“Bring it on,” he said with a slow smile as he added our food offerings to the overflowing table filled with pies and casseroles. “I’ve got a new deck he’s going to hate.”
“Oh, we’ll see about that.” I grinned back. “I’ve got more than a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“Looking forward to it.” He nodded firmly, and I believed him. We’d play for the cameras, play with our friends, and no one would keep track of who won and who lost. At the end of the night, we’d hold hands, racing through a snowy, sleepy town to the warm bed waiting for us. I’d tease him about how he never saw my new frog mage coming, and he’d point out that his tinkering strategy had paid off. Still laughing, we’d crawl under the covers and forget about everything other than each other. We’d both already won the biggest prize of all, and no game could ever take that from us.
My old mantra of one more turn had become an infinite number of turns, both mundane and earth-shattering, all adding up to a life I wouldn’t trade for anything.