Page 27 of The Penalty

I grab the deck from the end table next to me.

“Oh,” she says, likely startled by my abrupt subject change. “Yeah, sure. What do you wanna play?”

She turns her body on the couch to sit with her legs crossed, and I get confirmation that she is wearing shorts under her baggy shirt. Thank God.

“You know how to play blackjack?” I ask.

“Yep. I used to play with one of my older brothers all the time.”

I shuffle the deck. “Oh, yeah? Which one?”

“Oliver. He’s only a year older than me, so we were pretty close growing up.”

“What’s he doing now?” I like hearing about her family. I always wished I’d come from a big family, but I was an only child. She seems close to her family, though, which is nice.

“He works with a construction crew based out of Iowa. Builds office buildings.”

I nod and deal out the cards. She looks at hers. “Hit me.”

She wins the first round and gives me a cheeky smile.

“Are you a card shark or something?” I ask her as I get us set up for another round.

“Don’t be a sore loser, Tyler.”

“I’m not. Just trying to figure out what I got myself into.”

She chuckles quietly. “Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

We play several rounds, her winning most of them, until she finally yawns, signaling time for us to call it quits. I gather up the cards.

“I’m glad we weren’t betting money. I’d be broke by now.”

“We were all very competitive growing up. Card games. Board games. Tic-tac-toe. We made anything a competition.”

“I feel bad for your brothers. It seems like you probably took them down every chance you could.”

“Oh, absolutely. But don’t worry; they always got their revenge on me one way or another. We drove my parents nuts. They probably wondered how they got stuck with kids like us.”

“Nah. If your brothers turned out anything like you, then your parents were doing something right.”

She tilts her head slightly and smiles at me. “I should probably get to bed,” she says. “I have to work a double tomorrow.”

“Yeah, me too.” I look at my phone to see it’s almost three a.m. I’m usually a night owl, but even this is pretty late for me.

“Thanks for the company.” She stands, and I try so hard not to look at her long legs, not to wonder what they’d feel like wrapped around me. Unfortunately, I’m unsuccessful.

“Goodnight, McKenzie.”

She looks over her shoulder at me and smiles. “’Night, Tyler.”

TWELVE

MCKENZIE

The sun streams in through my window, and I jolt awake. Grabbing my phone, I see it’s almost nine. I can’t even remember the last time I slept in this late. I guess staying up chatting with Tyler made me more tired than I thought.

After I went upstairs last night, I decided to sleep in the guest room across the hall from Kylie again. She passed out when we got home from the game, and I didn’t want to wake her.