Page 57 of Out of Bounds

The football player shrugged. "He’s alive?"

"He’s alive? Oh, yeah, because Christmas movies are full of dead people. Come on, ball dribbler. You can do better than that."

"It’s animated. You should know this."

"An animated zombie Christmas movie?"

When I finally got to see the cards, I burst into laughter.

Frosty the Goddamn Snowman.

The two of us weren’t playing to win, and thank god for that. It was so damn hard not to laugh at Ryan. The quarterback was the most straightforward, literal person I’d ever met. I was cracking up. And when I laughed, Ryan chuckled too, which surely helped our score.

In the end, most of the couples bickered and drifted away when they lost, but Ryan and I managed to score ninth and a half place, barely squeaking on the scoreboard.

"There we go. Kicked ass." I offered him a fist bump, and he gave me an amused look.

"Uh-huh."

"Couldn’t have done better!"

"Sure." He nodded towards the closed screen door and the low conversation flowing from it. "Time to go."

I did a double take, convinced I’d heard him wrong. "We just got here?"

"It’s been thirty minutes."

There was no way, it couldn’t have been thirty minutes. I didn’t believe him until I slipped my own phone out and checked the time. The barbecue flew by so fast. Not a single other person looked ready to leave. Everyone else was winding down after the football game.

As weird as it was, I was actually enjoying myself. The football girlfriends had taken turns showing me their new profile pictures - all my sketches, and even if Ryan was mad at Adam, he was probably the funniest guy I’d ever met. The defensive end, King, made a real effort to rope me into the conversations when it got too football-y. They were trying to make me feel welcomed. And it was…working.

"Kassie?" Ryan repeated, waiting on me.

I sighed. "Okay. I’ll meet you out in the car. I’m getting some more snacks."

It was just my luck to get into a fake relationship with the one guy who took football too seriously. It was a cosmic punishment for missing almost all of the games my freshman and sophomore years.

For how much the football players devoured, June had planned the food perfectly. There was still plenty left. Stacking food on my plate, I took another look at the scoreboard. June and King were in the lead, and it made sense. I’d seen them in action. June flew through the cards while King tossed corn chips in his mouth and aced the questions, one after another.

June stepped from the left and we were the only people at the snack table. I toasted my soda to her. "You did great back there. You guys figured it out."

A secret smile tugged up on her lips, but she kept her eyes glued to her phone. "We always do."

It’s bad manners to leave a party early with a plate under your arms, but at least it wasn’t my fault we were leaving. I grabbed a water bottle, ready to go.

"Hey, wait. Casey?"

How does she still not know my name?

"Yeah?"

She flashed a smile and cracked a pretzel in half. "I wanted to give you some advice. It would’ve helped me out in the beginning."

That wasn’t a great start to a conversation. "Advice?"

"Yes, advice. Here’s the thing, there are different ways to play your cards."

"In…Headbanded?"

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