She's Got Game Page 19

  “That’s rough,” Carla said, “but maybe she did you a favor.”

  I blinked at her. “What? A favor?”

  “Think about it. She didn’t have the maturity to raise a child. She knew how her discontentment would affect you…trust me, I know. A miserable parent creates miserable children. I loved my mother, but every day, I wished she’d leave my father and take me with her. Or throw him out. She stayed because she thought a child needed two parents, but she was wrong. I only needed one. It sounds like your mother made the decision to give you the right parent, instead of two who were wrong together.”

  I’d never thought about it that way, but Carla’s words resonated. Dad gave me everything. He gave me a loving home, a place to return any time I wanted, an ear when I needed someone to listen, an appreciation for the little things in life, compassion for others, and a love of gaming. He gave me the support and security I needed to follow my dreams. My mother left a legacy of cash and an unwillingness to trust people.

  Before I ran into Beverly, I was happy with my life. I traveled, I played games, I met new people. I never wanted more until our chance meeting. Until Cody made me wonder why I never made any effort to establish a lasting relationship with anyone other than my grad school roommates.

  Cody. I cut and ran on him so fast. Dad’s accident gave me an excuse to leave, and the tone of Cody’s texts let me pretend it was okay to ghost him the next morning. Sure, his response was unnecessarily harsh, but he woke up to a cold bed and a cryptic note. Instead of apologizing, explaining what happened, and having a real talk about our future, I bailed because my feelings freaked me out. I used my mother’s desertion to justify my behavior to myself, pretending I didn’t need or want to form relationships with anyone. And I wasn’t fair to Cody.

  Suddenly, all I wanted was to go to him and make things right. We’d been good before our argument. Not just the sex, but I enjoyed talking to him. Playing games, trash talking, hanging out…all of it. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so comfortable with a person I was hooking up with. Because it wasn’t a hookup, like he said all along. We might have worked through our differences and had something much more. If only I’d allowed myself to give him a real chance.

  “Are you okay?” Carla asked.

  “You know, I think I really am,” I said. “This conversation has been a revelation.”

  I chose a kitschy game based on a cartoon, where the goal was to remove all the other players’ cards before losing your own. We could play on a TV tray and dining room chairs dragged into the living room. Holly and Shannon would like it, too. After Carla rang me up, I thanked her profusely for giving me something to think about.

  “No problem. Don’t be a stranger,” she said. “In fact, if you ever think about settling down in Boston, I’d love to have a manager like you at the store. Imagine getting paid to bring in your friends to play games in the evenings. You could run the store’s blog. Someone with a business degree might inject new life into this place.”

  Tempting. So tempting. It would keep me closer to Dad. I’d have steady income, and I would be using my degree in business administration. But I loved my life, and I loved my blog. Most of the time.

  Regretfully, I shook my head. “Thanks for the offer. But I’m not ready to stay in one place for long. We can talk about me maintaining the blog on a contract basis, though.”

  “Think about it,” she said. “The offer’s open. And tell your Dad to get well soon. He’s one of our best customers.”

  “Of course he is.” With a grin, I headed out.

  Feeling much better, I decided to go to the ice cream place. Carla’s words ran through my head. My mother issues weren’t Cody’s fault. It wasn’t his fault I feared abandonment, or that Don treated me badly years ago. It wasn’t fair of me to blame him for the sins of people in my past. Sure, in the beginning, he was awfully cocky, full of trash talk. Game hate. It wasn’t personal. He tried to make me jealous with the cracks about the other girls, but it’s not like I hadn’t flirted with other guys in front of him. We were even there.

  Since I’d decided to give him a chance, he’d been a perfect gentleman. He forgave me for the game where I targeted him, almost knocking him out of the competition purely because I overreacted. He put up with me going back and forth, not knowing what I wanted. He even texted me after I ran out on him in the middle of the night. The messages only grew angry after I didn’t respond, and he couldn’t have known why.

