Games of Fire (27 page)

Lauren blinked. “What?”

Spencer laughed. “No, it’s okay. I would have picked a
much cooler name if I’d had any say.”

Lauren gave Sophie a smug smirk. “See? The guy is cool with it! So chill!” She turned back to Spencer. “Criminal history?”

Spencer winced, drumming his fingers on the table. “I stole a chocolate bar when I was five. The shopkeeper called the police to teach me a lesson. They never arrested me, but I was scared enough never to take anything ever again.”

Lauren tapped a finger on the table thoughtfully. “A thief. Point deducted.”

“But he was honest and he never did it again!” Jessie piped in. “That should be a point.”

Lauren rolled her eyes heavenward. “Jessie, you can’t just keep giving him points whenever you feel sorry for him! It defeats the purpose of the points system.”

Spencer frowned. “What exactly is the point system again?”

Lauren sighed,
visibly exasperated by all the interruptions. “You start off with a hundred points. For every point deducted, you drop. The more points you lose, the less we think you’re suitable.”

Spencer winced, rubbing the back of his neck. “No pressure,
right?”

“Oh it’s not for real!” Jessie assured him kindly.

“Well of course it is!” Lauren interrupted. “Why else would we do it? You’ve got your sights set on our bestie. That means you get us, which means, you break her heart, we’ll bust your legs—all three of them!”

“Lauren!” Sophie moaned, embarrassed when Spencer actually flinched.

“The dude has got to know these things right from the get go!” Lauren exclaimed, stabbing each word with a finger against the table. “So he can’t turn around later and pretend like he didn’t.”

“Trust me. I won’t forget.” Spencer shifted in his seat.

Lauren smirked. “See? It works!”

Under the table, Sophie took Spencer’s hand and squeezed it apologetically.

“Any deformities in your family? Any inbreeding? Second cousins count!”

“Lauren!”

Lauren threw up her hands. “Sophie, it needs to be said.”

“Uh, not that I am aware
of … ” Spencer said slowly, hesitant.

Lauren hissed through her teeth. “I think that’s another point—”

“I don’t see how! He doesn’t know!” Jessie objected.

“Did you do this with all of Sophie’s boyfriends?” Spencer wondered.

Lauren and Jessie stopped bickering. Even Sophie tensed without meaning to.

Lauren was the first to catch herself. “Well, seeing as how you’re her first boyfriend
… yes.” She drummed her fingers on the table, an evil glint in her eyes. “So, are you saying you’re her boyfriend then?”

“I think I need the bathroom!” Sophie bolted out of her seat before Spencer could respond. “Lauren, come with me?”

Lauren’s face twisted into disbelief. “Seriously? Since when do we go to the bathroom—?”

“Please?” Sophie pleaded. “Now!”

Lauren, still looking disturbed, rose from her seat. “I swear,” she said to Spencer. “We do not go to the bathroom together! This is a new low. I’m blaming you. Deduction of a point!”

Sophie grabbed Lauren and dragged her away. From behind the steel U counter, Bill eyed them, but said nothing as they disappeared into the women
’s washroom in the back.

“What are you doing?” Sophie exclaimed the moment they were alone.

“I am trying to find out if the dude you like is worthy of your awesomeness.”

Sophie loved Lauren. They’d been best friends since they shared an oatmeal cookie during snack time. But Lauren didn’t have that filter most people possessed that trapped the things that should never be said aloud. It had never bothered Sophie until now.

“I told you about his ex and I told you how he felt about relationships.”

“But he’s the one that said it. I was just confirming his statement.”

Sophie stuffed a hand back through her hair. “It was probably a slip of the tongue. He probably didn’t mean it like that, or he was trying to be funny.”

Lauren frowned. “What’s so funny about calling someone your girlfriend if you’re not serious?”

“Lauren, please! Lay off the buzz kill questions, okay?”

Lauren sighed, spearing slender hands on her waist. She shook her head. “Fine, but I’m doing it for your own good.”

Jessie was keeping Spencer entertained when they returned to the table a moment later. Sophie smiled apologetically at him as she took her seat next to him.

“What did we miss?” she asked.

“Jessie was just telling me how you three met,” Spencer said. “Something about a swing … ”

Jessie shook her head, sending pale coils bouncing around her pretty face. “No. That’s how I met Lauren and Sophie. They were on the swings and I was the new kid in town and no one wanted to play with me because I was so shy. But
they walked right up to me and we’ve been best friends ever since.”

Lauren munched on a fry and sa
id flatly, “Sophie and I bonded over cookies.”

Sophie laughed. “Lauren saved my cookies. A boy in our class tried to take them from me and she didn’t let him. She’s always been the feisty one.”

“It’s why we love her,” Jessie chimed, looping her arm through Lauren’s and resting her head on the other girl’s shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lauren muttered, rolling her eyes, but looking highly pleased.

“And what about Joe?” Spencer asked.

The three girls exchanged glances, none of them certain they were allowed to share that story without Joe there.

“Joe was in our class,” Sophie began slowly, carefully.

“He was always very quiet
, so you never really knew he was there,” Lauren recalled.

Jessie nodded in agreement. “I kn
ow I never did until Sophie went up to him that one day. Do you remember, Lauren?”

Lauren nodded. “It was at recess, wasn’t it?”

“Lunch,” Sophie answered quietly, remembering that day all too well.

It had been the hottest day of the summer. They’d been sitting outside, eating their lunch when Sophie noticed the tiny figure hidden beneath the slide.

“Sophie went right up to him, took his hand and dragged him back to our table,” Jessie finished telling Spencer with a bright smile.

