Page 15 of Falling for Her
“So you’re staying here to spite her?”
“Not fully. I’m also staying because I know it’ll probably annoy you, and that’s now my second favorite thing to do.”
“What’s the first thing?”
“Sleep. Do you know how exhausting it is being this perfect?” She tries to hide her smile, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Ms. Finley,” Asa calls, coming out of the back door, “you can come in now.”
“Perfect.” She claps her hands. “Okay, you saw my room. It’s time to see yours.”
I follow her into my house but stop at the fridge to take out the marinated steak I prepped this morning, thankful I got three instead of just one.
Asa comes running down the stairs. “Dad,” he calls, “she’s never played UNO.”
Behind him, Finley shrugs. “I’ve never had the opportunity. But in my defense, he’s never played Suck the Well Dry.”
“That’s not a real game.” Asa looks over at her.
“It is. My grandmother taught me, and we would play for hours. So today we learn UNO, and later I’ll bring a deck of cards and teach you Suck the Well Dry.”
“Fine,” he says to her, “even though it’s not real.”
“I’m going to grill the steaks and veggies,” I tell them.
Asa walks out the door before me and goes to the table on the deck. “Come on, Ms. Finley,” he urges, and she follows and sits down facing him. He takes the cards out of the box as he explains the rules to her.
“Okay, but can we do a test run?” Finley asks him. “Like, not a real game, more of a practice to see if I get the rules?”
“Fine,” he huffs out, “but after that, it’s on, and if you lose, you lose.”
“Got it.” I turn the grill on as Asa deals out the cards. “Okay, I’m going to go first because I’m a girl and it’s the gentlemanly thing to do to let me go first.”
“No,” Asa counters, “you go first because I shuffled. If you shuffled, it would be me going.”
“Whatever.” She looks at the card on the table. “This is a blue card, so I can put down any blue card I want, right?” He nods at her. “Okay, easy, here.”
“I don’t have a blue card,” he tells her, “but I have a four, so even though it’s yellow, I can still use it.”
The two of them play through the cards until she puts down her last card. “Ha!” She claps her hands. “I won.”
“No, you didn’t.” Asa smirks at her. “You didn’t say UNO”—she opens her mouth—“so you have to pick up two cards.”
She looks over at me, and I turn my head to avoid her. “Is he cheating?” She turns to him. “Are you cheating?”
“Nope.” He giggles and leans back in his chair. “Pick two, Ms. Finley.”
She begrudgingly picks up two cards. “Fine, your turn,” she huffs out.
He places a card down and then shouts, “UNO!”
“Not so fast,” she retorts. She puts down a Wild Draw Four card. “Now you have cinco.” She smirks at him, and for the first time, I think maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to hire her.
CHAPTER SIX
FINLEY
I put my shirt in the bag and zip it closed before looking at the bed I just made. I know I didn’t leave it the way it was when I got here. The pillows are out of whack, but at least I tried. Taking a deep inhale, I tell myself softly, “It’s going to be fine.”
