Page 40 of First Bride to Fall
Nell cringed. “Sorry. The pea bag just kind of split open.”
He scanned the floor, and his eyebrows arched. “I’ll go and grab the broom.” He used his towel to wipe the green grime off the bottoms of his feet, then tossed it back into the bathroom, where it landed across the sink. He returned with the broom and dustpan an instant later. “Wow, what a mess, huh?” At least he didn’t look mad. He was chuckling.
“Ha-ha, yeah. The whole room just kind of—exploded.”
Nell was already on her knees, picking up the magazines. She had to help somehow. Why did he have so many of these, anyway? There were dozens and dozens.
He swept up the peas and dumped them in the kitchen trash can.
Then he came back to help her with the magazines, some of which were wet. The ones that had been directly over the pea bag, anyway. He grimaced at those and set them aside, probably aiming to dump them in the trash or the recycling. He collected the dry ones and stacked them back on the chest.
“So,” he asked. “Did you at least find your tent?”
Oops.“Not yet. I was just about to look.”
His dark eyes twinkled. “You found a game for us, then?”
She blinked. “Ah. Yep.” She hadn’t exactly gotten around to looking at the games, but she couldn’t tell him that because he’d wonder what she’d been doing all this time. How long did it take to send one text message to her sisters—and chase away a phantom bat? Less than five minutes, and he’d know that.
He stood, straightening the magazine stack on the chest. Then he picked up the soggy frozen pea bag, which was mostly empty, and carried it to the trash. “Great. What is it?”
“I want to surprise you.” And also surprise herself. She sat back on the sofa as he returned from the kitchen. His gaze landed on his phone, and she leaned forward, handing it back to him. Then she casually reached for the pillow, which was still on the floor, and returned it to the chest, giving it a little pat. Her palm came up damp. That was probably pea juice or something.Gross.She was not putting her foot back on that.
He watched all this without comment and returned to the topic at hand: game-playing.
“Okay,” he said, sitting in the armchair. “But, since there are limited choices, I might be able to guess.”
“Yes,” she said cagily. “Why don’t you do that? Guess!”
“Now, you’re being sly.” He shook his finger at her. “You probably picked your favorite…”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded. “I did.”
He slipped his phone in his jeans pocket. “Hmm. Is it older or new?”
“Old.” She tried to finesse this. “From the looks of the…box.”
“Aha! So it’snotPictionary. That one’s in a tin.”
“It’s still in a box, though.”
“Yeah, no. Not really.” He shook his head. “I’d say it’s in more of a container. But that’s okay. Pictionary’s pretty hard to play with two people anyway.” He thought a moment longer. “Can’t be cards.” His eyes searched the ceiling. “Is it Jenga?”
“No.” She kind of liked Jenga, but if she said yes now, she’d never learn what else was in that chest, and she was supposed to have been going through it practically the whole time that he was in the shower.
“Checkers?” Ooh, she hadn’t played that in years. How many other games were left?
When she didn’t answer, he volunteered. “If it’s not checkers, there are only two others.”
She grinned, congratulating herself on navigating this tricky situation so seamlessly. “Exactly!”
“Battleship?”
“Close.” She pulled a face. “But no dice.”
He chuckled. “So then, it has to be—Scrabble.”
Yes. Her heart did cartwheels because this was seriously a major score. “IloveScrabble,” she said in all earnestness. It was better than doing a crossword because you were in competition with someone else. Plus, she liked the fun challenge of having to make words out of randomly chosen letters. “I play online all the time,” she said, because—honestly—she had no other real people to play with. No one she knew was into word games of any sort.
