“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. He said it’d be about an hour, so anything that we can play in that timeframe.” It was good that we were on a time limit; otherwise, I could’ve spent all day at his place.
As we played, I kept my eye on the clock, knowing how easily the time could get away from me if I wasn’t paying attention. After about forty minutes, it began to storm outside. Not just rain and wind, but bolts of lightning and heavy thunder that made his small pool house rumble.
“Looks like you’re staying longer than an hour,” he said, almost teasingly, although part of me wanted to believe he was excited about that.
Just then, another lightning bolt lit up the dark sky, immediately followed by a crack of thunder. It wouldn’t have been too bad if it hadn’t knocked out the power. “Yeah, and now it looks like we’re gonna be playing Monopoly instead of Minecraft.”
“No, we’re not, because I don’t have Monopoly.”
“What games do you have?”
“PlayStation,” he said with a laugh, though it was obvious he wasn’t joking.
“Then what are we going to do? Just sit here and twiddle our thumbs?”
Without saying anything, Jacoby got up and went to another room. A minute or so later, he returned with a few candles and a lighter. They weren’t the type of candles one would use to make a room smell nice. They seemed to be more of the “essential” type, which was okay with me, because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to weather the storm if he set the mood with some exotic fragrance.
“I also have these.” He pulled out a worn deck of cards from his pocket before taking a seat on the floor on one side of the coffee table.
I slid off the couch to take the other side, sitting cross-legged in front of him, a flickering candle between us. This could go one of two ways, and at the moment, I wasn’t entirely sure if I cared which way it went.
“I hope you don’t mind, but war is about the only game I remember how to play,” he said while shuffling the deck.
“Fine by me.” The silence that filled the room as he dealt the cards between us became too overwhelming, and I needed to fill it with something. After contemplating what I should say for way too long, I decided to ask, “Why do you live in your sister’s pool house?”
Apparently, he found my question funny, because he laughed deep enough—though rather quietly—to cause his shoulders to jump. “Would you like the long version or the nutshell answer?”
I glanced out the window, realizing that we had time for him to tell me every aspect of his entire life, so I said, “The long version will do.”
“Well, about four years ago, I bought a house with my girlfriend. We were together for over five years at that point, so I thought it would be fine. Which it was…for about three years. Then we broke up and had to split everything. I certainly wasn’t about to buy her out of the house and live there alone, and neither was she, so we sold it, split the equity, and I moved in here.”
I waited a moment, not sure if he was done with his story. When I figured he was, I said, “That’s the long version? What’s the nutshell story, then?”
“I broke up with my girlfriend and moved here.”
I shrugged while flipping a card over, taking his card for the third time in a row. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying…that was a much shorter version. Anyway, when did this happen? Like, how long have you lived here?”
“About eight months.”
“Any plans to move out and live on your own?”
We both flipped over eights, so we called out W-A-R while laying our cards down, and once we reached the last one, he gathered up the pile while answering my question. “Someday, but I’m not in any rush. I enjoy spending time with my sister, and when she has kids around, it’s fun to be the cool uncle…even though I’m technically not really their uncle.”
“I take it you like kids?”
“Yeah, who doesn’t?” He immediately shook his head and added, “Never mind, that was a stupid question. I’m sure there are lots of people who don’t like them.”
I stopped myself before I said something that would blow my cover—it wouldn’t be a far-fetched assumption that Tiffany couldn’t stand children. Instead, I decided to stick with something more neutral. “Dave works at a youth center. He’s always trying to come up with new ways to improve it so more kids will come around.”
“Is it local?”
“No, it’s back home—” I immediately caught myself. “Where we grew up, I mean. He still lives there. I don’t, obviously…because I live here now. Not there.”
Jacoby paused mid flip and stared at me through the flickering light between us. “Okay, you’re acting weird again. Do you not want to tell me where you’re from? Is that supposed to be some sort of secret?”
I waved him off with a laugh. “No, of course not.” God, I really hoped not. “He lives in Glenndale. It’s about seven hours north.”
“Yeah, I know where that’s at. I actually moved here from a small town about an hour south of there.”
“That’s where you lived with your girlfriend?”
He nodded, which I took as him not wanting to continue that topic.
But then he surprised me when he said, “I actually really loved it there—or, at least, that general area. I just didn’t see the point in staying when my family is down here. I do lawn care, so I can do that anywhere. Nothing was keeping me there, nothing worth staying for.”
“Yeah, I really love Glenndale.”
“Do you
