Page 31 of Cabin Fever Baby

He laughed. “You really are a fan.”

I shrugged. “I like that the games are short, compared to other sports.”

“Like baseball?”

I wrinkled my nose. “No, thanks.”

He chuckled. “I’ll leave it on for background noise when I’m working.”

“Sounds like you’re always working.”

He set the last plate in the drying rack. “You would be right. But I’m still relatively new to Eden, so I guess I’ve been proving myself for a while now.”

“And do they notice?”

He dried his hands. “You know, I think they are. Maybe too much.” He snapped his towel at my hip. “But we are on vacation. Unless you want to talk about work.”

“I definitely do not.”

“Thought so.” He urged me out of the kitchen to the living room. “This place seems uber classy. Is it only first editions on the shelves?”

“A surprising selection, actually. Do you want to read?”

“Not really. Not that I don’t love a good read sometimes, but not right now.”

We moved to the bookcases, and I spotted a familiar colorful deck tucked on a lower shelf. I crouched down and gasped. “No way.”

“What?” He followed me.

I pulled out the old version of Uno Attack with the updated No Mercy deck.

“You looking to start a fight?” he asked.

I laughed. “Maybe. Chicken?”

“Hell no.” He took the card launcher that upped the ante on the already evil game. “My brothers may or may not have made my cousin cry playing this when we were younger.”

“Oh, I definitely made my sister River cry.”

“Ocean and River?”

I laughed. “Us girls got the vacation names.”

“Vacation names?”

“At least that’s what my dad called them. Bonus souvenirs.”

“Oh.” He laughed as we moved the coffee table to the middle of the room.

I grabbed two of the bigger cushions from a couch and threw them on the floor on either side while Hudson set up the game and started shuffling the mound of cards needed for the plastic card launcher.

I held up a finger, then I ran back into the kitchen to fill two water bottles for us. I could still see the tension around Hudson’s eyes, and I was willing to bet he still had a banger of a headache.

Testing the theory, I came back out with the bottle of Tylenol.

He sighed, but he shook out three without complaint, which told me I was right.

He did another shuffle, his long fingers doing a fancy bridge shuffle that made something inside me flutter.