Meet Me In The Hallway

My Suite

"Shit!" I cried, "I am never playing this with you again!" I restrained myself from clearing the stupid little letters off of the board laid out before me. We were stuck in the hotel today. The crowd out loud was huge and the weather was so hot. Harry's brilliant suggestion had been scrabble. His current self satisfied smile explained a thing or twelve to me.

"Haha! Look at you pout! Go on, cross your arms, that's a treat for me anytime," he pii texcto me as his face turned red from his over the top laughter.

"Fuck off, I think half of your shit aren't even words."

"Keep having your strop if you want, I'll go grab my scrabble dictionary, I promise I'm not cheating.he opened his arms and extednwsd them at me. I'd watched him the day before when we'd "accidentally" been at the gym at the same time. Mark had held his hands in the same manner while Harry punched away at them. I was tempted to turn his calming gesture on its head and start using his palms as targets for my fury.

And furious I was. Though I knew I was overeacting. It's not that I thought that Harry was stupid. I knew that he was really intelligent, that he loved reading and art. We had had discussion until the wee hours about the. 3am Harry waxing pretty about poetry was my favorite. Swollen tired eyes, see thru t shirt if he was dressed at all, his words slow but true. A weird mix of cuss words and praise. Awe for the way people could string words together. So as I sat there sulking while he fetched his stupid dictionary, it wasn't because I thought he was dim. He had a love affair with language, that much was clear. And something we had in common. I knew he was smart, my ego was smarting because I did not expect him to be smarter than me. I was strangely insulted that the boy who hadn't gone to college in favor of superstardom was able to easily best me at a word game.

When he had suggested scrabble, I must have been so busy hiding my own secret smile I missed him CheSchroeder grin. I was thinking of my youthful habit of reading the dictionary on days so muggy that the outdoors were out of question. It made me smug. All those words In my back pocket made me sit a little taller, like I was sat in a booster seat of knowledge. My head, apaparemtky was the only thing that was fat.

By the time that he made it back to me, looking less self satisfied and more timid, my arms were at my side and I was thinking about whether I would have to stomach my own bed to cope from embarrassment tonight.

"See Melly," ah, the big guns, "they do count re as a word." His finger ran down the spine of the little book and I usuallyvwould be distracted by the length of the digitC but instead I was feeling humbled by the contrition in his mien.

I let my eyes wander to his exhibit A. "Yeah, Yeah, I see that." There were times when my place as the baby and only girl in my family hampered me and I was aware of it. This was one of them. I was so used to getting my way. I was also used to winning. This was the first time Harry had beaten me at anything.
"Nice job, Harry!" I was gonna put on my big girl panties, "you are really good at scrabble. How'd you get so good?"

He at down by the board on the couch we had occupied before my fit. I followed him down. "Um, Yeah, my family is a really big fan. We play all the time, have, like, tournaments." I watched his lips form that word and didn't care as much about winning.

"Is that why you have a dictionary and a board with you?"

"Yeah, it was my going away present when I left for the fisratvtime. For tour. My, um, my mum," his mouth turned down, "my mum, she wanted me to have a little bit of home with me. When she comes out—"

"Yeah, I'm surprised I haven't seen her."

"Well, she was at the local shows, like Manchester, and I was just home. She's coming out for the big ones like MSG," his eyes bulged out at that, "god, Madison square garden!" He looked so cute, awed and homesick and excited that I was Fine if won every scrabble game we ever played together. I told myself this, but knew I'd be googling a list of two letter words.