“Not you,” says Bree. “You were too busy with Tanner to do much of anything else.”
“Yeah,” Ann says lightly. “I was…and you weren’t. Sorry, Sis.”
Bree’s face turns red, but she doesn’t say anything. She just takes a deep breath, and opens her scorecard. “That’s one more point for me,” she mumbles, “for not punching your lights out.”
“Girls,” says Mom, raising her voice slightly. “Take it easy. Up until tonight you’ve all had a really great week. Have you noticed? You’ve gotten along better this week than I can ever remember. Don’t spoil it now.”
Ann is still smiling, but now her smile doesn’t look quite so nasty. “Mom’s right. I’m sorry, Bree. That was mean of me.”
I let out a loud sigh to get everyone’s attention. “Can we just find out the score already?”
Bree snickers. “Why are you so anxious? You have the least chance of all of winning.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask, holding up my notebook. “I’ve got eighty-nine points. How many do you have?”
Bree’s eyes scramble to recount her marks. Finally she blurts out, “No way. You cheated!”
“Did not.”
“Did too! I only have fifty-three. There’s no way you beat me by that much.”
“Oh really? How many chocolate chips did you find on your pillow this week?”
“Like twenty.”
“See!”
“You can’t—Mom, can he take a point for every single chocolate chip? I didn’t even want them!”
“It’s the thought that counts,” says Ann. “I thought it was sweet. Cade, thank you for all of those. You deserve every point you took.”
I glance at Bree; her face is red again. She’s staring at Ann. “So let me guess…you’re fine with him having those points because you beat him anyway. Am I right?”
Ann shakes her head once and says, “I wish. He beat me by a mile. You beat me too, by the way. I only had forty-nine points. I guess I really was caught up with Tanner this week.” She pauses. “But next week, I promise, I’m bringing my A-game, so watch out.”
Bree seems to relax. “I really beat you?”
“Really. But you still lost to Cade, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“Oh, it matters,” she says. “It proves you’re beatable.” She turns and looks directly at me. “Now I just have to get you to enter an honest score, and I’ve got this game in the bag.”
I don’t care what she says, I earned my points fair and square. “Oh yeah? Well I—”
“Shhhh!” Mom has her finger over her mouth.
“What?” I ask.
Then Dad calls from the bathroom. “Emily, can you grab me a fresh towel from the laundry room? We’re all out in here.”
“OK, scorecards away,” Mom whispers. “He’s almost out of the shower. Cade, good job this week. Keep it up, everyone.”
Ann and Bree head off to their room upstairs. Mom goes to the linen closet to find a towel. When she comes back through, I stop her just long enough to ask, “Do you think Dad will play the Winner’s Game?”
“Pray for it, Cade,” she says sincerely. “That’s what I’m doing.”
Later, with the lights out in the living room, I slide out of my sleeping bag and kneel beside the couch. “Dear God,” I whisper in the darkness, “Mom told me to pray, so that’s what I’m doing. I guess I just wanted to say that…my dad’s not a loser. So if the Winner’s Game is for winners, then please let him want to give it a try.” I pause, unsure what else God might be interested in hearing. Eventually I finish with a simple, “That’s it, I guess. Amen.”
Chapter 30
Dell
I GENERALLY DREAD Mondays, because it seems like that’s the day for everything to go wrong. And though the workweek is just getting started, I always feel like I’m already behind on everything.
On this Monday, however, I’m determined that things will be different. I’m on vacation, which means I don’t have to face the corporate ignoramuses who usually occupy my Monday mornings when I should be getting a head start on my contracts. Then again, maybe I’m no better off than normal, because I have to face a certain teenage girl who is walking on air from the moment she crawls out of bed. Her perma-grin when she comes down for breakfast confirms that she is still reliving—and reveling in—last night’s success with a certain teenage boy.