Page 69 of Scoring the Player
“Why did you run?” He asks.
I suck in a breath and hold it as my thoughts race with different versions of the answer. I sigh out, “My scars…I don’t like to be reminded of them.”
I expect him to lean in for more information, but he doesn’t.
We lie in silence until a rumble from his stomach breaks it.
“Hungry?” I ask.
“Guess so.”
He starts to move.
“Wait.” I take hold of his arm.
He pauses.
“I’ll be back.”
I get to my feet and dust off my suit.
“This room reminds me of the sheet forts my brother and I used to make,” he says.
“Sheet forts?” I ask.
His eyes gleam. “Yeah, you know, when you take all the comforters and sheets and hang them from the walls and ceilings to make a fort?”
I squint. “That’s a thing?”
He scoffs. “Yeah, it’s a thing.”
I shrug.
He frowns. “Hold on.”
“What are you doing?” I ask when he climbs to his feet, takes off his blazer, and rolls up his sleeves.
“Come.” He starts rearranging the furniture. “Help me move this.”
I help him push a table back.
“We’re gonna form a circle with this stuff,” he says, pointing to the chairs stacked on top of each other.
“Why?”
“You’ll see in a second.”
After forming a small circle with the furniture, he dusts off a cover and lays it down on the floor, then layers another one on top. Then he takes two more and, after dusting them off, strings them across the top of the chairs to create a tarp.
He kicks off his shoes and crawls underneath. My head peeks in, and I watch him sit cross-legged, assessing the height. “Not bad. It’s kinda perfect, actually, with the rain.”
“This is a sheet fort?”
“A makeshift version. Take your shoes off. Come here.”
“Your parents let you do this?” I ask.
“Yeah. Dad would handle mounting the sheets to the walls since he didn’t want us to fall using the ladder. This one time, we had a water gun fight. I don’t know how it started, but Mom was a better shot than all of us. Man, we drenched everything.”
