Always Then and Now

Chapter 24

LIAM

"You bastard! You took the colour I wanted!" Hannah exclaimed, shooting a glare at me as I placed the two red tiles in the second row of my tableau. She gestured to her own tableau, at the three red tiles in her fifth row, just waiting for two more.

I grinned brightly at her. "Hey, they were the ones I could use! Everything else would've given me negative points."

"Yeah, and now I'm going to have a ton of negative points instead," she muttered, grabbing the two solid blue tiles and placing them both in the negative points section at the bottom of her board, since there was no other place to put them.

"That is how a game works, Sunshine. I'm not going to just hand you the win."

"Yeah, well now, thanks to both of you, I'm going to have, like, a million negative points!" Kate grumbled as she grabbed the five yellow tiles from the middle of the table—all that was left—and put all but one in her negative points section. The fifth one, she put into the top line of her tableau.

Kate had called up after dinner tonight wanting to hang out, so Hannah was teaching us both how to play Azul. Kate was struggling a little bit, but I thought I had picked up on it quickly. I even seemed to be doing better than Hannah. I might be able to take the win for this one, and then I would gloat about it for all I was worth.

"Yeah, this game can get kinda brutal, depending on your play style," Hannah admitted as we completed the round and counted up points. "It can have a lot of take that if you play aggressively. That's why it's a good thing it's relatively short. Much less table flipping when the game only lasts half an hour." She chuckled. We drew more tiles and started the next round.

I couldn't imagine Hannah playing any game aggressively. She was too sweet to be truly cutthroat, and similarly, she was too sweet to want to play aggressively against her. It'd be like a coyote attacking a kitten.

But this was a good game. Strategic, colourful, welcoming for a beginner like me. I was beginning to see the appeal in Hannah's hobby. The strategy of the games really challenged the mind, but in an entertaining way. Plus, just spending this time with Hannah was becoming one of my favourite things to do in a day.

We'd just finished the game (I won!) when someone rang the doorbell. I looked at Hannah, confused. "Are we expecting anyone else tonight?"

She shook her head, bewildered. "No, not that I know of. I'll go see who it is." She got up and went to the front door. A moment later, Jai's voice drifted down the hall to us. I glanced at Kate and shrugged. Whatever it was, he didn't sound happy.

"What's wrong, Jai?" Kate asked as he and Hannah joined us again.

"He got stood up," Hannah said sympathetically, sitting back down next to me. She rubbed his back when he sat down on her other side.

"Oh no. Not the hot guy from the café?" Kate exclaimed, sympathy on her face too. Seemed like everyone was in the loop but me. I had no idea who hot café guy was. Obviously, they'd talked and gossiped at game night the other night.

Jai nodded. "Andrew. We were supposed to meet at the café and then go out for dinner. I waited for, like, half an hour, but the prick never showed."

"And not even a call of a text or anything?" Hannah asked.

Jai shook his head miserably. "I spent forever making myself look beautiful for that asshole too." He pouted at her. "I need my bestie."

"I'm here, babe," she said, pulling him into a hug.

I glanced at Kate, and she just shrugged. There was no getting in between these two best friends. Not that I wanted to, really, but I had to admit, I felt a little bit jealous. Hannah and I had gotten really close over the past several weeks, so close I was pretty sure I considered her my best friend too, but I didn't think anyone could be as close as these two were. I wanted that for myself. I wanted to be for her what she was for me, but we'd never have the history that these two had.