Page 71 of Stirring Up Love
“Could’ve taken a walk, you know.”
But then there’d be no one to keep an eye on him. “Bears,” she said.
“Well, if you insist on staying in here to look after me—”
“Avoiding being eaten by a wild animal—”
“Then let’s at least get you stationary for a few minutes. For my sanity,” he added, forestalling her objection.
Maybe checkers wasn’t a bad idea. Checkers required strategy. Planning moves might jump-start her to a problem-solving mindset to salvage the deal. And bonus, it wouldn’t leave her any mental space to obsess over Finn and her feelings.
Feelings.Yuck. Feelings had big yellow eyes and sticky, slimy tentacles that wormed their way inside your heart and burrowed insidious seeds that spawned into more feelings until your entire body was overrun by a pestilence of touchy-feely emotions like tenderness. Attachment. Fondness.Barf. Gag.
Distraction from her feelings? Yes, please. “I’ll get out the board. You stay put.”
“I’m not the one who needs the reminder.” But he was smiling, so she let it slide.
She poured out the pieces on the quilt, and he picked out the red ones, setting them up on the squares.
“Ladies first.” Finn leaned his chin on his knuckles.
She moved a piece. He scooted one with a finger. She made another move. He countered.
She took three pieces in a triple jump. “You suck at this.”
He grunted amicably and made another terrible move.
“Are you trying to lose?” Sure seemed like it.
He laughed out loud, and this time she noticed it wasn’t followed by a cough. Progress. “Believe it or not, this is me trying.” He paused. “To win.”
She joined in because it was impossible not to, when his laugh was rambunctious and carefree and utterly guileless, like running full on into the surf at the beach. Like spinning, eyes closed, in a sprinkler on an August afternoon. His laugh was sunshine and summer.
“I didn’t realize it was possible for an adult to be so terrible at a child’s game,” she said when the laughter had faded.
“Whoa, hold on. ‘Child’s game’?” Chin resting on his knuckles, he flicked up his eyes, dark pools of umber in the lamplight. “Checkers is the game of kings.”
“Pretty sure that’s chess.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced, brow knotted as he selected another piece and put it right in the line of fire.
She jumped it. “It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?”
“Mmm?” His eyes were on the board, thumb in the middle of his lower lip.
“Your name—it rhymes with win.”
“The universe is a cruel place,” he acknowledged.
Lordy, he was cute. And quickly becoming her favorite, if she was in the business of playing favorites. Which she absolutely was. She jumped another piece and made her checker a king.
The game was about to be over, and then she’d have no distraction from the fact that she was no closer to finding a solution that didn’t involve losing her autonomy or destroying Finn’s dreams. He neededsleep for the twenty-plus hours of driving left, but a few more minutes couldn’t hurt. “Jenga?”
His eyes lit up. “I’m great at Jenga.”
They sat side by side on the love seat, Finn with a blanket draped over his head like an ailing grandmother. He nudged a block out of the center, and the tower wobbled.
“I thought you were better at this.”
