Make Your Move

by Laura Heffernan

  Ryan shook his head. “No, he only brought one copy. He’s selling it for one kiss, but only to the right buyer.”

  Okay, that was not the response I expected. “It seems like there should be easier ways to get someone to kiss you.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Anyway, the game looks cool. Go check it out.”

  “I’m fine here.”

  He moved around to where I sat and tugged my wrists, bringing me upright. “Shannon. Go see this. Now. Don’t come back for a while.”

  I sighed. I’d been sitting for several hours, so it would be nice to get up and move around a bit but I didn’t feel like going to ogle some guy looking for a kiss. “Fine. But I’m not kissing some random dude to get you a game just because you have a girlfriend now.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of asking you to.” He grinned. “Take a left at the Ticket to Ride booth. Straight ahead. Can’t miss it.”

  Following Ryan’s directions, it didn’t take long to find several people crowded around under a big sign that said “LIFE LESSONS.” Was one of those lessons not to use kisses as a commodity for obtaining goods and services? I still didn’t know why Ryan sent me here, until the crowd parted and the person running the booth appeared.

  Tyler.

  My breath caught in a gasp. What was he doing here? Selling a game? My Tyler didn’t make games. Even when he helped me with Speak Easy, he worked on graphics and game execution. To my knowledge, he’d never been interested in making an entire game from scratch.

  He looked up and spotted me, a smile spreading across his face. He beckoned me close, and the entire crowd turned. The realization that people stood here, waiting for me to show up, made my face burn. But when I got to Tyler and our eyes locked, everyone else faded away.

  “So you fancy yourself a game designer now?” I asked.

  “Not quite,” he said. “There’s only the one copy of my game, and it needs a play tester.”

  A box sat in the middle of the table, with LIFE LESSONS printed in large black letters on the top. Half a dozen drawings surrounded the text: Gwen and Cody, Holly and Nathan, Nana and Michael.

  “Open it,” Tyler said.

  Lifting the lid, I found a white index card and read it aloud. “‘They say never to discuss religion or politics. I say that’s hogwash. If I meet someone with the poor taste to hate Justin Trudeau, I want to know right away.’ That sounds like something Nana would say.”

  “Ding ding ding! Nana did say that. You get a point.”

  “So that’s the game? Figure out who said what?” I shuffled through the cards, skimming them. Most of them were about love and relationships, but many of them spoke to me in Nana’s voice or Gwen’s or one of my other friends. “When did you do this? How?”

  “I was working on it over the summer,” he said. “Chatting with Nana while you were at work, writing down stuff she said. She loved the idea. It was going to be your Christmas present.”

  The game-designer half of my brain still didn’t quite understand what was going on. “So how do you win?”

  He pulled out the last card and held it out to me. It said simply, ‘I love you.’ When I looked back up into his eyes, finally, I got it.

  He said, “I broke up with Megan.”

  “Good,” I said. “Why?”

  “Ryan told me everything,” he said. “Texted me the picture of her with Dennis, and explained what she did to you.”

  “So you believed him?” To be honest, it hurt that Tyler would let Ryan tell him all the things I’d tried and failed to say. Why couldn’t he have trusted me when it mattered?

  “Kind of hard to ignore that picture. I wish you’d made me look at it, forced me to see the truth.”

  “I tried! You freaked out, took all your stuff, and left.”

  “I know. I screwed up. It took a lot of guts for you to come to me, tell me how you felt. Especially after I shut you down the first time you tried to warn me about Megan. After you left, I kept thinking about your courage. About how the person who became one of my best friends wouldn’t try to wreck my relationship out of spite, despite what Megan told me.”

  “Thank you.” Better late than never.

  I’m really sorry,” he said. “When I moved in, I thought I was over you. But being around you every day, I realized it wasn’t going to happen. You’re amazing. You’re smart and talented and sweet and everything I’m looking for in a partner.”

  “Then why couldn’t you trust me?”

  “You weren’t interested. I had Megan in my ear all the time, talking about how she thought you might be secretly dating Ryan.”

  A sputtering laugh escaped me. “That’s ridiculous. Why wouldn’t I have told you?”

