Page 50 of Play the Last Card
There is a small smile teasing her lips so I smirk, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. This time, she giggles and I swear that half the weight I’ve been carrying since she started to cry lifts instantly.
“He used to coach my dad in college and his kids are around the same age as me, older though. He was really there for my parents when they got pregnant with me in their freshman year of college, lived on the same street for ages and then, he ended up getting the Broncos coaching gig. He was always begging to have Pops over for barbecues when I was growing up. Started because Uncle Jeff mainly wanted to pick Pops’ football brain but they ended up becoming really close.”
“So he’s family?” I ask.
“Yeah. He’s family.”
Well, at least they aren’t blood related.
Sounds like he is a pretty big part of her life and regardless, the moment she tells him about me, I’ll be outed.
Keeping my identity a secret was becoming too risky.
Still …
Looking around at the hospital room—the dimly lit bathroom with its door just ajar, the bed in the middle that is piled with colorful blankets obviously brought from home by Ivy, the sad couch in the corner of the room we’ve been sitting on—I can still convince myself that today is not the day to tell her that I am one of the football players she doesn’t give a rat’s ass about.
So, I let myself be convinced.
The silence envelopes us once again but neither of us move from where we are standing. Ivy leans into me, head resting back on my shoulder and my arms pull tighter around her. She fits against my body like a glove. Like …
Like she is made to fit me. Just me.
Ivy’s phone buzzes on the table and she barely glances away from the hand of cards she is holding. In the last hour, I’ve discovered that there is probably nothing she is more competitive about than UNO.
After forty minutes and multiple hands, I’m starting to fear for my life every time I win. My girl is determined like nothing else to outsmart me during a hand of the children’s card game.
We were sitting around, waiting to hear more news of either her Pops or the paparazzi frenzy beginning to populate outside when Ivy sighed and got to her feet. She got the card game from one of the drawers, pulled the roll away table between us and dealt out a hand.
Before today, the last time I played UNO was when I’d been a kid but I haven’t laughed like this in a long time.
It is too hard to not laugh.
Every time I play a reverse, or a skip, or a draw four card, Ivy’s little scowl burrows deeper. The crease between her brows drawing them closer and closer together, her eyes darting between the deck of cards between us and the ones in her hand furiously as she thinks about her next move.
Every time she gets to her last card she knocks so rapidly, so loudly on the roll away table between us that I’m scared it might collapse between us.
That doesn’t mean I’m not afraid to give it my all when it comes to winning. It takes a few rounds at first but eventually my memory of the game catches up to me and I give her a run for her money.
Her eyes narrow, the phone still buzzing next to her as she watches the single card left in my hand with disgust. She is going to lose; she knows it and she hates the thought.
I am loving it.
Reveling in her competitive nature and riling her up, I glance at the phone and then back to her, meeting the hard gaze she’s fixed me with. “You going to answer that? Saved by the bell it seems.”
I wiggle my single card between my fingers, showing it off.
She scowls grumbling, “You wish.”
Slowly, as if the card she’s playing is made of glass, she puts the green five on the pile. She retracts her hand slowly, eyeing me.
I let my face fall with shock, trying to mix in a hint of disappointment and close my eyes slowly. For effect, I mutter under my breath, “Damn.”
When I look up, Ivy has a look of triumph and elation on her face. Her eyes shine with victory and she knocks on the table in quick succession. “Uno,” she calls out.
I shouldn’t be toying with her but it’s proving to be too much fun and making her laugh has quickly gone to the top of my priority list. I lift my free hand, reaching for the pack of cards facing down that we draw from each round. As she begins to beam, watching my hand as it draws nearer, I slap the draw four and color change card in my other hand down on the upturned pile, winning the game and crushing my girl’s victory in its wake.
“What? No!” She looks back and forth between me and the card in disbelief and I can’t help but laugh. Her face is as beautiful in defeat and confusion as it was just moments ago when she thought she was going to win and end my streak.