To my left, Cheyenne sorts through the Monopoly pieces, and across from me, Lisa organizes the play money by denomination. One moment, I was sitting here poking through Teen Love magazine and realizing how old I've gotten in the last decade, and the next thing I know, Cheyenne and Lisa are coming through the front door with the guy Grady used to have following me. I've since learned that the club calls him Squat, which seems appropriate enough, and that as a prospect, he's not allowed to tell me his real name.
I find out how dedicated he is to becoming a member of the club—what Cheyenne informs me they call “patching in”. Cheyenne gives the poor guy a bunch of stupid orders. He blows her off at first, but all it takes is her saying, “Don’t make me tell my daddy that you disobeyed a direct order.” The poor man does seven jumping jacks and quacks like a duck twice before she gives him a break and they high-five and laugh about it. Now, Squat walks the perimeter of the house, checking and double-checking the locks. Every time he finishes a round, he calls Grady and checks in.
“I want the shoe,” Cheyenne says as she grabs the shoe from the pile of game pieces.
“Well, that’s surprising,” Lisa says. She playfully bumps Cheyenne in the upper arm and throws her a mischievous smile. Cheyenne mimics her grandmother and rolls her eyes.
“She thinks I have a lot of shoes,” Cheyenne informs me. Lisa nods furiously and mutters something I can’t hear. Cheyenne holds up the dog and the race car to Lisa. “Which one do you want, Grams?”
“Let Holly pick first,” Lisa says as she doles starter money out to each of us.
“Oh, right,” Cheyenne says. She picks up all of the pieces, with the exception of her precious shoe, and holds them out to me. Without even thinking about it, I choose my old standby, the ship. I’ve never chosen anything but the ship since I was a kid. She raises an eyebrow and says, “That’s my Dad’s favorite.”
“Your dad has good taste,” I say and give her a slight smile.
“Not always,” she mutters and shows the remaining pieces to Lisa, who picks out the dog. Lisa gives her a sideways glance and shakes her head.
“What, I’m just saying,” Cheyenne defends herself. “Holly knows I like her.”
“I’m going to pretend like there’s not some kind of subtext going on here,” I say and take a drink of my coffee.
Just as I set my mug down on the table, the front door opens and the alarm squeals loudly. I can’t see him, but I can hear Grady cursing at the alarm. The noise stops a moment later, and his heavy footfalls sound on the hardwood as he draws near. He rounds the corner into the kitchen. His arms are full with two plastic store bags that he sets down on the counter while he surveys what we’re doing. Like a pathetic puppy, I perk up the moment I lay eyes on him.
“Monopoly?” he asks with raised eyebrows. Lisa stands from her place at the table and beelines for the bags on the counter. He abandons the bags and heads for the fridge, where he grabs two beers. On his way through the kitchen, he says something to his mom that makes her laugh and then comes to the table and sits down in the empty seat beside me. “Dibs on the ship!”
Cheyenne shakes her head and points her finger at him, “You’re not playing!”
“You ever play Street’Opoly?” Grady leans in and asks me.
“What?” I ask. I’ve heard of a lot of different versions of the game before, even one that could be totally customized, but never Street’Opoly.
“Well, you’re about to be schooled,” he says. He takes a pull of his beer and gives me a sly smile. The attention makes me blush, but after last night, it probably shouldn’t. Clearing my throat and tucking my hair behind my ears, I smile wide up at him. He smiles back broadly, the lines around his mouth and eyes deepening. He truly is gorgeous in a way that is all man and muscle and arrogance.
“You think you can teach me a thing or two?” I say in a low and breathy voice. My heart rate spikes, and I flush all over.
“Baby, I’ll teach you things that are illegal in nine states,” he whispers. Cheyenne makes a gagging noise from my other side. I glance at his lips then up at his eyes and back to his lips. My nerves have disappeared and in their place is pure, unadulterated lust. He dives in for a quick kiss and then pulls away like nothing happened.
“Well,” I say lowly while trying to clear my throat, “you can try, but you’re going to have to do it as something aside from the ship. I already called that piece.”
“My house, my rules, my ship,” he says. I feel his arm move behind me. The adult, mature Holly wants to think he’s making a move and wrapping me in his strong embrace, but the kid in me recognizes this move. It’s the same one my older brother, Theo, used when we were kids and he wanted to get his hands on something I had. Back then, Theo, Mindy, and I were inseparable. I may have fallen for this trick a few times when I was little, but Mindy and I soon learned the art of the hand-off. In my experience, every girl who’s had to deal with an overbearing male in her life knows about the hand-off.