Page 45 of Things I Read About

“I’m a little younger, so I go first. Isn’t that what the box says?”

He frowns down at the box and hands it to me. He just watches me read.

“Yes. So, I’ll go.”

As they have been since I first played this game when I was five, my hands are as steady as can be. I remove the Charlie Horse flawlessly.

“Impressive,” Nate says, drawing a card. Wish Bone. That’s $600. His hands are steady too.

I watch him...like he watched me at the piano.

I take off my sweatshirt, leaving me in a tight gray shirt, similar to the black one he’s wearing.

BZZZZ!

“Oh, man. Don’t feel bad.” I bat my eyelashes. “The wishbone is a hard one.”

He clears his throat with a small smile that seems almost embarrassed. I want to comfort him, to apologize for distracting him, but I stop and redirect. “You have to take your shirt off.”

“What?”

“It’sstripOperation, Nate. Obviously.” I raise my eyebrows at him. He makes a choked laugh, moan type of sound and pulls off his shirt.

Holy hell in a handbasket. The History of Popery. 16…Sixteen eighty-something!

He cannot be real.

He’s like cut marble, if the marble was also artwork, a million images, small and large, in rich black ink. Stars, an eagle, a skull, patterns, words. So much, I can’t sort them all. They wrap around his arms and chest and stomach and down into his waistband.

Now, it’s my turn to make a choking sound.

“You know, you could’ve had me start with my socks,” he says, confident as ever.

I shake myself back to semi-consciousness.The game, Sally. Look at the game.I extend my hand for the tweezers. He hands them to me and our fingers touch. That static charge is back, stronger than before.

I take a deep breath and lean over the board. I can’t hold back anymore. “So, who was she?” I ask. Then pull out the wishbone without issue.

“Who was who?”

“The horrible wench who broke your heart and made you wall yourself off behind your tattoos. Your magnificent, beautiful tattoos.”

He takes the tweezers from me. “Who says there’s a wench?”

“My eyes, for starters.”

He laughs.

“And you’re almost thirty, isolated, and unreadable. Somebody messed you up.”

He draws a card, frowning. “You may be exaggerating but yeah, there was a girl at home. I went to Afghanistan and when I came back, she was...gone.” His face looks sad. Heavy. Not fling-y.

I am not doing myself and my train—which very much wants to go to pound town, as Kat said—any favors.

I take my shirt off.

“What are you—”

“Got hot.” I say, looking down at the board. Now, I’m in just my arm tights, my black bra showing underneath. And, since I wasn’t skiing today, I did not pick the sports bra. I’m sure he can make out the lace through the sheer fabric.