“You should smile more,” I tell him, an idea forming in my brain. “In fact, I’m going to put it on my list.”

“That seems like a waste.”

“Not at all.” I shake my head. “It’s a great smile.”

“How many times of day would be sufficient?” He’s amused now.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s always directed at me.”

My eyes widen reflexively and I want to smack my hand over my mouth. Why did I say that? Am I flirting with Barrett? That seems impossible.

His lips twitch as he rotates a single tile between his thumb and forefinger.

“I don’t want to tell you what to do—” he begins, but I start laughing.

“You don’t?” I laugh. “I don’t think anything can be further from the truth.”

He narrows his eyes at me, and I motion for him to continue.

“You’re not using your requests very wisely.”

“Oh really?”

“With the addition of me smiling more, you only have one request left and still four weeks before your time is up.”

“So, I’m maximizing the time I have with the requests I’ve made.”

He hums thoughtfully.

“I’ll be curious to see what you come up with for your final request.”

“And what would you suggest I add to the list?”

Barrett leans forward to place his tiles on the board. He uses the S from SQUEEZE to spell the word SHOWER. When my eyes lift to find him staring at me, my mouth goes dry. That single word sets off a highlight reel of what I walked in on this morning. The heat in Barrett’s eyes is unmistakable. It’s a perfect match to the lust-filled stare he pinned me with this morning.

Barrett earns a measly twelve points, his strategy is mediocre at best, yet he looks like he’s having the best time. He sits back against the sofa, those graceful fingers of his drumming against the table.

It occurs to me that Barrett isn’t actually trying to win this game. He’s playing a different game altogether. I think it’s called Make Chloe Squirm and the objective is to make me squirm. It’s an easy game really, and Barrett excels at it.

This is confirmed when he uses his next turn to play MOIST.

My mind returns to the car that first morning after I moved into his place and the WordIt that day was MOIST. So were my panties after he bent down to give me a simple goodbye kiss, which he thought I wanted when in fact I was only trying to give him his coffee.