Shut Out(18)

“What’s the Star Game?” I asked.

“Well… technically, it’s this thing I saw Russell Crowe do in a movie once, but I just kind of turned it into a way to pass the time.” He looked up at the sky, which had now become dark enough to make out the vast number of summer stars. “Okay, pick a shape,” he said.

“A… What are we doing?”

“You’re picking a shape,” he said. “Anything. It could even be an object. Or an animal, but sometimes those are harder.”

“Cash, I don’t—”

“Just pick one.”

“Fine. A triangle.”

He sighed. “That is way too easy.” Then, without warning, he reached between us and picked up my hand. I was startled, and I almost pulled back, but then our eyes met.

“Relax,” he said.

And, for once, I did.

His fingers were warm and callused against mine. He uncoiled my hand and gently forced me to extend my index finger. He made me point to a cluster of stars over our heads, and I watched as he drew a triangle with my finger, using three stars as the points. “See? That’s the Star Game.”

“Oh,” I said. “Wow… A triangle was too easy.”

“Your turn,” he said. “I tell you a shape and you have to find it in the stars.”

I admit, the game was kind of cheesy, but I thought it was sweet of him to try to entertain me when I was so clearly having a bad night. So I played along.

“All right, what shape?”

“An elephant.”

“Are you joking?” I cried. “You said animals were the hardest. You can’t give me an elephant.”

“That’s what makes it a game,” Cash teased, grinning and looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “The first person unable to piece together the image loses. I like winning. So I give you an elephant.”

“Jerk.”

“Clock’s ticking.”

“There’s a time limit, too?” I asked, panicked.

“No,” he laughed. “Now I’m really just messing with you.”

I sighed and looked up at the stars. At least there were a lot out tonight. That made finding the shapes easier. But an elephant? There was no way I could find an elephant in the sky. Just as I was thinking this, though, the lines began to form in my brain, connecting one star to another in a somewhat animal-like shape.

I picked up Cash’s hand and he extended his index finger, willing me to draw through him. Slowly, I traced the stick-figure outline of the elephant. I started with each leg, then did the back, but when I got to the head, I halted. These stars would make a better dog or cat, because I couldn’t find the trunk. My eyes scoured the tiny lights, hoping to find some way to connect the final pieces, just as Cash began to hum the Jeopardy! theme song in my ear.

Then his wrist began to move without my guiding it, and Cash connected a few stars jutting upward, making a trunk pointing toward the air instead of at the elephant’s feet, as I’d been imagining. He drew his finger back down, making the animal whole. Lopsided and irregularly shaped but whole.

“Nice job,” he said, as if I’d figured out how to finish the constellation myself.

“You let me win,” I said.

He shrugged and gave me a small smile. “It was your first time.”

“Well, thanks for being gentle.”

Cash cracked up, and when I realized what I’d just said, my cheeks flamed.

“I-I mean—”

“It’s no problem,” Cash choked out between laughs. “Any good guy would have made it special for you.”

I buried my face in my hands. “Oh, God.” But I was laughing, too. With anyone else, Chloe excluded, I probably would have been mortified. But in that context, it really was funny.

“All right,” he said, taking my hand again as his laughter eased. It felt so natural, so normal, that it didn’t even faze me to have him hold my hand. “So do you think you can win on your own next time?”

“Of course I can.”

He smirked and leaned against my arm just a bit, his fingers still wrapped around mine. “Prove it,” he said.

“I will,” I said defiantly. “But you have to go first. And this time, you have to make an… an octopus.”

Cash hesitated, then looked up at the sky before turning back to me. “Game on.”

*

Cash and I played the Star Game for hours, talking between each challenge. He explained his position in soccer to me—though the explanation really flew right over my head—and, after he caught me counting the seconds as I waited for him to complete my newest constellation assignment (Santa Claus), I’d been forced to confess my control-freak neuroses. Which, shockingly, didn’t send him running back into the party.

“So when you’re nervous, you count?”

“Not just when I’m nervous,” I said. “It’s… all the time. I count the seconds during pauses in conversations. I count the minutes when I’m waiting on something. Sometimes, when I’m kind of panicked or anxious, I count my heartbeats. Something about counting makes me feel like… like I have the power. Like knowing how much time has passed or how many steps I’ve taken from one place to another will somehow keep me in control of the situation.” My hands twisted in my lap. I couldn’t believe I was telling Cash this. It wasn’t something I’d shared with anyone besides Chloe. “I know it’s crazy.”