Page 7 of A Fool's Game

“I know. I love it up here.”

“Come here often?” I ask, dropping back to reality.

“As often as I can,” she answers, walking away from me and under the cover, where she starts dragging a chaise lounge out into the soft snowfall.“I used to work at the shop.”

Which explains why she didn’t want me calling the place junk…but also raises a few concerns. “Used to?” I ask, trying not to let my tone betray how nervous I am that she got fired and we’re now trespassing.

“I had to give it up for my last quarter of grad school.”

Satisfied that we’re probably not doing anything illegal, I drag another chair over next to hers and flop down in the falling snow.

There’s something going on and whatever it is, I’m here for it.

She’s quiet long enough next to me that I get anxious and have to break the silence. “So, tarot, huh?”

When she rolls her head to the side to look at me, there are snowflakes on the tips of her lashes. “Tarot. You’ve heard of it?”

“Yeah,” I answer honestly. “I’ve heard of it.”

“But not into it, huh?”

I shake my head. “No.”

She rolls back to face the sky without answering, and I panic. “I mean, I’m not not into it. I just…it’s not something that’s ever crossed my path, I guess.”

“But you probably don’t believe in divination or magic, huh? I bet you’re a political science major. No, pre-med.”

“Environmental engineering,” I say, offering an answer to the easier part of her statement. “And I’m pretty open minded.”

The words earn me her piercing green-eyed gaze once more, her attention lighting a fire inside my rib cage that seems to spread.

Which is handy, considering we’re currently laying in the snow.

“Open minded, huh?” she asks.

I nod. “Other people have the best ideas most of the time. I’m always up for learning something new.”

“What are you doing alone on Christmas?” she asks in an abrupt subject change.

I’m just happy this incredible woman is talking to me at all, so I allow it. “My dad and his fiancé are back in New York at the estate and…and I decided to stay here and get some work done.”

“Third wheel?”

“Not necessarily. I mean, I guess. My dad and I have had a lot of holidays just the two of us, doing things the same way every year. At some point, you gotta move on, you know? Besides, I have to get a jump on the stuff I need to do for next quarter.”

The last thing I want is to get into all that when I think I’m doing pretty well on this first impression, so I steer the conversation back to her. “What about you? Why are you alone on the merriest day of the year?”

Silence falls and I let it, waiting patiently for her to answer.

“I had a dinner I could have joined. A couple of them, I guess,” she says finally, a new emotion entering her voice that wasn’t there before. “But I just…I don’t know. Holidays are hard, and I’ve spent a lot of them feeling like an uninvited guest, so I guess I prefer to just skip when I can.”

There’s a lot to unpack there, but the depth of her statement reminds me that I’m almost a complete stranger, and I’m not sure it’s my place to ask.

I turn back to the horizon and watch the snowflakes fall for a long moment. The world is so quiet, the night so dark, the patio illuminated only by the gold glow of the orb lights under the awning behind us. There is something magical about this moment, believer or not.

That’s when I see it.

A small rectangle on the patio about three feet in front of my chair, collecting snow differently than the ground around it. “Is that a tarot card right there?”

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