12 Days 'til Christmas ✓

chapter nineteen

n i n e t e e n

*

"Is there a world record for the longest ever game of Monopoly?" Casper asks. "If there is, I think we're about to destroy it. How long ago did we start?"

I glance at the clock above the mantelpiece. "At least a few hours ago. But we did take a full hour's break for lunch."

"Very necessary." He pats his stomach as he moves his piece, the boot, and lands on a chance card, narrowly missing my hotels on Euston Road and The Angel Islington. Not that they'd affect him much, when it's only through pure luck that I haven't been bankrupted by him yet. "This is a stamina game, Bee.

"Did you know, you never called me Bee before you heard my mum call me that," I point out, rolling the dice and holding my breath that it won't be a six, seven, nine or twelve. It's a hard eight, and I triumphantly collect a community chest card right between two of Casper's hotels, on Bond Street and Oxford Street.

Casper shrugs. "It's cute."

Cue butterflies. I shake them off and turn over a card, apprehension fading when it turns out to be a good one: a bank error means I'm owed two hundred monoples. According to Casper, the game's currency is actually called Monopoly Money or Monopoly Dollars, but it's always been monoples in the King family.

"I think we're due a snack break soon," he says. "Got to keep our energy levels up. I can't do serious business and real estate management on an empty belly. Ya boi needs to eat."

"Speaking of food, what do you want for supper? And don't say you're cooking, because you've cooked almost every night since you moved in."

"But I like cooking." He pretends to sulk. "It'd be my main hobby, if it wasn't so expensive and if I could eat as much as I want to cook. I enjoy experimenting."

"So ... what do you want me to make for supper?" I got doubles so I roll again, cutting Casper off with a cheer when I roll a seven and land on go. Four hundred monoples for my dwindling bank. I think Casper has about seventy percent of the money the game comes with at this point – I'm struggling, and so is the bank.

"I don't want you to make anything. I want to cook. I'm feeling like a stir fry. Something with a lot of veg, seeing as I've demolished about four hundred biscuits so far." Something crinkles when he moves and he lifts his thigh to find an empty packet of custard creams.

When we dragged ourselves to the supermarket after his shift yesterday, we were both hungry and the trolley was soon filled with a mountain of biscuits and crisps amidst punnets of fruit and a few actual ingredients. Alongside snacks and necessities, we managed to remember all the ingredients for a proper Sunday roast for tomorrow, something I never get to have when it's so much effort when living alone.

When we made it to the till after at least thirty minutes – a long time to spend trawling the aisles – I tried to pay, but Casper insisted it was the least he could do considering everything I've done for him. All I could think I'd done was to give him my spare room, which was empty anyway, and develop a crushing crush that has the power to ruin our friendship. Not the best gift, really.

"Stir fry sounds good," I say, sorting my money into piles. "Can't remember the last time I had one."

"I lived off it when I was a student." Casper takes the dice from me, making a show of shaking them hard and blowing on them in his cupped palms. "If I wasn't having beans on toast or spending all my loan on shit takeaways, stir fry was my go to."

"Sometimes I feel like I missed out by not going to uni," I say, "and then you say shit like that and I realise, nope, I made the right choice."

He chuckles. "Not a fan of beans on toast?"