Lauren
snorted. “Kid was all creepy and lurky. He needed to lighten up. Now, are you going to finish those fries?”

Sophie pushed her basket across the table. Lauren jumped on them like a starved child.

“So tell me what happened at the cabin,” Sophie prompted, needing the topic turned away from Joe. It felt wrong talking about him when he wasn’t there.

Lauren ceased her eating. She picked idly at the basket.
It was Jessie who answered.

“Oh we had the best time!”
she exclaimed, her blue eyes enormous and shining like twin pools in the summer. “Of course it wasn’t nearly as fun as it would have been if you’d been there,” she added with a sheepish smile.

“I wanted to go,” Sophie admitted, suddenly wishing she hadn’t just given Lauren her fries. Her fingers felt completely useless with nothing to keep them busy. “But
Mom was adamant that the garage needed to be cleaned that weekend.”

“Well, at least you got something out of the deal,” Lauren said,
with a very un-Lauren smile that seemed strained and forced. “You know, you’re not nearly as much of a jerk as Sophie says you are.”

“Is that a point?” Spencer asked teasingly.

“It would be if you hadn’t been a jerk in the first place.”

Spencer sighed, turning his head towards Sophie. “I swear there’s no winning this game.”

Sophie smothered a laugh behind her hand. Lauren snorted.

The game continued with Spencer losing more points than earning. He didn’t seem to mind, taking each loss good-naturedly. Lauren finished Sophie’s fries, most of Jessie’s and had ordered another basket when Sophie’s war with exhaustion failed.

“I’m tired,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’m going to head home and see if I can’t get a few minutes of sleep.”

Spencer rose beside her.

“You poor thing,” Jessie said, hurrying out of her seat to pull Sophie into a fierce hug. “You’ve had such a hard few days.”

Tell me about it!
Sophie wanted to say, but opted on just patting the girl lightly on the back and murmuring, “It’ll be fine.”

Jessie pulled back nodding determinedly. “It will!” She turned those blue eyes on Spencer. “It was so nice to officially meet you.”

Spencer’s smile was devastating, not seductive, but just pure angelic gorgeousness that made Sophie want to jump him. It was sweet and kind and so completely void of the asshat she’d met in the past that she momentarily questioned her sanity. Had she imagined that guy?

“My pleasure,” he said smoothly.

“Oh!” Jessie pressed her giggle behind dainty fingers.

Lauren wiped her greasy fingers on a napkin and eyed Spencer warily. “I know where you live, pretty boy.”

The left corner of Spencer’s mouth twisted upwards. “Gotcha,” he said, giving her a two finger salute.

He eased back Sophie’s chair and helped her around the table. Sophie embraced her friends one last time before following him outside.

“That was interesting,” he said as the cold, damp air swept around them.

Sophie sighed. “Yeah, my friends usually are.”

They started down the street, heads bent against the mist. Neither noticed the figure pushing off the wall of the floral shop next door and stalking purposefully behind them.

At the streetlight, they stopped, waiting for it to turn from green to red. Sophie turned the collar of her jacket up, trying to prevent any
more icy droplets from finding home down the column of her spine. She hissed through her teeth when one slipped past her defenses.

“Why must it always rain?” she grumbled, shifting from right foot to left foot. She leaned over and stabbed the little button on the streetlight post. The white handprint flashed, warning her to stay on the curb. Sophie silently cursed at it.

“Because you decided to live in the rainiest place in Canada,” Spencer answered helpfully.

“I didn’t decide anything,” she said. “I was born here, so I had no choice.”

“Would you move if you had the choice?”

The
caution hand switched to the little crossing man. The lights changed. Cars stopped. Sophie hopped off the curb and started across with Spencer right beside her.

“No, probably not. All my friends are here and my family. Besides, despite the rain, BC is actually very beautiful in the summer.”

Spencer said nothing until they reached the other side. “I like your friends.”

Sophie smiled. “They’re great, eh? Once Joe comes around, you’ll like him
, too. He’s very sweet.”

“He doesn’t like me, eh?”

“It’s not that. Joe doesn’t really like anyone. Just give him time. It took me ages to get him to even sit with us at lunch.”

“
I somehow doubt that.”

Sophie turned the subject. “
Tell me about your friends.”

“I, uh, still keep in touch with
some of my friends. I don’t see them as often as I’d like because of the distance, but we still email and text once in a while.”

“Do you have a best friend?”

He shook his head. “Not really. Not after Aimee.”

“What about your dad?”

His hands disappeared into the pockets of his jacket. “What about him?”

“I’m assuming he’s alive
… ?”

“He’s alive,” he confirmed.

“Why didn’t you stay with him?”

He kept his head down, but Sophie could see the reserve on his face, the hesitation. “
Mom needed me. Jamie and Suzy stayed, so … he didn’t.”

“Did you leave because of Jamie?”

“Partially,” he muttered. “He had Aimee move in and I just … ”

Sophie bit her bottom lip, not sure she should push anymore, but wanting to. She raised her head and squinted at their surroundings, noticing for the first time just how far they’d gotten. They were nearly home.

“Are you tired?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t say no to a nap.”

She stopped in front of Joe’s favorite coffee shop. “Want some coffee? My treat.”

He stopped, tilted his head back to peer at the large bay window spilling a warm, beckoning glow from within. “I thought you said you were tired,” he reminded her.

It was her turn to shrug. “I’d rather talk with you a little longer.”

His gray eyes peered into her face, searching before he leaned forward.

For a heart stopping moment, she thought he would kiss her. Her lips tingled, parting of their own will. Her breathing hitched in anticipation. Then, a warm gust of air bumped her back and she realized he’d reached around her for the door which he now held open.