Plié and Clout

Chapter 3: Monopoly

wow, the first surprise chapter? Incredible. 

There's a point to this one though: a name change. 

for you first three people that have read this, you recognize that Rocket's original name was Callieyaght Rhagnagrag. 

HOWEVER: He is Czech, and because that name is an over-glorified keyboard smash, I needed to change it to something more realistic. Don't worry. Rocket is called Rocket for 98% of Plié and Clout. 

his name has been changed to Miloš Stojanovič. (My-lōs Stoh-ya-no-vic, with a long O in Miloš) Trust me, you won't have to read that often. 

Again, this is for cultural sensitivity reasons. 

MUSIC: Lost in You - khai dreams

-rabid

***

JILLY
"I'm back," Steph pushes open the door to the apartment and catches me rooting through the fridge for food. "You making lunch?" He laughs a bit and kicks off his shoes. He looks disgusting, his shirt sticks to him and his hair is drenched.

"I'm making myself breakfast, go shower, you're disgusting." I fish out a jug of milk and then root through his cabinets. "Only cheerios?" I say. I hear the shower turn on.

"Yeah? Make a grocery list, I have no idea what normal people eat."

"I hate that I can talk to you while you're showering," I find some fruit and toss a couple of blueberries on top of the cereal. Apparently he eats all his meals at the counter because the table seems to be covered. So I sit down at one of the barstools and start to mindlessly eat.

I pull out my phone and purposefully ignore texts from mutuals on how it's going. People checking up on me. I don't care at this point. Maybe when I hate this less, I'll be open to talking to old friends. Now I just want time alone.

I look around, something I didn't get to do all that much yesterday. There's gear everywhere. Scattered sticks, a bucket of pucks. I finish the cheerios and put the bowl in the sink. Then I have myself a little tour. There's nothing much to this apartment, but it could use a brush-up. It needs something more recognizable as Maine, not just someone else's apartment. So I go back to my room and open a box. It's assorted things I took from the Maine house, among them, a painting of the pond out back. I bring it into the main living space and stand on my toes, replacing a bad abstract painting with it.

I find fun pillowcases I had on my old couch, and walk back into the living room with them. The grey couch has grey pillows on it, so I zip a cover over a couple of them.

After the pillows, I stick my books on the shelves next to Steph's books. After the books, I sit down and wait.

"Alright, what do you want to do?" Steph appears again from his room and I shrug. "Do you want to go, I don't know, take a small tour of the city, or go see the school? I'm not well-versed with the city but I can get Fen and he can walk us around-"

"No, not really, I don't wanna go outside." I set my head on my hands.

"I'm so down with that because I doubt I'll be able to walk far," He's leaning pretty heavy on a door. "Nico is going to kill me."

"So what do you want to do?"

"The only board game I brought with me is a monopoly, which I'm inherently awful at, because of math."

"Monopoly doesn't require math," I chuckle. Steph gives me a look.

"Okay, maybe I'm just awful at monopoly." He disappears from the room.

So he reappears and sets up the board. My strategy, of course, is superior. I just need to prove it.

It's satisfying, an hour later, when I have Boardwalk and Park Place. What isn't so good is that he owns one whole strip of the board, I have no idea how, because he seems to be perpetually broke out of his mind.

"Oh, oh no," I roll a ten and land right on his worst. I've learned through this game that Steph has an evil giggle, which I hear right now, as I fork over much of my cash. He's grinning at the stack of money, but when he tosses the dice, it comes right back at him. "Joke's on you, hockey boy." I push his little token toward Park Place with two houses.

"That's, no no no," Alongside the evil giggle, Steph has a defeated noise. I don't know how to classify it, like a groan and a whine had a kid that is also an inhale.

"Five hundred dollars, which is twice what I just gave you, so pay up." I rearrange my legs under the table to get more comfortable.

"Can I classify this as sibling abuse?" He counts little paper bills. "Five hundred? Are you sure?"

"I'm sure it's going to be more soon." I collect the money slowly, and he sells a couple of houses, finally finding the money to pay me off. I turn it right around into the bank. "Three houses on Park Place is one thousand one hundred dollars, keep up with that one."

"You wouldn't," He watches me put two more houses down.

"I just did," I chuckle. He drops his head to the table.

"Can I just pass go, please,"

"Not your turn," I roll and skip right past his houses. My undeveloped parcels of land are welcoming me as I round the board, riding on my doubles.

My phone goes off in the back of my vision, but it's sitting on the table.

"Mom wants to know what we're doing," I look down at the this-half-of-the-family-group-chat. The three of us without Dad. Steph looks up at me, and I lean back with my phone to get a picture of him looking miserable, only a stack of ones in front of him.

JILLY: beating him at monopoly

MOM: like always?

JILLY: yep

"Okay, now my roll," Steph tosses the dice and I let him pass go. Whoever let him be banker was an idiot, whether that was me or him, I don't quite know.