Page 18 of Exchanged

“No,” Garrett says, sitting back in his chair, the scowl fading from his face. “I think I got it.”

“You sure?” I ask. It took Emma and me hours to learn all the rules to this game.

He shrugs. “Yeah. Build an army. Take over the world. Like Risk, but fantasy.”

“It’s nothing like Risk.”

“It’s kind of like Risk,” Dad says mildly.

“And I’m the Dwarves?” Garrett says, picking up one of his Lord figurines and examining it. “They seem pretty badass.”

They’re not. They’re the weakest faction in the game.

Aunt Liz strides into the room with her completed charcuterie platter held aloft, a holy text written in cured meat and pasteurized dairy. “How’s the game going?”

“Hasn’t started yet,” Dad grunts, fumbling with several of the pieces in his Halfling army. The creators of Shadowrealm made them smaller than all the other races, and his large hands are struggling to manage them.

“No one wanted to pick charades for Garrett’s first time?” She shakes her head, looking for an open space on the table to place the charcuterie board. She gingerly sets it down on the edge, pulls up a chair, and pops a piece of soppressata into her mouth.

“Nah, let’s do this,” Garrett says, rubbing his hands together. “The Dwarves are ready to kick some ass.”

“If you say so,” I say. We make eye contact for the first time in days, holding it for longer than we need to, the challenge hanging in the air. He’s appraising me, his gaze slicing through me, and I am doing the same to him, the space between us suddenly charged like humid summer air right before a lightning storm.

I have never been competitive at anything in my life, but I need to win this stupid game. I need to win, if only to show Garrett that he’s not better than us, not better than me. I need to win because I want him to keep looking at me like he is right now, like he finally sees me as something worthy of his attention. I hold his gaze, he holds mine, and time warps around us.

Emma clears her throat. “Are we going to play?”

Aunt Liz is looking between Garrett and me like she’s watching a pickleball volley between octogenarians, like the two of us are a fierce and laughable sideshow. I wrench my eyes off him and onto the game board, and get down to the business of beating his arrogant ass.

I go first, carefully choosing my starting location, building up my first settlement, and doing nothing more. Self-control is key in this game. Emma, playing as the Humans, sends her starting Lord into the sea on an expedition for treasure, and Dad sets his Halflings to work farming the grasslands in the western region of the board.

And Garrett? He attacks me. He sets his starting army in the mountains neighboring my Elven valley, then pushes it into my settlement.

“How do we do battle again?” he asks, glancing around.

“That was a dumb move,” I say, sliding the battle board toward him. “You have no shot at taking over my territory.”

“Who says I want to take it over?” He flashes an infuriating grin, places his units on the battle board, and begins looking through the small hand of power-up cards he possesses.

He doesn’t take the territory. When the battle is done, my garrison has held out, and I’ve killed his entire army. But I’ve lost my settlement, my faith tokens, and all my power-up cards in the process. It was a total dick move on his part. He didn’t gain anything from attacking me. He made both of us weaker.

He sits back in his chair and smirks, a dimple forming at the corner of his mouth. “I think I’m done with my turn.”

He taunts me with more eye contact, and this time I feel the electricity of it in my stomach, sharp and needy. Luckily, our primary spectator has gone into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine, having turned this evening into a drinking game only she is playing. I shift my attention to my next move, chewing it over, considering how it fits into my winning strategy. I’ve never won before, because Emma is more strategic than me and Dad is more willing to take risks, so I always end solidly in second place. I have to win tonight, though. Tonight matters.

I was planning on using this turn to build a cultural monument, except Garrett’s power play has made that impossible. I know I should work on rebuilding my settlement, but I can’t let him walk all over me without consequences. I want to see what he’ll do if I push back, what it will do to the weird taut tether that has formed between us.

I place a card from my hand on the table. “Garrett, your lands are under a drought for the next three turns. Your resource income is cut in half.” I should use the card on Dad, who has scary-fast resource acquisition, but this is more satisfying.

Garrett nods, lips in a thin line, and reaches for the card. He picks it up with his pointer finger and thumb, which allows him to give me the middle finger without anyone else noticing. He’s pissed. I like it.

To say that things get more tense from there would be an understatement.

Two hours later, the mood around the table has shifted dramatically. Garrett and I have become more silent with every passing turn, our furious attentions focused solely on each other, as if no one else is playing. We’ve expanded our empires, using our resources to throw larger and larger armies at the other, each battle more catastrophic than the last.

He’s good. Like, really good. He places his strongholds in strategically important territories, finding the weaknesses in my borders and exploiting them. He has quickly picked up the tricks of the game, balancing his use of power-up cards, culture, and faith.

He has a quick mind; I can see it on his face. His eyes dart around the board, missing nothing. He chews on his bottom lip as he concentrates. His eyebrows pull together when he notices something important. I find myself cataloging these things about him, adding them to the growing picture I have of this person I’m starting to understand less and less.