Page 44 of Double Booked

“Scrabble,” she said excitedly.

He smiled. “I figured you’d pick that one.”

“Why? Because I’m an editor?”

“And a future novelist.”

“We’ll see,” she said, smiling back at him.

He brought out the game and assembled it on the coffee table. “I have to warn you, I’m pretty good at this.”

She chuckled. “Better than an English major?”

“We’ll see,” he said, borrowing her phrase.

They drew their tiles and set them on the wooden holders.

“Ladies first,” he said.

She played the word pretty, and using the notepad and pencil in the box, jotted down her score.

“Not bad,” he conceded. “Thank you for playing the letter y.” Grinning, he laid down three tiles before the y, and sat back.

“Sexy,” she said.

“Why thank you.”

Rolling her eyes, she wrote down his score.

Rubbing his hands together, he said, “This is fun. I’m glad I thought of it.”

“Yeah, me too,” she said dryly.

The game went along, with first one and then the other of them leading. As expected, she was a worthy opponent, but luck seemed to be on his side, and he kept drawing high scoring letters.

At one point, he played the word kiss, and she sucked in her lower lip. He forced himself to look away and counted up his points.

Soon after, she played the word lips, which made him stare at hers again. And so it went, until the board was filled with words reminding him of the previous night. In the end, he won by twenty points.

“Congratulations,” she said as they cleaned up the game.

“I got lucky.”

She shook her head. “There was skill involved too.”

“Thank you.” He tucked the game back into the drawer.

“I want a rematch, though.”

“I’ll be happy to play you again.”

The air crackled with the implication. Suddenly, she stood and gathered their empty mugs.

“You’re not going to bed yet, are you?” he asked.

“I thought I might read for a while.”

“We could watch a movie.” He stood and went over to the bookcase flanking the fireplace. He opened the bottom cabinet, which was stocked with DVDs.