SPADE
“Do you have any favorite road trip games?” I ask Tanya four hours into our journey.
I fell asleep shortly after we started our trip and just woke up. For a moment, I felt bad about asking her to join me and then sleeping the first hours of our trip, but Tanya told me that I needed the rest. Even though she’s driving, she still doesn’t know where I’m taking her—I want it to be a surprise as long as possible. If she’s unfamiliar with North Carolina, I might be able to get us to our destination before she even realizes where we are.
She taps her hands on the steering wheel like she’s thinking over my question. “I remember playing I Spy growing up, but I haven’t played it for years. Sally loves playing Fuck, Marry, Kill whenever there’s only two of us.”
“Should we play that, then?”
“I don’t know if you’re ready for it.” She smirks, making me wonder what the hell she means. But before I have a chance to ask her to clarify, she continues. “How about we start with Two Truths and a Lie instead?”
“Sure. You wanna start?”
“Why not, let me think.”
“We have time, so don’t hurry.”
“Okay, I have my first three,” she exclaims happily, wiggling in her seat.
I lower the music and turn to her, my seatbelt feeling tighter against my stomach. “Let’s hear them.”
“I was a high school cheerleader. I was twenty-one when I first got drunk. I have two tattoos.”
I laugh as the lie is as apparent as it can be. “I know which one is a lie.”
“How come?”
“You would have told me if you had tattoos.”
She playfully hits her forehead. “True. I should have realized it was too easy.”
“So you were a cheerleader and didn’t drink until you were twenty-one?”
“My parents were strict about partying, and once they passed away, I had to care for my brother instead of partying every weekend. Sally dragged me for a night out on my twenty-first birthday. The hangover the next morning was brutal, let me tell you.”
It’s the first time she’s mentioned her parents being gone. But I don’t feel like we should talk about them right now. “I bet. Let me guess; you had too many Fireball shots?”
“And how would you know that?”
“There was a tray of them on the table when I saw you at the festival. I bet Sally got those, too, if you aren’t a big drinker. Am I right?”
“You mean when that jackass hit you in the head with a freaking glass bottle?”
I take my eyes off the road to look at her once again. “Yeah.”
“I can’t believe you noticed those at that moment.”
“The smell gave it away, to be honest. I think some of them spilled during the fight.”
“They did. But enough about that evening. It’s your turn.”
It’s surprisingly easy to come up with something that sounds like the truth but is a lie. “Okay then. I got my first tattoo at age fifteen, worked at Taco Bell before I started learning to tattoo, and have lived in four cities across the country.”
“Any of those could be a lie!”
“Isn’t that the point of the game?”
“I mean, you aren’t wrong about that,” Tanya admits, dramatically rolling her eyes. This woman has an attitude, but I enjoy it. Her comments are witty and smart.
