Page 29 of Snow Much Trouble
That makes me laugh. “I love it. Order those immediately.” I finally spot a place for my X and lay down PROXY. "Forty-two points."
"Show-off." But she's grinning as she studies her own tiles. "Oh, wait.Yes." She lays down SPARKLY across two triple word scores. "Ninety points."
"What? No way. Let me see that."
I lean over to check her math, and she's right. Ninety points.
"I hate you a little bit right now," I say, but I'm smiling.
"No, you don't."
"No, I don't," I agree. “I already told you how much I like you.”
Our eyes meet across the board, and there's that spark again. The same one from when we were standing in the snow last night, right before nature dumped snow on us.
"Your turn," Lauren says softly.
I force myself to look back at the board. Focus on the game, not on how much I want to kiss her again.
I play EMBER, using her Y. "Twenty-eight points."
"Nice."
When I play JAZZ, Lauren accuses me of showing off. When she plays YULETIDE across two triple word scores for an obscene number of points, I demand a recount.
"You're just mad because I'm winning," she says.
I’m not mad at all. But teasing her is half the fun. "You're winning by twelve points. That's hardly a victory."
"Twelve points is twelve points."
I study my remaining tiles. I've got some good letters left, but nowhere great to play them. Lauren is humming under her breath again and I realize I'm more focused on watching her than on the game.
She's got the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her hair falling in waves around her face. She's chewing on her bottom lip as she considers her next move, and there's a little crease between her eyebrows that appears when she's concentrating.
She's so damn beautiful. Not just physically, though she's definitely that. But there's something about her energy, her quick wit, the way she lights up when she's passionate about something.
"Dylan?"
I blink. "Huh?"
"It's your turn. You've been staring at your tiles for like nine years."
"Sorry. I was strategizing."
She laughs, and the sound makes my chest warm. "Play your word, bourbon boy."
I lay down VELVET, using her D. "Thirty-one points. And I'm catching up."
"Not for long." She plays BLIZZARD, somehow managing to use both a double letter score and a double word score. "Forty-seven points."
I groan. "Okay, that's just insult to injury."
"That's just mad skill."
The game has dissolved into something looser, more playful. When I try to play QUIXOTIC and she challenges it for being too many letters, we end up in a ridiculous debate about whether compound words should be allowed.
"They're not compound words, they're just long words," I argue.
