Page 32 of Love in the Storm

He counted off a few five-dollar bills and handed them to her. “You seem like you’d know how to do anything. I just took you as the resourceful type.”

Resourceful? Yes. Resourcefulness related to homemaking? No. Necessity was just the mother of invention. She’d manipulated her way out of debts and binds, but she’d never been mistaken for the wifely type. Well, she’d been known to messily sew a button back on when she hadn’t been able to afford to throw out a shirt, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

She carefully placed the car on the starting square on the corner of the board. “No. Never learned how to sew.”

“Why the car?”

Lyric risked a glance at Asa. He’d paused his counting with the bills still in his hands. There was a silent plea in his eyes, waiting with bated breath for some little piece of information about her. So much of her life was covered in the darkness of her addiction, but she could give him a glimpse of one of her favorite memories.

“My dad loved classic cars.” She tapped the car piece and leaned back against the couch.

“Loved?”

“He’s not dead,” Lyric whispered. It was as much as she was going to say about her dad. Asa must have picked up on her unwillingness to say anything else.

“I never get to be the car,” Asa admitted. “Jacob is obsessed with anything with wheels and a motor.”

“Let me guess. You’re always the ship.”

“Why do you think that?”

Lyric shrugged. “I’ve pegged you for the loyal and dependable type.”

Asa laid the fake money on the board, rested his arm on his bent knee, and gave her his full attention.

“Is that a bad thing?”

Had she said something wrong? She hadn’t meant to upset him.

Lyric shook her head slowly, keeping her gaze locked on Asa. “Not at all.”

It was just that those were qualities she’d thrown out the window in her early adult years. Instant gratification, manipulation, and disregard for others were her prevalent traits, and her morals had ceased to exist. Setting her sins up against Asa’s clean slate was like trying to mix oil and water. It might look like it was working for a moment, but it would never happen in the end.

Asa picked up a small stack of Monopoly money. “It says we each start with $1,500. You want to count yours to make sure I got it right?”

Fifteen hundred dollars. The amount she was behind on her rent. The colorful papers of the fake money taunted her, and she laid them out on her side of the board. “No, I trust you.”

She hadn’t meant to sound defeated. It was truethat she trusted him. It was also unfortunate that she had plenty of money to spend on property in a board game but not in real life where she needed it most.

Asa held out the dice. “Ladies first.”

Taking the dice into her hand, she felt her good mood slipping away. This was her chance to forget about the worries that waited in the real world. Why couldn’t she take advantage of this sheltered care-free time while it lasted?

After five trips around the board, even her pretend wealth was dwindling. Her mood was sinking too, and Asa was clearly easing up on all the buying and building to narrow the gap between them.

“Lyric.”

She looked up but stayed quiet.

“Are you okay?” His words were soft and concerned, brushing over her like a comforting touch.

“Yeah.” In truth, she was fine. The buying and taking aspect of the game just hit a little too close to home.

“Lie,” Asa said.

Lyric tossed the dice onto the board. “Not a lie. I just don’t understand how to win this game.”

“You buy property and other players pay you when they land on it. It’s a race to see who can build up their fortune.”

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