I wish I could do something to help her—just rewind the clock somehow and have it go perfectly next time. Or perhaps I just need to go find that boy and shake some sense into him.
“She’s…hanging in there,” I tell Dell with as much optimism as I can muster, which isn’t much. “You were right all along, Dell. She shouldn’t have gotten involved with him. She didn’t need this heartache right now.”
A breeze from outside lifts the curtains away from the window for a few seconds, adding some light to the room. In the moonlight I can see that Dell is lying on his back on his twin bed. His hands are behind his head.
I wish he wasn’t so far away…
The room goes dark again, and I see the dark form of his body roll over toward the other wall. “Good night, Em,” he whispers.
“G’night.”
Despite the melancholy that put us to bed, in the morning I can tell that Dell still intends to win our little game, because he does something that I thought he might never do again, and what I wished he’d have done last night. He kisses me! Not only that, but he calls all the kids into the kitchen to watch.
“I need you all to be witnesses,” he explains before revealing his plan. “Because I’m about to earn a ton of points.” Then he wraps me up and plants a bunch of rapid-fire kisses on my lips. He ends with one long one, then proudly shouts, “Ha! Were you all counting? Twenty kisses! That’s got to be the fastest twenty points any of us has earned.”
“Tied for fastest,” I tell him playfully. “Because I just earned twenty points too.”
“How?”
“I was kissing back.” Now this game is going exactly as I had hoped!
“Oh, your mother is sneaky, kids.” He grabs me again before I can slip away—not that I’m really trying to—and plants twenty kisses on my cheek. “There. Those twenty points are all mine. If I have to kiss my way to victory in this game, I will.” He pauses. “And don’t tell me your cheek was kissing me back.”
“If that’s how you want to play, I certainly won’t stop you.”
Our eyes linger on each other for an extralong moment. It’s the kind of affectionate stare we used to share before life got all complicated. When he’s done admiring me, he turns to Cade. “What do you think? Care to try this strategy on your sisters? Kissing is easy points.”
“Uh…not on your life.”
Ann pretends to take offense. “What? You’re too good to kiss me?”
“No, I just…”
She hunches over and points at her cheek. “Well, c’mon then. You’re the one who made a big deal about me never having been kissed. Man up, Cade, and give me one right there.”
Embarrassed, Cade takes two large steps backward. I’m about to tell him how cute he is when he’s blushing, but then he opens his rotten, eleven-year-old mouth. “Sorry, Ann, your last hope for getting a kiss was Tanner, and you blew it.”
Just like that, all of the air is sucked out of the room.
Ann stands up straight, looking like she’s been stabbed.
For the past few days we’ve all tried so hard to avoid using the T-word, and Ann has done a decent job pretending like the sting of seeing Tanner with another girl didn’t pierce her to the core. The look on her face, however, suggests the charade is over.
“Winner’s Game or not,” she hisses, “that was cruel. I won’t say I hate you, Cade, but right now…I won’t say I don’t.” She spins on her heels and rushes out of the room.
“Dude,” Bree says slowly, “you totally crushed her.”
“I…I didn’t mean to. It just came out.”
“You owe her an apology,” Dell says. “A big one.”
“I know. I will.”
“Let her cool off first,” I tell them both. “She’ll need a while before she’s ready to talk.”
Cade responds with a nod.
Dell gives Cade a long, disappointed look. “In the meantime, your mother and I have some errands to run.” As he’s speaking, he looks at me affectionately, almost making me forget that our daughter just ran off in tears. “We’ll probably be gone beyond lunchtime, so just fix yourself something to eat. And keep an eye on Ann. Cade, she’s your responsibility until she has a smile on her face.”
“Fine,” Cade mumbles.
“Oh, and I have a little surprise. To earn another point in this game, I made reservations for a nice dinner at the Stephanie Inn—one of your mom’s favorite places.”
I can feel my heart jump with excitement. “You did?”