Taivon: Book Three of the Cantrell Brothers Series

Chapter Fifteen

Rolling her eyes playfully, she looked down at her arrangement of ships. It was a L-shaped arrangment in the corners, something that she hoped he wouldn't be expecting. There was no way he would get her this time. No way. If he did, then he could read minds, and she'd just have a boyfriend who could read minds.

“Alright,” she began. “B-2.”

“Miss.” Taivon grinned, clearly enjoying himself. Instead of guessing anything, he looked at her and just waited. It was almost scary, the way those eyes all but calculated where she'd placed her ship. He was smart, no doubt about it. He had intelligence over people, and Alix felt as if he could probably read them like one would a book.

“What're you thinking about?” she asked, quietly.

“Tryin' to figure out if you're one o' those people who puts all their boats in a pattern or not.” Taivon cocked his head. “Would I be right in saying that you are?”

“I'm not telling you.”

“You're lying.”

“Am not,” she said. Too late, Alix realized. Her response was all the indication he'd need.

“Just gonna put it out there that the whole pattern thing is a terrible choice. Trust me. When I was little, my brothers never really let me play, because I was always won, ya see? All of 'em – especially Titus – liked to think that arranging them in a pattern would trick me, but it never worked. I won all the time.”

“I'm gonna guess they didn't like that?”

He shook his head, smiling. “Not at all. Tobias, the youngest, would tell on me and say that I cheated, but I never did. He just always put them in one corner or the other, and it was so easy. Thrane slammed my head against a dresser once 'cause he was so mad.”

“That sounds...intense.”

“He loves me, though.” Taivon shrugged it off and then looked back at her. “F-8.”

“Miss.” Alix laughed what she hoped sounded like an evil laugh. “A-1.”

“Hit.”

She put a red peg on the board and then waited. For the first couple of turns, it looked like she would actually pull out strong in this one. But then it all went down hill when he took out her aircraft carrier and submarine, a smile on his lips as he finished up another glass of water.

“I'll be right back,” he said, an sheepish smile on his face.

As soon as she saw him disappear into the bathrooms, she turned around his platform. Hopefully, all that water would take a long time. He had all his ships in a random pattern, or at least, to her, it looked random. It'd probably be in some confusing and intricate pattern that only he knew about. Either way, she now had all of them marked on her own board.

He came back a few minutes later, shirt tucked in and pants secured on his hips with a shiny belt. She tried not to laugh at the naïve innocence in his face as he guessed her ships and somehow managed to hit them, and she nailed his with perfect accuracy, but she couldn't keep it in.

“You're really good at this,” he said, a secretive smile on his face.

She couldn't help but laugh. “It's just luck.”

“Is there something you wanna tell me?”

“What?” Alix shook her head. “No. I'm just really...lucky.”

“You so cheated.”

“Did not.”

“I saw you.” He grabbed her battleship platform and turned it around, eyes widening as he grinned one of those heart-stopping grins. “Ha!”