by Amanda Abram
“Great,” Mom said. “I’ll let Caitlyn know the good news.” She disappeared and closed my door behind her.
Turning my phone back on, I typed out a text to Lauren.
Sorry, parents said no. Family game night.
A few seconds later, my phone buzzed.
Bummer, that’s tonight? Oh well, maybe some other time?
Definitely, I typed out, instantly feeling bad for my lie. I had no intention of ever going on a blind date. I just didn’t have the heart to break it to Lauren yet.
◆◆◆
The doorbell rang at exactly six o’clock.
“He’s here!” Caitlyn yelled, running down the stairs. “I’ll get it!”
Before I could even think of protesting, she was throwing open the front door and exclaiming, “Hi, Dylan!”
“Hi, Caitlyn with a C,” I heard him say as I joined Caitlyn at the door.
“I’ll take this from here,” I told her. I thrust my thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “Mom needs your help.”
Caitlyn pouted and shot me a glare before stomping off with a huff.
I turned to Dylan and smiled. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, smiling back.
“Come in.” I stepped aside to let him in and then closed the door. “Can I take your jacket?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, taking it off and handing it to me.
“I’m surprised you actually showed up,” I said, hanging his jacket in the coat closet.
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just figured you’d have better things to do on a Saturday night.”
“What could be better than beating an entire family at a game of Monopoly?”
I threw my head back and laughed. “Dream on. My dad is a master at Monopoly. He beats all of us every time. You don’t stand a chance.” I glanced over my shoulder quickly and lowered my voice before adding, “Oh, by the way, Caitlyn is an incredibly sore loser, so don’t be surprised if she throws an epic tantrum if she doesn’t win any of the games tonight.”
Dylan chuckled. “Okay. Thanks for the heads-up.”
“But she’s also a sore winner,” I continued, “so don’t be surprised if she obnoxiously rubs it in your face if she does win.”
Dylan let out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “Wow, this is a lot to process.”
I smirked as I led him toward the kitchen.
Mom, who was busy setting the table with Caitlyn, glanced up when we entered the room. “Hello, Dylan,” she said brightly.
“Hello, Mrs. Briggs,” he replied politely. “Thank you for having me over tonight.”
“Oh, it’s our pleasure,” she said, setting the last plate onto the table. After counting them to make sure they were all there, she turned her attention back to Dylan and added, “I made sure to order extra Kung Pao Chicken. It’s also Cassie’s favorite, you know.”
Dylan turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “Is it?”
“Yep,” I said with a nod.
“You two have so much in common,” Caitlyn said, setting a 2-liter of Coke onto the center of the table.
I rolled my eyes. “We have one thing in common,” I corrected her.
Dylan casually draped an arm across my shoulders. “Yes, but our shared love of Kung Pao is what keeps our pretend marriage thriving. Right, dear?”
Caitlyn’s eyes simultaneously widened and brightened at that and I facepalmed. Dylan had no idea what he’d just done: he’d given Caitlyn fodder for her belief that he and I should be dating.
Luckily, the sudden ringing of the doorbell took her attention away from us. “Food’s here!” she squealed, running out of the room.
Dylan chuckled softly. “I like that kid.”
“You wouldn’t if you had to live with her.” My gaze flickered down to my shoulder as I noticed Dylan’s arm was still around me.
He must have noticed it at the same time because he quickly removed it and stepped away with a clearing of his throat.
Mom glanced between us with a small smile. I knew that smile. It was the kind she got when she thought something was cute or sweet. She used to smile like that at me and Elijah when we first got together.
Great. Mom was jumping on the Cassie/Dylan bandwagon alongside Caitlyn and Jade.
“Who’s hungry?” Dad asked, entering the kitchen with two large bags filled with Chinese food containers. Caitlyn followed close behind with two more bags of equal size.
“Did they order enough food?” Dylan whispered to me. He was joking; there was now enough Chinese food on the table to feed a small army. This happened every game night: my parents would order way too much food, and we’d be eating leftover lo mein and fried rice for a week. And since we had an extra person joining us tonight, they felt the need to order even more, hence the bags in Caitlyn’s hands.
Mom, who had heard Dylan’s comment, replied, “I just wanted to make sure there was enough for everyone.” She motioned to the table. “Go ahead and have a seat.”
Dylan and I sat down next to each other on one side of the table while Caitlyn took a seat across from us.
“You can try some of what I ordered,” she said to Dylan.
“Oh yeah? What did you order?” he asked.
“Szechuan tofu.”
Dylan looked to me for help, but I didn’t give him any. “Okay. Maybe I will.”
Caitlyn clapped her hands together in glee. “Really? Nobody else here has ever tried it. Not even Mom.”
“I like healthy food and all, but I have my limits,” Mom said, taking a container out of one of the bags. Opening it, she peered inside and grimaced. “Speak of the devil.” She handed it to Caitlyn, who took it and started dishing its contents onto her plate.
Dylan examined it from afar. “It doesn’t look so bad.”
“It’s so good,” Caitlyn said, her words muffled by the cube of tofu she’d already stuffed into her mouth. “Here, try some.”
