Round 2

M y best friend and roommate had a habit of knowing everything—which is probably why Neema arrived carrying a two-tier cake.

She placed the vanilla-frosted cake on the table and straightened to her full height, only a couple inches shorter than Shaun. The dark brown skin of her legs contrasted beautifully with the hem of her yellow summer dress. Her short, black, curly hair bounced around her smiling face.

The second she reached me, she leaned in for a hug and whispered, “I’m going to say yes.”

“Uh, duh,” I whispered back.

I peeked over her shoulder at Shaun, who’d been scratching his blond hair every few seconds—a nervous tic I’d noticed during meetings. The poor man would be bald on one side by his midthirties.

“Wanted you to be the first one to know.” She let go of me and threw herself into her soon-to-be fiancé’s arms.

I pressed my lips together tightly to keep from grinning—until William interrupted it.

“She’s going to say no,” he whispered.

How did he get next to me without making any sound? Not a single creak. Maybe niceness was what weighed regular people down.

I closed my eyes—my patience-o-meter for William’s nonsense had reached capacity. “You know they’re happy. Why are you being such a wet blanket?”

“Love is temporary. Why would anyone pretend otherwise?”

I looked up at him, ready to hit him or curse, but he stared down at me with his shoulders slumped and his gaze dropping from mine to his feet. The smirk that usually resided on his mouth was nowhere to be seen.

Putting my daggers away, I managed a gentle, “Sorry about Stace.”

He shrugged and ran his hands over his face while exhaling. “It’s okay. Wasn’t serious.”

“Do I get a point for being nice?” I teased, and when his dimple reappeared, I counted it as a victory.

“Half a point, maybe.”

He followed me to the door as Claire and Lincoln—a best-friend duo Neema and I had met during our university days—arrived.

Lincoln walked inside carrying two bags that I knew were filled with sweetmeats made especially for me by his mother. I could already taste my favorite cardamom-spiced shortbread cookie. As he passed me, he touched my shoulder gently in greeting, which was miles more than he used to do when we first met.

Unlike Claire, who I’d hit it off with within seconds of meeting. She stumbled in and wrapped her arms around me.

“A hug?” I exclaimed.

“Don’t get used to it. I’m just excited.” She released me, and her grin matched mine.

The sharp sound of Shaun’s whistle officially started game night.

“Let’s play,” he said, swallowing hard and plastering a smile on his reddened face.

Each week, one of us picked a game. Then we’d signal the start of game night with our own personalized call. Shaun used a whistle. Neema whistled too, but used her fingers in her mouth, like an angry sports coach. Claire used one of her kid’s old squeaky toys, and Lincoln’s call was the Super Mario Bros . theme song.

I started every gaming session by beatboxing the first few seconds of the Star Wars opening song, much to everyone’s displeasure.

William joined us most of the time but pretended he wasn’t part of our group. He never picked a game or had a call, but I imagined he’d initialize game night by sighing about it.

We chose our tokens while Shaun set up the Monopoly board. He offered me a wink, knowing the game was one of my favorites. It took patience and planning—two of my strengths. Regardless of the theme or version, the rules were the same, and there were no surprises.

We settled in as if it were any other night with laughter filling the air.

I hopped up to my knees and extended my palm as William landed on one of my properties. “Money, please,” I said to him with a wiggle of my eyebrows.

“It doesn’t reflect well on you that you’re good at this capitalism-inspired game,” he grumbled and handed over his colorful paper money.

Shaun cleared his throat, interrupting the comeback I had lingering on my tongue. He cleared his throat again, louder now, until everyone turned their attention to him. If I hadn’t known what was about to happen, I would have thought he was sick.

“Neema.” Shaun scratched the side of his head again. “This is the… uhm… Lord of the Rings –themed Monopoly. Lord of the Rings . Or one ring. Like the one precious ring, like rings are important.” Shaun’s blue eyes darted back and forth between Neema and his own hands.

Up, down, up, down—watching the speed of his moving pupils made me dizzy.

“I love you,” Neema said, stroking his bicep. “Come on, ask me. I’ve prepared my best way to say yes, and it doesn’t involve discussing Gollum.”

“Bit of a mean way to refer to Rose,” William chimed in from across the board.

I bit down on my lip, barely suppressing the giggle trying to escape. He knew as well as anyone that I appreciated a good Lord of the Rings reference, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction or ruin this moment for my two best friends.

Shaun hobbled down onto one knee in front of Neema and gulped. “Will you marry me?”

A beautiful smile spread across Neema’s face before she leaned down and kissed him on the mouth. She slid off the couch and into his arms before whispering something in his ear that only he could hear.