  “I know, I know, it sounds stupid. But she played on all my insecurities. We were going through a rough patch after I helped you win the Construct Me tournament; it almost broke us up. After the conference, she apologized and told me how much I meant to her. I committed to making it work since I couldn’t have you. She’s very good at concealing who she is. I didn’t have any idea.”

  “That she is,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you outright. She threatened Ryan, and I couldn’t take a chance that she’d follow through.”

  “I know. He told me.”

  “So what now?”

  He waved the card again. “I’m in love with you. I’m sorry I didn’t listen, I’m sorry I left you in the lurch with the apartment. I want to start over and do things right.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “You mean it? You love me? Even though I chose to protect Ryan over you?”

  “You’re a good friend. I could never hold that against you.”

  “I wanted to tell you. It killed me to watch you dating her. But early on, I couldn’t articulate why I had such a bad feeling about her. It took time before she revealed her true colors.” An invisible string drew me toward him, my upper thighs pressing up against the edge of the table. My hand landed on the place where his rested beside the game box. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too.” He caught my eyes, his mouth widening in a slow, sexy smile that made my heart pound. “I’m willing to move back in if you’ll have me. Unless, of course, you’ve already found a new roommate.”

  “I haven’t, no.” I took a deep breath. It was now or never. He’d put himself on the line in Mexico, and I’d shot him down. Sure, he shot me down too, but he took another risk by flying here in the first place. Now it was my turn. “But I’m not looking for one. I’m looking for something more.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  A person could lose themselves in the depths of his gorgeous brown eyes. I took the plunge. “Yeah. I want to be with you. I realized it at the convention. I never should have waited to tell you.”

  He tugged on my fingers, pulling my hand to his chest. I leaned forward, lips parted. Tyler met me halfway. His lips were every bit as soft as I remembered from that aborted kiss on the beach, so long ago. This time, fire swept through me at his touch, and I forgot where we were. I ran my fingers over his jawline, imprinting his features on me. My tongue dipped into his mouth, dancing with his in the way I’d wanted for so long. When we finally broke apart, I could hardly breathe.

  One thing still bothered me, though. “If you and Megan were having problems, why were you looking for the tie she gave you before Nana’s wedding? What made that your lucky tie?”

  “It’s the one I was wearing the day you agreed to let me move in with you.”

  My heart swelled until I thought it would burst. All this time, he was waiting, patiently, letting me know he cared without being oppressive or obnoxious about it. “I’m glad I did. I’m so in love with you.”

  “I love you, too,” he said, kissing me again.

  Nearby, someone applauded. Dimly, I realized that Ryan must have followed me to the booth to see w
hat happened. No one else would stand by to watch our reunion, or get excited by two people kissing in the middle of a convention. I pulled back, before leaning in for just one more quick kiss. “Do you want to get out of here?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Tyler said. “There’s a Construct Me tournament starting at one, and I need a partner. Care to join me?”

  A sound of pure joy escaped me. “Nothing would make me happier.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Once again, a huge thank-you to my editor, Wendy McCurdy, for giving me the opportunity to write a nerdy board game series. I had a blast. There’s so much of me in these books. Thanks also to Norma, Lauren, Alex, and everyone at Kensington for your unending support and willingness to answer random questions all the time.

  Thank you to my critique partners: Laura Brown, Marty Mayberry, Kara Reynolds, and Farah Heron. I know that writing so many books so close together meant a lot of leaning on you and more hand-holding than usual, and I appreciate it more than I love board games.

  Thank you to all of my Mensa friends for unknowingly lending your names to this project (especially Megan and Dennis). You may have become minor characters in this series, but you’re major players in my life. An extra-special thank-you to my darling husband, Andrew. You are my light, my love, the inspiration for this series, and the one person I never want to imagine life without.

  Special thanks to everyone who entered my contest to name Ryan’s dog, especially Zoe’s owner, Heidi Robbins. Your beagle is absolutely the cutest. Thank you to Lara, Padma, and everyone at the YMCA’s Child Watch program. This book never would have been finished on time without you.

  And as always, thank you to my amazing agent, Michelle Richter. Look! We’ve got six books together. J

  Honorable mentions to the creators of the games mentioned in or borrowed for this story: Instructures, Shadows over Camelot, Speakeasy, Werewolves, Don’t Mess with Cthulhu, The Thing, Donner Dinner Party, Secret Hitler, and Werewords.