With her chopsticks, she picked up a piece from the container and plopped it onto Dylan’s plate before he could protest.
I leaned toward him. “You don’t have to do this. She’s twelve. She can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”
Dylan stared down at his plate with a look of trepidation. “No, it’s okay. My mom’s always telling me I should try new things.” He gulped as he picked it up with his own set of chopsticks.
Everyone at the table stopped what they were doing and watched with anticipation as he put it in his mouth and slowly began to chew.
I studied his face to see the exact moment when his brain registered how disgusting it was, but I was sadly disappointed. With no discernible expression whatsoever, he finished chewing and swallowed. “It’s good.”
I could tell by the tight sound of his voice that it wasn’t good and that he was just being polite to Caitlyn.
“You don’t have to lie, you know,” I said to him. “It’s not like she made it.”
Caitlyn glared at me. “Hey, maybe he actually liked it. It’s good, and you would know that if you tried it.”
“There are some things I’m okay never knowing,” I said. “That is one of them.”
Dylan chuckled beside me but stopped when Caitlyn asked if he’d like some more.
“No thanks,” he said. “I’m saving room for the Kung Pao Chicken.”
“After all,” I told her, “that’s the only reason he decided to come over in the first place.”
Dylan shook his head. “That’s not true.”
“Is too,” I teased, playing poking his arm. But then I saw Mom smiling at us again and I jerked my hand away and instead used it to dish some pork fried rice onto my plate.
And that wasn’t the last time I saw that smile during dinner. I saw it when Dylan and I both grabbed for the container of Kung Pao Chicken at the same time and he proceeded to take it and put some on my plate for me. I saw it when Mom asked him how our project was going, and he joked that I was the best
pretend wife he could have ever asked for. I saw it when she kept sneaking random glances over at us when we weren’t even interacting with each other at all. By the end of dinner, I was so irritated by that smile that when Mom got up to take care of the dishes, I followed her into the kitchen while everyone else went to the living room to set up the games.
“Okay, what’s going on?” I demanded when we were out of earshot of everyone.
She blinked innocently at me as she set a stack of dirty plates next to the sink. “What are you talking about, sweetie?”
Lowering my voice, I asked, “Why did you really suggest I invite Dylan over tonight?”
She opened the dishwasher. “I told you, I thought maybe with everything going on right now at home, he could use the distraction.”
I studied her for a moment, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, I crossed my arms over my chest. “So, this isn’t some little scheme of yours to try to play matchmaker?”
“Of course not,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. But she refused to look me in the eye as she said it, instead focusing on rinsing off the plates and putting them into the dishwasher.
“Good. Because Dylan and I will never happen.”
Mom chuckled and gave me a light pat on the cheek before returning to the dishes. “You know, I once said the exact same thing about me and your father. And look how that turned out.”
I chose to ignore that comment as I turned on my heel and left the kitchen without another word.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
About halfway through our game of Clue, I realized that I, as Miss Scarlett, was the killer. And if anyone else had figured it out yet, they were doing a great job of hiding it.
We had decided early on to save the murder mystery game for last, so we played Life first (Mom won), Yahtzee second (I won), Pictionary third (Dylan and Caitlyn, who had teamed up against me and Mom while Dad sat that one out, beat us by a landslide), Sorry fourth (that win went to Dad) and then, finally, Clue. Both Dylan and my dad wanted to play Monopoly, but nobody besides them wanted to devote three-plus hours to one game.
I was only a couple more turns away from being able to solve the entire mystery surrounding Mr. Boddy’s murder when Dad’s cell phone rang.
He glanced down at it. “It’s Uncle Billy. I’ll only be a minute.” Pushing back in his chair, he put the phone up to his ear and promptly left the room.
“And I’m going to go use the bathroom,” Caitlyn proclaimed, jumping out of her chair.
“Okay, I guess we’ll take a short break,” Mom said, standing from the table. “Can I get either of you something to drink?”
“No, thanks,” Dylan and I said simultaneously as we both shook our heads.
“Okay, then.” She narrowed her eyes and pointed a warning finger at us. “No peeking at our cards, all right?”
My jaw dropped in fake shock. “Mother, we would never.”
She just smiled and shook her head before disappearing into the kitchen.
I stared at my handful of cards as the room went silent. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dylan sitting back in his chair, watching me.
“What?” I asked, not even bothering to look at him.
He leaned forward so he was only a few inches away from me. “I’m onto you.”
I held my breath as I struggled to maintain my composure. “Huh?” I asked, playing dumb.
Dylan slowly lowered his gaze and brought it back up again, locking eyes with me. “I know you killed Mr. Boddy.” Okay, so I wasn’t the only one who had figured it out.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He smirked. “Don’t play dumb with me, Miss Scarlett. I don’t know what weapon you used. I don’t know where you used it. But I do know one thing for sure: you’re not going to get away with this.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said confidently in my best southern belle accent, giving him a menacing eyebrow raise.
With a wide grin, Dylan sat back and placed his stack of cards face down on the table in front of him. “Thanks again for inviting me over for this. I’m having a great time.”
“Really? I’m glad.”
