Page 127 of Protected from Malice
He smiles. “A surprise.”
Indy joins Webb by the TV, and he turns to it to fuss with the controls. As Rafe and I descend the stairs, the TV screen blinks on to display in large words,Trivia Time!
Webb continues, “So. We know everyone loves extreme Jenga. But there was a request for some trivia tonight.”
Indy pulls a large box out from behind the TV console and starts pulling bundles of gray fabric out of it. “And we have T-shirts for everyone who’s up for playing. Let’s see a show of hands. Who’s interested in a game of trivia?”
Everyone’s hands shoot up in the air, and Indy begins to walk around the room, handing out what look like T-shirts.
As Rafe and I reach the bottom of the stairs, I turn to him. “We’re playing trivia?”
He grins. “Yeah. I thought you’d enjoy it.” With a little squeeze of my hand, he guides me towards the center of the room, where three couches are arranged in a large U-shape. Once we get there, he gestures for me to sit, and says, “Just wait here for a second, okay?”
“Okay?” I raise my eyebrows at him. “Where are you going?”
“Just to grab some T-shirts.” He bends down to kiss my cheek. “We can’t play trivia without T-shirts, after all, can we?”
“No, I suppose we can’t.” With all the craziness of renovations and moving, we’ve only gotten to play trivia a few times so far, but one of the first things Rafe did was have our custom T-shirts made. And like he promised, he had Levi create a special logo for us to use—a sneaky cheeseburger dressed all in black, complete with a little mask and mischievous grin.
Before I know it, Rafe’s back with two T-shirts, and he hands one of them to me. I unroll it to find a different logo, this one of a double helix with a smirking face and the words,Devious Double Helixes, printed beneath it.
As Rafe pulls on his matching shirt, he says, “Since we already have the Sneaky Cheeseburger ones, I thought this would be fun. And look—” he gestures at the Sleepy Hollow crew, all clustered around the adjacent loveseat. They’re all wearing shirts that proudly announceMighty Mitochondriaon them.
I burst out laughing. “That’s awesome! What other team names did you pick?”
Rafe glances around. “Well, we have the Mischievous Milkshakes, the Daring Elements—for the Periodic Table, that is—and the Brave Bacterium.”
“TheBrave Bacterium?”
“Yeah.” He laughs. “I thought the San Antonio team would appreciate it.” He turns to give Rhiannon and Hawk a thumbs up, smirking as he does it.
Rhiannon makes a face at him. But she’s laughing, too.
“Okay.” Webb raises his voice so everyone can hear him. “So. We all have our teams. It’s pretty simple. Each team has thirty seconds to come up with their answer. Then you’ll write it on the dry-erase board and reveal it when I tell you.”
I notice a small whiteboard on the couch beside Rafe. He picks it up and hands it to me. “You can be in charge of writing down the answers,” he says.
As I take it from him, Tyler, Indy, and Ace converge around us, settling on the arms of the couch and the floor in front of it. Indy glances at me with a smile. “You ready to show these guys how it’s done, Genius?”
I reach over to swat the back of his head. “Of course.”
Indy tousles my hair. “You’d better win. I heard the prize is pretty good.”
“Kids,” Rafe scolds with a chuckle. He loops his arm around my waist. “Are you ready, Brain?”
“I’m ready,” I assure him. “Let’s show these other teams how it’s done.”
And for the first few questions, we do. Amid groans and good-natured ‘that’s not fair’s, we breeze through the questions with ease. Then we get to the fourth question, and that’s when our game host, Webb, pauses. He glances at Rafe, and they exchange another long look before continuing.
“This is a special question,” Webb announces. “And I think it’s only right to have the person who came up with it ask thequestion.” Then he tosses the remote to Rafe, who catches it one-handed.
Rafe holds the remote for a second, just staring down at it. He draws in a breath and lets it out slowly. Then he presses a button, and the TV screen changes.
On it is one simple question.
Eden, will you marry me?
My hand flies to my mouth as I gasp.