Shaun’s face burst into a smile.

The warmth of joy spread across every part of me. Pulling out my phone to take a photo of them, I couldn’t help noticing Patrick hadn’t replied to my text. He hadn’t even read it. My chest tightened but I ignored it. My best friends were getting married, and that’s all that mattered.

With shaking hands, Shaun slipped the princess-cut diamond onto Neema’s slender finger. She turned to me, showing it off, and I pulled her in for a hug. Claire joined us, and I figured we had thirty to forty seconds before the three of us became blubbering messes. It didn’t take much to make us cry, and when one of us cried, we all did.

After two generous slices of cake, I joined Shaun and Neema on the balcony and congratulated them once more.

“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Neema said, squeezing my arm. “Thank you.”

My eyes prickled with tears.

“Patrick working late?” she asked, nudging her shoulder against mine.

I nodded.

She sighed in the way she did whenever Patrick didn’t show up. “Do you want me to give you a ride home? I’d give you my car, but I have an early morning meeting I have to get to.”

Neema and I usually drove home together, or Patrick would pick me up. But with Shaun’s arm curled around her waist and his eyes glistening with adoration, I couldn’t bear to pull her away from him.

“No.” I blew out a sigh. “You stay. I’ll take the bus or call a taxi. I’m a big girl.”

“Based on the facts we are presented with,” William said, walking onto the balcony and lifting his hand high, then lowering it until it was about level with the top of my head, “that is not true.”

I shot him a death stare.

His brows popped up before he ran a hand through his dark, tousled hair. Permanent bedhead that was impossible to tame. “I could give you a ride. I’m on my way out,” he said.

“Ten points to William!” Shaun cheered.

Neema giggled in his grip.

I groaned but William only grinned, exposing his deep dimple. “Come on, Rose, I don’t have all night.”

My name sounded foreign on his tongue, startling me. Grabbing my things, I gave Shaun and Neema one last hug and followed William downstairs to the parking garage. I looked for the latest GTI in crisp white and assumed it was his.

He climbed in and opened the passenger door from the inside. Then he stared at me while I reached for my seat belt like I was the strangest thing in existence. Not unusual for him.

“What?” I bit out, struggling with the belt.

“Why didn’t you take your backpack off?”

Admittedly, I’d forgotten because I was thinking about how we’d barely ever been alone together. But now it was too late, and I had to commit to keeping the backpack on. I turned my attention to the problematic latch and struggled for a few seconds. It wasn’t clicking in.

Leaning over, he took the buckle from me and snapped it into place. His pine and lavender scent washed over me before he pulled away.

“Thanks,” I said with an internal curse. Bested by a seat belt in front of my nemesis.

He rubbed the back of his neck and blew out a short breath before starting the car. It came alive with a deep rumble that shook my bones. Pulling out of the garage, he took the corner faster than I’d anticipated, leaving part of my insides somewhere before the bend.

“This isn’t Need for Speed !”

A breathy laugh escaped him, but his hands stayed flexed around the steering wheel and his eyes fixed on the road.

“Where are you off to?” I asked to fill the silence.

“Nowhere interesting,” he replied, which was probably code for meeting a girl.

In all the time I’d known William, he was rarely short of a date.

With that thought, I took out my phone and scrolled to Patrick’s name. There I found a text with a promise of dinner and a movie on Friday night. I gnawed on my lip, wanting to curb my enthusiasm.

William glanced over, his eyes falling on my lit-up phone. Disdain returned to his features, and he turned on the radio, surrounding us with smooth classic rock. The unread email notifications called for my attention, and I sifted through them with one subject heading standing out from all the rest:

Calling All Board Game Creators: Original Board Game Submissions Now Open

My heart zoomed. My finger hovered over the bolded text, but before my thoughts could run to the dream hidden in the corner of my mind, the car stopped.

“We’re here,” William said.

Pulled out of my daze, I glanced down at the email and exited the app. No way. I can’t think about that.

William hit the unlock button. “Out, out, out, loser. I’ve got places to be.”

I released the seat belt—successfully—and glared at him. “Loser? I won at Monopoly.”

“And I won at”—he curled his fingers into air quotes—

“‘Playing Nice.’”

A chuckle teased, and I stepped out of the car into the cold air. “That’s not a real game.”

“Oh, don’t be a sore loser,” he said with a wink.

“I’ll win next time,” I said and closed the door before he could reply.

But the window slid down.

Crossing my arms, I waited for whatever it was he wanted to say.

William leaned over, making eye contact with me before his signature smirk returned. “Game on.”