“You know, I had plans to hang out with the guys tonight, but I think I made the right decision coming here instead.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You already had plans? Why didn’t you say so? You didn’t have to come over.”
“But I wanted to. I hang out with the guys all the time, and we always do the same things: go out for pizza, play video games, hit up a party if there’s one going on. Besides, we have an agreement in our group that invitations from pretty girls always supersede any plans we may have with each other.”
I couldn’t do anything to prevent the heat from rising to my cheeks at his insinuation that I was one of those “pretty girls”.
And he noticed, too. With a widening grin, he teased, “Aw, I made you blush.”
“I’m not blushing,” I denied, bringing my cards closer to my face to hide behind them.
Mom chose that moment to return to the room. “Cassie, hon, are you feeling okay? Your face looks a little flushed.”
Dylan snickered and I shot him a glare.
“I’m fine,” I said, feeling the warmth already beginning to dissipate.
Fortunately, Caitlyn and Dad both returned less than a minute later, and our game resumed. After two more turns, I was pretty sure I had the mystery solved, but before I could throw out my accusation on my next turn, Dylan beat me to the punch.
“Okay,” he said, calmly setting his cards down on the table. “I’m about to blow this case wide open.”
“You think you solved it?” Dad asked.
“Oh, I know I solved it,” he said confidently. “The grisly murder of Mr. Boddy was performed in the library, with the dagger, at the hands of none other than…” His accusatory gaze turned on me. “Miss Scarlett.”
Caitlyn’s hand flew up to cover her mouth as she let out a gasp. She always liked to play this game with a bit of dramatic flair.
Dad slid the envelope across the table toward Dylan. “Let’s see if you’re right.”
Without taking his eyes of me for one second, Dylan grabbed the envelope and opened it, pulling out the three cards inside. Finally breaking our staring contest, he glanced down, looked at each one, and then held his arm out straight and dropped the cards like he was dropping a mic. “Case closed.”
“What?” Caitlyn stood and fanned out the cards to see for herself. Clue was always hard to play with Caitlyn because she had never won a game of it, not even once, so that was usually the moment in every game night when she’d start huffing and puffing and throwing her sore-loser tantrum.
“Huh, well what do you know? He was right.” She turned to Dylan with a cheerful grin. “Good game!”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. Where were her usual theatrics? Her name-calling? Her yelling and screaming that the winner must have somehow cheated?
“Thanks, Caitlyn with a C,” Dylan said with a lopsided grin. He held out his hand toward her and they bumped fists.
“Congratulations, Dylan,” Mom said as she and Dad started cleaning up the board. “With two wins, you’ve officially won our game night.”
Dylan smiled. “Awesome. So, what do I win?”
“Bragging rights,” Mom replied. “And an invitation to our next game night one month from now.”
“After all,” Dad added, “you are family now. Son.” He winked and gave Dylan a playful slap on the back.
Everybody chuckled at the joke but me. Yes, Dylan was my pretend husband, which also made him my parents’ pretend son-in-law, but one month from now, our project would be over, and Dylan and I probably wouldn’t even be hanging out anymore.
“Relax, it was just a joke.” Dad’s hand clamped down on my shoulder and gave a light squeeze. “I know you two aren’t really married.”
“Yet,” Caitlyn piped in with a giggle.
I shot her a glare
and kicked her shin under the table.
“Ow,” she grumbled, reaching down to rub it.
“Cassie,” Mom scolded, “don’t kick your sister.”
Caitlyn stuck her tongue out at me and then turned to Mom. “Is game night over? I want to finish reading my book before bed.”
Mom nodded. “Yes, Caity, game night’s over. You’re free to leave.”
When Dylan pushed his chair back to get up, she quickly added, “But Dylan, you don’t have to go yet if you don’t want to.” She motioned between the two of us. “Why don’t you two watch a movie or something?”
Dylan glanced at me briefly before turning back to my mom. “I should get going. But thank you again for having me over tonight. I had a lot of fun.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Mom said with a smile.
“You’re a worthy opponent,” Caitlyn told him. “And a hell of a Pictionary partner.”
“Language, Caity,” Mom hissed, shaking her head.
With a smirk, I turned to Dylan. “I’ll walk you out.”
He nodded and turned to say his goodbyes to everyone before following me to the front door.
Opening the coat closet, I grabbed his jacket and handed it to him. “We’ll have to do this again sometime.”
He blinked in surprise. “Really?”
“Yeah. Maybe next time I’ll get to accuse you of murder.”
“I would like that.” He put on his jacket and zipped it up. “See you on Monday?”
“Yep.” I opened the door for him. “Have a good night.”
“You too.” With a small wave, he turned and walked out.
As soon as I shut the door, Mom stepped out of the kitchen. “Did he already leave? I was going to send him home with some leftover Kung Pao Chicken.”
Knowing how much Dylan would appreciate Kung Pao leftovers, I threw the door back open.
“Dylan, wait!” I called out, stopping him in his tracks just as he was nearing his car. I held up my finger as if to say one second, and then rushed over to Mom and grabbed the small bag she was holding in her hands.