  It didn’t make any sense to let him go because of one argument. My job made relationships tricky. I’d always known that; it was one of the perks at first. But my love for travel didn’t have to be another reason to keep Cody at arm’s length. Long distance relationships required work, sure but so did any relationship. My parents hadn’t been able to make it last while living in the same house. That didn’t mean I should never date someone who lives nearby.

  Cody lived around here somewhere. Unlike my mother, he unfortunately did not post his whereabouts on social media every five minutes, which presented a dilemma. I couldn’t exactly go door-to-door looking for him, and I didn’t want to apologize by text. If necessary, I could text him and ask him to meet me somewhere, sure, but I wanted to surprise him.

  Then I realized that, while I didn’t have any idea where in Cambridge he lived, I knew someone who would. Holly helped with the registration for the local round of the tournament. That’s how she’d known Cody would be at the Boston competition.

  As if she read my mind, my phone buzzed as soon as I dug it off the bottom of my bag and turned it on. Perfect timing.

  The message wasn’t from her, though. My phone displayed two voice mails from Dad, but the incoming text wasn’t from him, either.

  Instead, Shannon’s name sat on my screen. 911. Where are you? I’m coming to pick you up.

  Of the three of us, only Shannon currently had a car. Lucas purchased Holly’s car with company funds and registered it in the company name, so the feds impounded it shortly after his arrest. Driving in Boston sucked most of the time, and I wasn’t around enough to want to deal with car payments and additional insurance. Plus, it felt like the incident at Dad’s garage was a sign to remain an avid pedestrian as long as possible. I got a license because rental cars made travel easier outside of the large cities. Purchasing a vehicle wasn’t on my bucket list.

  Worried something else happened to Dad, I tapped on Shannon’s name to call instead of texting her back. I didn’t even bother to say hello when she answered. “What’s going on?”

  “Are you home? I’m coming over.” My ordinarily calm and collected friend sounded frazzled.

  “No, I was at the game store. Now I’m at the ice cream place in Harvard Square. What’s wrong? Is it Dad?”

  “Your dad’s fine. Or at least, he was when I talked to him. It’s not him,” she said. “It’s Holly. She’s been arrested for conspiracy to commit a pyramid scheme.”

  Chapter 20

  Shannon’s words sent a shockwave through me. I barely managed to form the words to tell her to come get me. Then I sat there, phone in hand, long after she hung up, not knowing what to do. Finally, I remembered that Shannon wasn’t the only one who’d tried to contact me.

  While I waited for her to pick me up, I checked the messages from Dad, which conveyed largely the same information. Holly had apparently called the house first, maybe hoping if I wasn’t home, he would be. Or maybe she (correctly) guessed Dad would know better than I how to handle this type of situation. With her father in California, he wouldn’t be much help for getting a Boston-based lawyer. Me, Dad, and Shannon were all she had out here, since most of her other friends vanished along with the business failure, their investments, and Lucas’s arrest.

  According to Dad, Holly hadn’t been “arrested,” but taken in by the feds for questioning. She was at the FBI’s local office rather than a Boston police station. H
e’d already called the Federal Defenders to help her. I was disappointed when he explained that “Federal Defenders” was not a superhero group, determined to save the country from injustice, power-hungry tyrants, or first amendment violators. That’s what the public defenders hired by the federal government called themselves.

  Shannon’s car double parked out front as Dad and I finished talking. There wasn’t much for us to do, since Dad took care of the lawyer. But at least when Holly got released, her best friends would be able to offer hugs, sympathy, and a ride home.

  The woman behind the front desk seemed skeptical of us waiting in the lobby for our friend to come out, especially since we didn’t know who she was meeting. After I pulled a copy of Pass the Pigs out of my bag to play while we waited, she smiled and stopped giving us the side-eye. Gamer solidarity.

  “How’s the store?” Shannon asked while we played.

