Page 44 of The Best Parts of Him
Ryland held up a hand. “No, no. If it’s pancakes you want, then pancakes you shall receive. This nursemaid is up for the challenge. Is it my turn finally?”
“Go for it.”
Ryland played ciao, earning himself six points.
“Look at you catching up.”
Chuckling, Ryland threw a tile at him—a G. “Shut up. I’m not a wordsmith. Can we play trivia tomorrow? I’m good at trivia.”
“Sure,” Dabbs said, playing airbag and tallying his points. “Your turn.”
Ryland frowned, creating lines across his forehead. It made him look adorably pissy. “I don’t have any fucking vowels.”
“There are plenty on the board.”
Grimacing, Ryland added a g and a t on either side of an e. Get, the same word he’d played when Dabbs had been at his house in Maplewood.
Swallowing a laugh, Dabbs set the scoresheet aside and said, “Get the trivia game.”
“No, it’s fine. Let’s finish this.”
“Rya.” The nickname slipped out without Dabbs’ consent, but he couldn’t regret it when Ryland’s wide-eyed gaze flew to his in surprise and pleasure. “Get the trivia game.”
Ryland scrambled up with a “Woo-hoo!”
It was late, nearing midnight, and the dogs napped on the couch at Dabbs’ back while the kitten hadn’t been seen in hours—she was probably underneath Bellamy’s bed. Hell, she was always underneath Bellamy’s bed unless she was eating. Dabbs and Ryland had watched the Trailblazers trounce Florida on TV—always satisfying—cheering when Bellamy scored the winning goal during the second period. Florida kicked up their offense, but it wasn’t enough. The Trailblazers hadn’t won the cup for nothing, and their defense had sent Florida packing.
Dabbs would’ve loved to be there—and his teammates would’ve loved it too judging by the many it’s not the same without you messages he’d received before the game.
“Your teammates sure do text you a lot,” Ryland had commented earlier.
“It’s the younger players,” Dabbs had told him. “I think they just want some reassurance.”
The expression on Ryland’s face had been very you can’t possibly be that stupid. “They don’t want reassurance. They’re trying to impress you. You’re team captain. You’re, like, the cool big brother they never had.”
Dabbs had laughed, but . . . really? Could that be true? He’d never been cool in his life. He was just . . . Dabbs.
Ryland returned with two trivia games. One called Canadian Trivia, which he set aside. “You can play that with your Canadian friends.” And one called I Should Have Known That! A Trivia Game About Things You Oughta Know. The premise was simple enough: they each started with a certain amount of points, and each question had a point value that was deducted with each wrong answer. Whoever got to zero first lost the game.
Ryland pulled out the first card. “Does the Statue of Liberty hold the torch in her right hand or her left?”
“Uh . . . ” Dabbs tried to picture Lady Liberty in his head. “Left hand? No, wait. Right?”
“Right is correct.”
“You know, I’ve never actually seen the Statue of Liberty up close.”
“Wait, for real? But you’ve been to New York.”
“Yeah, to play hockey. Don’t take away my visa and send me back to Canada, but it always seemed like a really boring tourist attraction.”
Ryland gasped dramatically and pretended to clutch his pearls. “That’s like saying the CN Tower is a boring tourist attraction.”
“It is.”
Ryland planted his elbows on the coffee table and propped his chin in his hands. “What’s the best tourist attraction you’ve ever been to?”
“Probably the Iguazu Falls in Brazil and Argentina. The fjords of Norway too, although I’m not sure if those are technically considered a tourist attraction or just a landscape.”
