Page 34 of His One True Wish

I got up and walked across the room, taking a faded Scrabble box out of the cupboard. “You ready to get your ass kicked?”

CHAPTER 11

BILLIE

Iwas not going to get my ass kicked at Scrabble. No way, not after hours of feeling unprepared, overwhelmed, and downright pitiful. I was determined to redeem myself through Scrabble.

I sat across the coffee table from Axl, the board between us. It was his move, and he eyeballed his tray of letters as if trying to read in the dark. I drummed my fingers on the wooden table. The fire crackled and popped behind me. The room smelled of pine and Baileys coffee, which would have been dreamy if we both weren’t trapped here against our will. Every once in a while, the wind rattled the windows, reminding me that I was nature’s bitch, as if I could ever forget.

“You are going to force me to pull out the timer,” I said, pretending to crack my knuckles as Axl debated his next word. Scrabble was my jam — and my path to redemption. After this, Axl would be forced to admit that even if I was woefully unprepared for the snow, I was not a world-class idiot.

The center of the board was anchored by my first word, which happened to be “blizzard.” It was a thirty-two-point word and helped raise my wounded self-esteem. Axl followed “blizzard” with “jackass.”We argued a bit about whether a swear word was Scrabble-worthy, but ultimately decided to let it stand.

“Time is ticking, man,” I said, stretching my arms in the air and waiting for his next move. Time was either moving very fast or very slowly. It was hard to tell and impossible to get a read on the hour, considering the constant wall of white outside.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “Here is another one. S.E.X. Sex.” He glanced up at me as if making sure I heard him. A wicked grin crossed his face. “Ha, that’s, let me see, ten points.”

“Seriously,” I said. “Are you thirteen?”

“Just give me the points, woman,” he said. “I stand behind my choice.”

“You got it.” I wrote down the score as the lights flicked on. “We have power!” I said, jumping to my feet. As soon as I stood, the lights flicked off again. “And we don’t.”

“It will come back eventually,” he said, arms behind his head.

“What if it doesn’t?”

“Well, if it doesn’t? I have flashlights and candles, and we have a fire.”

“What about a lantern? It would be nice to have lights ready in case the power stays off.”

“The lanterns are in the barn,” he said, nodding outside.

Suddenly, I could not shake the image of shivering in the dark cold of the cabin. When I was a girl, Gran and Mom kept one or two gas lanterns on the mantle of the fireplace. I loved watching the flickering flames dance in the darkness. I just knew that everything would feel better if those lanterns were at the ready.

“Let’s go get the lanterns,” I said. Outside, it looked as though the falling snow had slowed a bit, but it hadn’t stopped. “Wouldn’t it be better to do that before we lose even more light?”

“We don’t need lanterns. I also have this new-found technology called a battery. I have lots of batteries and these things called flashlights,” Axl said.

“Ha, ha. Very funny,” I said, looking at my letters. Suddenly, a word jumped out at me. “Z.U.M.B.A. Zumba. Thanks, Mom.”

“What is a Zumba?” Axl asked.

“It’s a dance class.”

“Sounds like a proper name. I don’t think so … ”

“Look, I gave you jackass.”

“Jackass is a classic, not a proper name or a brand.”

I raised my eyebrows. “There is a show calledJackass, which I am sure is branded.”

He exhaled and looked at me with a half-smile. “You are a hard ass.”

“But not a jackass.”

“Agreed.” He pretended to throw his hands in the air. “Fine. I will give you your Zumba.”

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