Page 11 of A Certain Step
“Good, because you’re mine.”
Willa scrunched her nose in a closed-mouth smile and took a sip of her drink before rising from the sofa to retrieve the puzzle. She crouched down and pulled it out from underneath her bed, then she punctured the sharp end of her nail into the spot where the two boxes joined and ripped the plastic. Removing it fully, she tossed it in the bathroom’s rubbish bin before going back out to the living room.
She glanced between the coffee table and the kitchen table, trying to decipher which would be a better location. Ethan seemed to intuit her choice quicker than she did because he got off the couch and picked up their drinks. He set them down on the kitchen table and went back for the wooden coasters. Willa opened the box, tore the bag inside, and spilled the cardboard pieces onto the white oak surface.
“Do you have the sheets to glue them together?” Ethan asked.
“No,” she answered.
He gaped. “So, what are you going to do when we’re done?”
Willa beckoned her hands upward. “Undo it, then throw it back in the box?”
He looked horrified. “What? All that work and you’re just going to toss it back in a box? What is wrong with you? Is this the British way of doing puzzles?”
“Don’t bring my people into this. It’s a puzzle. It’s not that deep.”
He shook his head, a small laugh escaping through his astonishment. “We’re not doing that. I’ll order the tape, so don’t you dare touch this until I bring it over.”
“But I feel like doing it now. What would we even do with it afterward?”
“Frame it? I don’t know, Willa, what do people do with a piece of artwork?”
Willa took a long sip of her drink. “Oof, I didn’t know you were so passionate about puzzles.”
“And I didn’t realize you were such a chaos demon. It’s a good thing you’re not into gaming. We’d murder each other.”
She concurred with a nod. “Sahar’s rage is enough for me to know I wouldn’t survive playing with any of you. I’ll stick to Tetris on my phone.”
Ethan shuddered dramatically and turned to the pieces scattered across the table. “Please tell me you at least start with the edges; otherwise, I’m leaving.”
She laughed. Ethan was so ridiculously precious when he got heated about something. It reminded her of when she once sat with him and Sam while they played some sort of football game. Was itFIFA?Sahar would know better; she’d sometimes play with them, too. Anyway, Ethan had been convinced that Sam was cheating, so they went at it with every insult known to man, immediately sounding like five-year-olds who’d learned how to swear for the first time. At one point, Ethan smacked his plastic water bottle over Sam’s head, and then Sam smeared guacamole onto Ethan’s face. They bickered for maybe five minutes before begrudgingly agreeing to a rematch. She was used to theyelling since living with Sahar, but seeing her typically easy-going best friend get so riled up was hilarious.
“Yes, Jesus Christ, I’m not a monster. I just apparently like to work hard and then demolish everything,” she remarked, sticking her tongue out at him.
He swiped from left to right and signaled with his hand. “Okay, good. You take that edge, and I’ll take this.”
“Wait, we can’t start yet. I need to put something on the TV for noise. Any suggestions?”
“Moulin Rouge,”he answered off the bat.
She smiled. “I see how you got there, and I applaud your brain’s desire to remain on a theme, but unless you want me to start sobbing halfway through, we need another option.”
“Ratatouille,” he countered.
She clicked her tongue in agreement.
Willa pressed the microphone on the remote and spoke into it. “Play Pixar’sRatatouille,” she commanded. The apps on the TV heeded her request and brought the animated film onto the screen. When the volume was at her preferred level, she spun back to the table.
“And go,” she said.
Ethan’s eyes widened. “Wait, are we competing?”
She laughed. “No, weirdo. We’re doing a puzzle, not fighting zombies or whatever it is you lot battle in those games.”
A moment of truth? Willa secretly adored how competitive he could get. The way the tips of his ears flared when everything got heated and tensions built. He would be on her side at any given moment except when it came to any sort of game. So, while she was partly glad she wasn’t into playing much, Willa wished she could be. But she could barely handle her nerves when a TV show got too intense; she wasn’t strong enough for the gaming world.
Their hands moved and brushed against each other along the plane asthey worked through finding the edge pieces for their respective sides, swapping and testing selections to find their exact match. This was the perfect distraction, the TV doing the talking for them, the occasional sound of gulping down their drinks.
