Truths by Candlelight - Part Two

William's hands trembled slightly as he clutched the cards dealt to him, his heart was like a drummer out of time, changing tempo and skipping beats as his lungs rattled with every nervous intake. It was so cold that thin vapors from his labored breathing spiraled into the air in front of his twitching eyes as his body vibrated between a disorientating mixture of a need for warmth and terrifying thoughts racing through his skull.

A thought occurred to him; what if he won? What could he even ask? As he glanced at Nicola's face, he would regret it for the rest of his life if he did not try to convince this woman to be with him. Sure, he had only just met her, and he wasn't an idiot; he knew that ultimately everything was against his favor. She was a tall, beautiful, sexually experienced, and intelligent woman in her mid-twenties; and he was a nerdy teenager, barely a legal adult, whose greatest accomplishment with the opposite sex was sometimes being affectionately described as ‘cute’ by his grandmother. But life had given him an opportunity, and so it was a leap that he had to take, even if there was no other landing in sight. He needed to know everything about her, and this was his chance.

As he glanced down and inspected his cards, he realized that Lady Luck did not endorse his endeavor whatsoever. Plain number cards were all he had to play, and so the game began. At first, they both only placed down number cards; Nicola was no doubt cognizant of the fact that placing a plus-two or a plus-four could prove disastrous if he had one of his own. Unfortunately, though, he didn’t have any such cards and even when he was **** to draw his luck did not improve.

They didn’t talk as they played, instead they each maintained stony faces hidden behind a fan of cards. As their hands both dwindled, Nicola was **** to play a card she had no doubt kept in reserve until now.

“Plus-four!” Seemingly for additional emphasis, she smacked the cardboard rectangle on the table so hard it sent half the built-up pile careening off the sides. Looking into his eyes for a reaction, a familiar mischievous smile crept across her perfect face.

“You don’t have any good cards do you?” she teased with bated breath. William’s continued silence told her everything she needed to know.

After that, the game ended with a blur of plus-two’s and skips to which he could only sit and stare numbly as he watched his pile of cards grow into an ill-shapen tower and hers decrease until the inevitable sequence of “Uno!” followed by a final card chucked onto the table’s pile.

“Hmm…” Nicola scanned him with her eyes mockingly, gently tapping a finger to her chin as she pretended to study him. “What do I want to know about William Huntsby?”

He shrugged. “There isn’t really a whole lot to know.”

“I must disagree there. See, the past couple days I’ve barely seen you. Every time I try to talk to you, you find a way out of the conversation. Clearly, you have a much busier social life than I initially gave you credit for, since you have no time to interact with me.” Her tone had transformed from its previous bubbly warmth to a scathing cold, every word a freezing gust of wind.

“I don’t – I don’t know wha-” He began to stammer.

“Why have you been avoiding me, William? That’s my question.”