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The Winner's Game(59)

By:Kevin Alan Milne


Then again, maybe she’d be more spontaneous, because she’d be afraid of missing out on something.

As I approach the row of shops where the candy store is, I slow way down to buy myself a little more time to think this through.

What if I walk in there and make a fool of myself? What if he doesn’t even remember me? What if he’s decided he’d actually rather not hang out?

I check my watch. If I remember correctly, his shift should end in about fifteen minutes.

I’m completely neurotic!

This is stupid. Why do I even care what he thinks? What would Bree do? I bet she’d just take a deep breath and walk right in there and start talking to him. Maybe she wouldn’t even need a deep breath to calm herself down. Is she so much better than me? For crying out loud, I’m almost an adult. I should be able to show a little interest in a guy without having palpitations, right?

So why is my heart doing flips in my chest?

I take a deep breath…and force my feet to proceed.

There’s a bell hanging on the inside of the door when I walk into the candy shop. I wish there wasn’t, so I could try to slip in undetected. But there’s no backing out now. The bell has announced my arrival. I’m at my destination. And Tanner is…nowhere to be seen.

“Hello there,” says an older man behind the counter. “Welcome to my store.”

“Oh, I…hi.”

“Got your mind set on something sweet?”

“Uh-huh.” I assume he’s sweet anyway…he seemed so last week when I met him.

“You look like a chocolate girl to me. Am I right?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Well, you’re welcome to sample anything in the store if it’ll help you decide.”

Just then a familiar face appears through a door behind the counter.

I’ll have one of those, if you don’t mind…

“Ann?”

“Hey Tanner.”

“I’m surprised to see you.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Your sister kinda made it seem like…I don’t know…that you didn’t really want to see me or something.”

Wait. Bree came here? Behind my back? To meet Tanner? Oh, that conniving little…! “Really? I didn’t even know she came. That’s weird.”

“So…are you here to buy something?”

If I had a smile that was cute or charming, I would use it now. But I honestly don’t even know what a smile like that would look like, so I just grin sheepishly. “Actually, I was coming to see if…you know…you wanted to hang out. You said something before about maybe showing me around town?”

Tanner seems a little surprised…but in a good way. He checks his watch. “I’m off work in about ten minutes. Can you wait?”

The man behind the cash register chuckles. “Oh, for crying out loud, Tanner, never keep a lady waiting. Your last ten minutes is on me. You kids go have some fun.”

As Tanner leads the way through the door, I feel my heart racing again. But this is different from normal. It doesn’t scare me. I have no worries about what might or might not happen as a result of the pounding inside my chest. For the first time in a long time, the strained beating of my heart feels strangely…happy.





              Chapter 22





Emily




READING ABOUT Grace’s life has given me ample cause to evaluate mine. I used to think she walked on water, but looking at my grandmother through her own eyes, I realize that she had her own challenges and imperfections, just as we all do. That knowledge doesn’t necessarily make my challenges any easier to face, but at least I know it’s not just me.

I remember the year I graduated from high school. Without my own mother there to support me, Grandma filled in as best she could. For her efforts, I made her a special Mother of the Year award. Thinking about it makes me laugh—not because it’s funny but because right now I’m so far from earning such an award from my kids. What would they even write on the award? “Thanks, Mom, for asking us to throw rocks at each other”?

Yeah, not exactly award-winning mothering.

Of course, our Winner’s Game experiment probably removes me from award consideration too. I mean, what kind of mother offers her children money to be nice to each other? But the thing is…it seems to be working! All the game needed was one tiny little change, and now relationships already seem to be mending between the kids.

With the way Bree and Cade were fighting when we first started, I was certain our little experiment—and ultimately our family—was doomed. In hindsight, it’s clear that the problem was that they were looking for the negative, looking for ways to punish the other for mistakes. Now that there is no motivation to look for the negative, they are staying more focused on the positive.