  “Same old store, mostly. Except they’re hiring. It’s going to be weird to see someone new working there. But Carla and John are having a baby, so I guess they need the help.”

  “How wonderful! I’ve been taking Nana to the doctor on Tuesday afternoons, so I haven’t been in for games night in ages. I should swing by and congratulate them.”

  Her comment sparked an important thought. There was more than one way to track someone down and apologize. “Is Cody ever at games?” I tried to keep my voice casual, but Shannon knew me too well.

  “Why do you ask?” She raised her eyebrows at me. “I thought you decided to walk away.”

  “After talking to Carla, I wonder if I should give him another chance,” I admitted. Briefly, I filled her in on our conversation.

  “Carla’s a smart woman.”

  “Yeah. You think I should go for it?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter. What would make you happy?”

  A smile crossed my face as I thought about spending Sunday with Cody, before we started arguing. As I remembered waking up next to him, and the first game where we tied, and the way he got me breakfast in Chicago. “Cody made me happy. Before I blew it.”

  “There you go,” she said. “I hope you work things out. He seems like one of the good ones.”

  “Thanks. I think so, too. How’s Nana?”

  “Still hanging in there. Refusing to let her health issues slow her down, and she’s recovering. She’s starting to talk about retiring someday, but I have my doubts. She loves that place.” Nana ran a local bakery where, among other things, she sold delicious eggless cookie dough. I’d long said she should start a delivery service. They’d make a fortune around the dorms, especially during finals week.

  Before I could respond, the door opened, and Holly walked out with an Asian man in a suit and a very tall man with that special spray tan shade of orange skin. She smiled when she spotted us. The smaller man said something I couldn’t hear and disappeared back through the door, so he must’ve been FBI. The tall man said good-bye to Holly and left without so much as glancing at me and Shannon. Possibly the lawyer Dad sent.

  As soon as the doors shut behind him, we stood, but Holly tilted her head toward the doors. “Not here.”

  Silently, we trailed her out the doors to Shannon’s car. Not giving her a chance to offer me the front passenger seat, I crawled into the back. As soon as the car pulled out of the parking lot, she started shaking.

  My heart went out to her. Putting one hand on her shoulder, I said, “It’s okay. Let it all out.”

  A hollow laugh reached my ears. “I’m not crying. I’m shaking because I’m so angry. I can’t freaking believe him.”

  “The FBI agent?” Shannon asked.

  “Lucas. That human dumpster fire. If I ever get my hands on him–”

  “We should probably get further from the FBI building before you threaten people,” Shannon said.

  “Whatever,” Holly said. “They’re going to give me a deal, because I agreed to work with them. My lawyer says they can’t prove I did anything wrong. They just want me to testify about our lifestyle. How Lucas always seemed to have money, how he spent lavishly on dinners and bought expensive clothes with cash and stuff. It never seemed weird until they brought it up. He said his parents gave him a generous allowance.”

  I shook my head. “None of this is your fault. You couldn’t have known.”

  “I’m aware of that. But it still sucks. They also told me I can’t take the job in Providence. I’m not allowed to move out of state until this is all over. And I can’t work in IT for at least a year.”

  “That’s outrageous!” Shannon smacked the steering wheel, accidentally honking the horn. “They can’t do that, can they?”

  “They can put whatever terms they want in the deal. I’m allowed to work, to get a job. But not in IT, not until they’ve determined to what extent I used my skills to help Lucas. And it’s not like I can call up a job and be like, ‘Hey, not sure when I can start because of my probation. That’s cool, right?’” She sighed and put her head in her hands. “It was a good job, too. Now I don’t know what I’ll do. I need money so I can get my own place.”

  Poor Holly. My heart went out to her. “You can stay with us as long as you want. I’m going back out on the road soon, and Dad likes having you around. Also, Game On! is hiring.”

  She turned to look at me. “The game store, huh?”

  “I know it’s not the most lucrative use of your degree, but it might help pay the bills.”

