Now You Know ✅

BONUS CHAPTER: New Year

A/N
So as to remind y'all, this book was set in 2016 :')

"'Tragedian' is not a word!"

"Yes, it is,"

"So confident, aren't you?"

"Uh-huh,"

"C'mon, Rosh," April interjected. "It's Pelham we're playing with here. He's got a damn Oxford Dictionary in that head of his."

Roshon huffed, refusing to give in. "Where are you gonna fit it, then?" he challenged Pelham with a smug smirk plastered across his face. "A lot of letters are involved - more than seven."

"Well, there's a blank space between a and e," Pelham pointed at the green board between them, where squares of letters lay arranged in vertical and horizontal positions. His finger hovered over the space between the words GAME and BED, which, luckily enough for Pelham, were aligned vertically. "And I have enough with me."

Roshon's earlier smug expression vanished, prompting Pelham to cackle at the defeated look on Roshon's face.

"Scrabbles sucks,"

"You were the one who came over here instead of attending a New Year party," Pelham pointed out, aligning his blocks of letters on the board as he did so, spelling out TRAGEDIAN and covering two extra-point tiles.

"Hey, man, she dragged me along," Roshon remarked, jerking his head towards April, who gave him a somewhat betrayed facial expression.

"I mean, you did say you were gonna be playing house for a while since your parents and Oris are out," April reminded Pelham.

"Yeah, what loser does that on New Year's Eve?" Roshon said, earning a glare from Pelham.

"I just feel like eating Nutella sandwich till midnight, you know?" said Pelham in his personal defence. "A way to start 2017, huh?"

Roshon sent him a scrunched up look. "That's how you spend your New Year?"

"Don't act like we didn't stay up till three last December playing Half-Life not realising everyone was celebrating 2016,"

"You got me there, Pel. Don't expose me like this,"

"You two losers were playing Half-Life on New Year's Eve?" April frowned, as though she hadn't been well acquainted with the two geeks almost her entire high school life.

"Hey, it was Episode Three and Gordon Freeman nearly died 'cause Pelham sucked at the game," Roshon remarked, sounding relatively indignant. "Did I say 'suck' with a past tense? I meant sucks."

"You suck at Scrabbles," Pelham noted.

"Board games just generally suck,"

"You suck,"

"You suck di-"

"Guys, c'mon, it's my turn to play!" April cut them off, causing Roshon to slump his shoulders whilst Pelham grinned at him. "Honestly, the reason I came here instead of a New Year party like I usually do is 'cause Pelham's been lonely lately."

Sensing that he knew where April was going with this, Pelham spared her a glance with one of his eyebrows cocked. She merely shrugged, arranging her letters on the green board before her whilst doing so.

"Luc said he'll be back by new year since he left for the holidays," said Pelham, calculating April's points in his head and jotting down her score on his notepad. "Don't know exactly when. But hey, I'm cool."