Page 3 of Holding Out

Griff raised an eyebrow.“Taboo?”he leered.

Becca gave him a look.“Not likethat.You pick a word and then try to get your teammate to say it, but there are lots of ‘taboo’ words you can’t say.Like—for ‘Easter,’ Jenina did, ‘when an oversized long-eared rodent puts oval baby-makers in woven bowls.’Because she couldn’t say ‘holiday’ or ‘bunny’ or ‘egg.’”

“Wow,” said Griff.“I’m going tosuckat that game.”He cast a glance in Becca’s direction.

Her lips curved.“Sorry it’s not dirty.Guess that would be more up your alley, huh?”

A flash of heat knocked into him.The half-smile, maybe.Or the tease she’d packed into the question.Or just the word,dirty, on her full lips.For whatever reason, it caught him off guard.Becca wasn’t supposed to be able to get that reaction out of him.Becca was—well, she was justBecca.

But there she was, giving him a quizzical look, like he’d held her gaze too long, so he turned away and shook it off.

“I think it sounds like a blast,” Mira said, and jumped up to clear the table.They all chipped in, and when the kitchen was mostly clean, Becca brought out the game.She pulled out cards, two card holders, and a buzzer.

She looked around the table.“Um, Griff, you’ll be my teammate, I guess?”

They were the only non-couple in the room.He shrugged.“Sure.”

“Jake, you go first.Griff, you can buzz for them,” Becca instructed.

He took the pink and purple buzzer from her.“What do I do?”

“You stand behind Jake, and if he says any of the words on the card, you hit the buzzer.”

Griff jammed the buzzer threateningly up against Jake’s neck like he was the thug in a stickup.

Jake took a card from the deck.“Um, so, um, this is when you make a really super big deal out of something in order to get all the potential buyers or fans excited about it ahead of time.”

“Advertising.”

“More general, and bigger,” Jake said.

“Billboard.TV commercial.”

“No,moregeneral.Not just that first thing you said, but it could be on social media, like if a movie’s coming out and everyone’s super jazzed up about it ...”

“Star Wars,” Mira hazarded.

“No, like any movie, not a specific movie, and if you do too much of this then everyone’s expectations are way up and people get super disappointed and say it was ‘over—’”

Mira clapped.“Hyped!”

“Ding, ding, ding!”Jake said, pulling another card.“This is a thing that you put in your mouth ...it’s oval-shaped and really small and you swallow it to kill the things growing in your body that you don’t want—”

“Antibiotic!”cried Mira, just as time ran out.

On Nate and Alia’s turn, Alia sailed throughjingle, fortune cookie, Rollerblade,andgremlin.

“We’re going to getclobbered,” Griff told Becca.

She shook her head.“Have some faith, Griff.I had trouble reading all the way through school.You get really good at slinging the BS when you take all your tests orally.”

Heh.Heh.She saidorally.

Grow up, Griff.

She pulled a card.“This is something you eat.”

Dirty Taboo would be a really fun game, Griff thought suddenly, and then had trouble putting the idea away so he could concentrate on what Becca was saying.

---