  “Well, it’s certainly better than nothing. I’ll think about it. Thanks.”

  She changed the subject, and eventually I told her about my decision to work things out with Cody. I’d already unblocked his number, but of course, he didn’t know that, so it wouldn’t make a difference.

  “The plan was to go over there and apologize in person,” I said. “But I don’t have his address. I was hoping you could get it from the Explorers of Islay Championship database.”

  “Sorry, no can do,” she said. “I’m not allowed to access the internet until the deal is settled. I mean, okay, they probably wouldn’t know, but the FBI has my laptop.”

  My heart sank. There went my best lead.

  Shannon said, “You asked earlier if he’s ever at the weekly games. I haven’t been in, but you could drop by tonight and check.”

  When we talked about games night earlier, it hadn’t occurred to me that today was Tuesday. The problem with taking three weeks off work to care for a sick parent is, the days all ran together. Cody probably would be at the game store later, and if I didn’t want to go to Vegas in another two weeks, it was the one place I could most likely run into him.

  I didn’t necessarily want to apologize in front of a roomful of gamers, especially not if things didn’t go the way I’d hoped. If they did, well, we’d want some privacy. Still, the idea had merit. I could show up around the end of the night and wait for him to leave. I leaned back against the seat with a smile, planning out exactly how to surprise him and what I’d say.

  To get him back, I needed something good.

  * * * *

  Several hours later, I exited the T a couple of stops from Harvard Square. They pumped in so much A/C in the summer you needed a bubble coat, regardless of the outdoor temperature, and my face had gone numb. Also, I was getting antsy, so I decided to walk the last part of the trip. It was a cool night, the sun still lit the way, and I wanted to burn my nervous energy before running up and forgetting what I’d planned to say.

  On the way home earlier, I’d passed a farmer’s market, and an idea hit me. Shannon had begrudgingly pulled over, and now I approached the game store, a fresh bunch of carrots grasped in one hand like a bouquet. For anyone else, carrots would seem the worst peace offering in the world, but Cody would get it. If only I could find a slate, I’d let him break it over my head.

  Across the street from the store, I stopped and checked my phone. I’d
left so early, even after walking for half a mile, the games inside would probably continue for at least another twenty minutes. Theoretically, games started at five and went until nine, but things usually ran over. Settling onto the stoop of the building opposite the store, I positioned myself mostly behind a line of cars parked along the sidewalk. The front door stood squarely in my line of sight, but no one inside the store would notice me unless they really looked.

  Unfortunately, after the stress of the day and my long walk, I was exhausted. Sitting might have been a bad idea, but it was too late. My eyes fluttered shut.

  The next thing I knew, I jerked awake. The remaining sunlight had vanished, leaving the stoop bathed in moonlight. Jingling keys told me someone was locking the door to the store. A peek around the cars revealed John, standing by himself. Everyone else had left, including Cody. Oops.

  According to my phone, I’d been out about twenty minutes. He couldn’t have gone far. Standing on the top step, I scanned the street, looking up and down. There! About two blocks down, a curly-haired guy in jeans and a t-shirt walked toward Harvard Square. I couldn’t see his face, but I’d recognize those broad shoulders and the way he carried himself anywhere. Based on height and hair, the guy walking beside him had to be Tyler.

  John would have questions about me sitting outside his store this late on a Tuesday night, so I picked up my carrots and quietly darted after the retreating figures before he saw me.

  I hadn’t spent much time with Tyler, but was pretty sure he lived around here, so hopefully they were headed in the same direction and not going back to Cody’s place together. My plan became more awkward if I wound up baring my soul in front of a guy I’d met twice.

  Keeping a safe distance, I trailed them, never losing sight of them, waiting for them to split up so I could seize the opportunity. We went down one street and up another. Finally, Tyler walked straight when Cody turned to the left. I followed him around the corner and spotted him standing outside what looked like a three-family home, or triple-decker. I drew to a halt to catch my breath and calm my racing heart before approaching.