a muscle in his jaw twitched, but he didn’t respond.
“Text me later,” Cash called over his shoulder to Dolly. Then, doing his one-finger salute in the air, he sauntered down the steps without a backward look at any of them.
Dolly cleared her throat, opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, and then closed it again. Instead, she took a deep drink of her lemonade.
“So, I think it was your turn, Pinky,” Samir said casually, and she got the feeling he was giving Dolly a way out without having to make excuses for her douchey friend.
She smiled at him and registered his slight shock at the lack of sarcasm in it before drawing four cards from the deck in the center. Pinky had the unshakable feeling this wouldn’t be the last time Samir Jha would surprise her this summer.
Samir
About an hour after the visit from Douchey McDouche (if he was Dolly’s boyfriend, Samir had seriously misjudged her decision-making capabilities), Mr. Yeung summoned them to the living room.
“Boggle!” he said, holding up the bright orange box when they were all seated on the many scattered couches and armchairs. The other adults were already in the room, sipping on iced teas and Arnold Palmers. “It’s tournament time, baby.”
“Oh no,” Pinky muttered, leaning her head back on the oversize blue-and-white-striped couch. “When Dad starts calling people ‘baby,’ you know he’s in his overexcited, competitive mode.”
“I’m not overexcited!” Mr. Yeung said, though the glint in his eye said otherwise. “Come on, baby!”
“It’s best to just nod and smile,” Mr. Montclair said to Samir. “Easier.”
Samir obliged by nodding and smiling, and everyone laughed.
Mrs. Montclair handed out pads of paper and little pencils to everyone.
“Oh, I’m going to need a bigger pad than that!” Mr. Yeung grinned. “For all the words I’m going to write!”
“Daaad…,” Pinky said, rolling her eyes.
“Ready?” Ms. Kumar looked around at all of them solemnly. It was obvious she took her husband’s hobby very seriously. “I’m going to start the timer, and when it runs out, you have to immediately set your pencils down. Even if you’re mid-word.”
“And that word doesn’t count,” Mr. Yeung clarified darkly. “Also, if you make a word that’s not actually allowed by the rules of the game, you face an automatic ten-point deduction.”
They were starting to freak Samir out a bit. He caught Pinky’s eye; she raised an eyebrow and mouthed, “Accept your fate.”
Mr. Yeung, still maintaining very uncomfortable eye contact with all of them, shook the Boggle dice in their covered tray; the sound was like an army of galloping robot horses on a tin roof, but Samir didn’t dare so much as grimace. When he was done, Ms. Kumar flipped the timer. All was thankfully quiet except for the scratch of pencil on paper.
Samir looked around at everyone, his eyes coming to rest on Pinky. Her head was bowed, so all he could see was the riot of color on her scalp—lime green, electric purple, burn-your-retinas magenta. She was writing furiously, her eyebrows furrowed, intense concentration on her face.
Considering her, Samir couldn’t help but smile a little. Impractical and hotheaded as she was, he had to hand it to her: She approached everything she did with a tsunami of passion that he didn’t think he’d ever felt, let alone for a game of Boggle. Chuckling to himself (quietly, so she wouldn’t hear and throw her pencil point-first at him), he peered at the letters. A slightly evil plan began taking root in his mind as he studied the Boggle board, and he smiled to himself as he began to write.
Three minutes later, Mr. Yeung yelled, “Time!!!” into the silence and Samir jumped so hard, his pencil tore a hole in his paper.
Pinky snorted, but she gave him an innocent look when he narrowed his eyes at her.
“Okay!” Mr. Yeung said, grinning a little wildly. “Who wants to go first, baby? Samir, would you like to, as our guest?”
“Oh.” He swallowed, feeling suddenly and ludicrously nervous. “Um, sure.” Setting his pencil down on the coffee table, he wiped his hands on his shorts and began to read. “Loud, proud, born, stubborn, torn, snort, snorted, snorts.” His eyes unwittingly stole to Pinky’s. She was staring at him, eyes narrowed.
“Hmm. Interesting words,” she said, tapping her pencil at the corner of her mouth, at the same time that Mr. Yeung said, “Great start, Samir! Great start.”
Pinky held his eyes across the space between them, a small smile twitching at her mouth. Samir could feel the challenge accepted