Page 8 of A Fool's Game

Gem sits forward and follows my hand to where I’m pointing on the ground. Then she flops back in her chair and smiles at me. “You should go flip it over.”

I want to play it cool, but I fail miserably, flying out of my chair and crossing the deck to hover over the wet card. I brush the snow off and see a crisscrossing diamond pattern with moons and swords that even a layperson could understand is the back. “Can I pick it up?”

“Definitely.”

I peel the card from the cold concrete and bring it back to my chair with me. “Will you use this card to tell my fortune?”

Gem shakes her head, smiling. “No, but you could.”

I grimace uncertainly. “I don’t know if that’s true.”

“What does it say?”

I hold the card up so it reflects the light behind me. I can just barely make out a figure on the card. He’s standing on a cliff, or dancing on a cliff, with what looks like a bag of some kind slung over his shoulder. I can see a bell on the end of his hat and rolling hills in the distance.

“The suspense is killing me over here,” she jokes, and I smile over at her.

I squint at the lettering at the bottom of the card and groan. “I want a new card.”

She just laughs. “Tell me.”

“It says The Fool.”

Her head turns in my direction, and her gaze pins me to the spot. Frozen. I wait for her to proclaim the card my fortune, that I’m a fool to even be here, thinking I have a chance with her, but she says nothing.

I panic. “I’m not a fool.” The words sound stupid, and I panic more. “I mean, I’m pretty levelheaded. I?—”

Gem jumps in to save me. “We’re all The Fool at some point.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better about drawing the worst possible card?”

“There’s no worst card. There are no bad cards at all.” She sits up and brushes snowflakes off her jacket. “I should probably head home.”

I shake my head and toss the stupid card on the ground between us. “Would you be saying that if I drew the knight in shining armor card?”

Gem laughs softly and reaches down to retrieve the offending card. She wipes both sides against her jeans and then fishes in her jacket pocket, producing a pen. I watch as she writes something on the card before holding it out to me.

When I take it, I see that she’s written her number.

That puts the smile right back on my face. “Ah, so you’re into fools, huh?”

She doesn’t respond to that. Not even with a smile. She just turns her head, shrugs, and says, “Walk me home?”

She’s not going to give me anything more. I feel it in her body language. “Of course,” I answer her before moving the chairs back where they go and following her down the stairs.

Walking down the sidewalk with Gem so close by my side I could touch her gives me the strongest, most disorienting sense of deja-vu.

Like we’ve done this before.

Like we’ve known each other forever.

The silence is comfortable enough, but I want more from her. I want everything.

“What are you studying?” I dive into the safest topic first, hoping I can get hertalking.

“My undergrad was in creative writing, and I’m doing my masters in fiction and publishing.”

“Nice. I was right about your English major, then.”

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