no,” Kia shook her head and threw a W onto the table, “Dean’s going first.”

“But mine’s worth the most points...” Pat would’ve stomped her foot if she was standing.

“You gotta go with first in the alphabet,” Suzi backed up Kia. I was feeling good I’d already gotten Pat into a dress. I could let her go first, “Too many letters have the same point score.”

“Fine.” Pat huffed and shoved her tile and Kia’s back in the bag. It slid across the table, knocking the board around and deflecting away from Suzi. Marin rushed along and caught it with only dropping a few tiles off onto the floor. Kia’s hand caught my shoulder.

“It’s way over there. You’d only be in their way,” She told me. Marin and Suzi quickly refilled the bag and handed it to me.

“You can see my tiles,” I told Kia as I handed her a tray.

“I’ll tell you what, if I cheat, you can spank me.” She was so stone faced that I didn’t know how to respond. There was no smile, no frown, no promise, no nothing. Was she not going to cheat? Was she going to cheat? Was she--

“Draw your tiles and play!” Pat growled.

“And remember,” Connie called all of our attention, “You win a game, you win a favor from all the losers.”

“What?” Shrieked Pat.

“Of course,” Suzi’s foot rubbed over my own. There were no shoes. I don’t think any of us were wearing socks today. I started to blush but Xiomara stalked past Suzi and ruffled up my hair. It defused me. I smiled up at her.

“I want you to do terrible things to Pat,” She told me.

“But--”

“Are you quitting?” Taunted Kia.

“Fuck you!”

“Pat, calm down,” I told her.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Her sneer became a smile, “You have to win first.”

I threw my A back into the bag, shook it up, and drew seven tiles. I slid the bag to Suzi.

“Do you want me to keep score?” Andrea found a pen in the library locker. She had the pad Xiomara and I’d played cribbage on yesterday.

“Please,” I said grinning. SOJOURN. J, eight points, on a double letter. The N, 1 point, on the double word center square. One of my O’s was a blank tile, “You can start me off with eight, sixteen, seven, eight, nine, twenty, forty-two, ninety-two points.”

“What! Fuck off!” Pat screeched. She was still taking her tiles. Her hand was shaking in the bag.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” I smiled broadly, “You have to win first.”

“QUESTION,” Suzi ignored us, “A hundred and six points.”

“It’s a good thing Pat can’t flip the table,” Andrea smiled. I realized that was her first smile I had seen in the box. I looked up to Xiomara and she had noticed it too. Xiomara was less enthused about Andrea’s moment of confidence than I was. I worried. Xiomara wrapped her arms around me and watched me play over the top of my head.

Our game was slow. Pat hmmed and hawed over every play and ended up with a score of 131. I was in third, Third! I managed 244, Kia had 245 and Suzi was 258.

“How are we doing this today, like truth or dare?” Pat seemed to only realize she was out of the game after the last play. Kia waited, smiling, her elbow on the table and her face resting in her hand. I turned to look at Xiomara.

“Pat,” Suzi decided first, “You’re on waitress duty until the start of the next game. Get Dean and I drinks. I just want water.”

She touched her foot over mine again, “I’ll have the red vegetable juice.”

“Ew.” Hannah scrunched her nose at my choice.

“What do you mean waitress duty?” Pat snarled, “I’m just getting you this drink. One favor.”

“No,” Suzi shook her head, “Your favor is to fill anyone’s drink orders until the end of the next game.”

“What are we playing?” Kia asked.

“Oh, you’re not,” Suzi shook her head, “Playing a game anyway. I want you to play guitar.”

“You play guitar?” I asked hopefully.

“She plays bass and piano too,” Suzi replied.

“Not as well as you,” Kia retorted, “And Suzi plays violin.”

“I’d like to learn,” I said, “Could you teach me?”

“I guess--”

“Music would be great!” Connie beamed, “Can anyone else play? Are we going to make Renee sing?”

“I suck at the drums,” Marin boasted.

“I can’t sing in front of everyone!” Renee muttered.

“There isn’t a piano in there.” Andrea shook her head.

“Something fun, Kia,” Suzi gestured.

“That just leaves Dean,” Xiomara watched Kia walk across the room to pick out the guitars. There were four in there. All acoustic and identical. Kia looked back to me as she thumbed the strings. They sounded clearer than I remember hearing anything. Suzi’s toes over mine brought me back to the table.

“Do I have to decide on that now?” Suzi asked the room.

“I don’t see why,” Connie laughed.

“But--” I looked around. Xiomara stroked my ear she seemed unhappy with Suzi holding off. Pat laid down our glasses in front of us. Connie raised her hand.

“Garcon, a water please.”

“Garcon means boy.” Kia snorted. Pat growled. Suzi glared at Pat. The little redhead snuck off to pour another glass.

“Alright, what are we playing?” I looked around. I saw Hannah holding a deck of cards, “Strip poker?”

“No,” Connie shook her head and spoke clearly before someone snarled at me, or worse in Andrea’s startled eyes, agreed with me, “Let’s try another one of the white boxes.”

Kia’s fingers started on the strings. She was sitting in the door of one of the showers. There was a lip, about half a foot high, to keep the water from running out into the room. I didn’t recognize the song. I wasn’t a music guy. It was soft and deep and getting quicker. Connie nodded her head. Hannah danced her shoulders side to side. Xiomara reached under my butt and pulled my stool out so she could sit down. Everyone but Kia gathered around the table.

“Can you get me a glass of milk?” Hannah asked Pat the moment she had pulled in her stool. Pat scowled and hurried to the drink fountain.

“Let’s play these,” Connie slid Defend Together across the table to Suzi, Xiomara and I. The stool next to me, previously Kia’s, was filled by Marin. She wiggled in up against me. Connie, Renee, Andrea and Pat took the other corner around Race to Safety. Hannah, sitting next to Suzi, waved off playing anything. She shuffled the cards in her hands idly.

Pat spent the next hour on her feet. It seemed everyone was in on the idea that she’d only get one drink at a time. Soon after she sat back down someone asked for something. She seemed calmer than I’d have expected. She weathered teasing much better than she weathered any comment by me. I was worrying she was a lit fuse by this point. She complained every time.

Kia’s tastes or the songs she knew seemed a little bit country. Music I suppose, no one was singing. Hannah seemed disappointed. Renee hummed along once or twice but she couldn’t be cajoled to sing. I nodded or bounced my thighs under Xiomara’s butt. She and Zoe had always preferred really bassy dance music but she was enjoying herself.

Race to Safety ended first. It would probably be a thirty minute game if everyone knew what they were doing. Defend Together was brutal. It was a tower defense game. Xiomara and I were on a team with and versus Marin and Suzi. We wanted to win yet, if we didn’t bail out the other team every other turn, we’d all lose. It wasn’t fun, though the bits looked cool. The game had no theme, except our players were statuettes of boys or girls with swords or guns. Our enemies were all in the shapes of little dogs and top hats.

“Winner!” Pat whooped happily, “And I don’t have to get anyone any more drinks!”

Suzi bore the brunt of both of Pat’s middle fingers. Suzi smiled.

“How are we going to figure out the favors if the game wins?” Xiomara asked.