Page 6 of Playing Flirty

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.”

Round 3

Dinner and a movie was revised to just dinner. Then, due to a marketing-related emergency—whatever that meant—our entire date was reduced to “I’ll bring dessert. Love you.”

In Patrick’s defense, he arrived with backup in the form of chocolate chip cookies. He knew the way to my heart was through chocolate and sugar, and he got the expensive, buttery ones that melted on my tongue.

“How were your meetings?” I asked, popping an entire cookie into my mouth.

The second the words left my lips, Patrick launched into describing each moment in excruciating detail, as if leading up to the climax of his favorite movie.

“They loved the pitch. I could have stopped mid-presentation and we’d still have won the contract.” His familiar green eyes lit up in a way they only did when he spoke about work. But, stopping suddenly, his cheeks reddened, and he cut himself off—something he did frequently when he was too excited. “How was your day? I’m sorry I missed the proposal and messed up our date again.”

Sighing, he twirled his fingers through my long black hair.

“No, tell me more about the meeting. Marketing sounds more exciting than investment plans.”

“Ah, babe, it is.” He leaned back onto the couch and draped an arm around me.

I inhaled his fresh minty scent and blew out a quiet breath. “Sometimes I think it’s time to switch careers, but what would I switch to? I’m an investment analyst, that’s all I know. I’d just go and do it elsewhere.” Anxiety and despondency settled in my stomach, and I reached for another cookie to replace that feeling with sugar.

“What are you passionate about? Except board games. Do not say board games.”

And now that was all I could think about.

“There’s actually a competition happening at the moment, and the winning game will be produced into an actual board game that gets sold in stores and played by real people everywhere.” I was aware of my voice increasing in pitch, but I couldn’t help it. “There’s a decent cash prize too and—”

“Be serious.” He shook his head with a small smile.

His tone pinched at my chest and clipped my sentence.

“You used to like board games,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but we were students. Everyone was playing Risk and Explosive Kittens and whatever.”

Exploding Kittens.I didn’t bother correcting him.

He lifted my chin and met my gaze. His eyes held an expression that said,Please don’t turn this into a thing.

“Where do you picture yourself five years from now?” he asked.

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