Page 185 of Dream On, Liar

Her.

And that was the problem.

Somewhere between her placing tiles and laughing at my increasingly ridiculous strategy, I had stopped thinking about Scrabble as a game I was supposed to win and started thinking about it as something I did not want to end.

Now, with the board between us and the word LOVER sitting there as though it belonged exactly where I had placed it, I could feel the shift.

The way my chest tightened had nothing to do with competition anymore.

Maeve was still laughing when I stood. It was not just amusement in her expression. There was disbelief threaded through it, as though she could not quite decide whether I had actually managed it or had somehow cheated the entire concept of language.

“You’ve been waiting for that,” she said again, still slightly breathless.

“I have.”

Her eyes dropped to the board and then lifted back to me.

She knew exactly what I had done.

I had been waiting for the right moment, keeping those letters close and hoping she would unknowingly give me the chance.

She had.

Maeve sat cross-legged on the rug opposite me, one of my jumpers swallowing her wrists as she studied her remaining tiles with the seriousness usually reserved for international cricket fixtures.

“You’re cheating.”

She looked up.

“I’m not.”

“You’ve been staring at those letters for four minutes.”

“How is that cheating? I’m thinking.”

“You’ve been thinking about one word for four minutes, when we set a limit for 60 seconds each.”

“Some of us like to be strategic.”

I leaned back against the sofa.

“Some of us are waiting for our moment.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Are you always this competitive?”

“It’s the only way to be.”

She ignored me and returned to her tiles.

I had been waiting for an L.

Not just any L.

The L.

I had seen the shape of the board several turns earlier. I had watched spaces appear and disappear as we built around them, and I had kept my tiles close, waiting for the right opportunity.