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Chapter One
“I won?”
An incredulous voice came from the back of the store, and Wren smiled. A few dozen teens were crowded in the open play area with different board games spread out across the tables. It was a full house today at the Cardboard Sheep, and she was relieved. She hadn’t been sure if there would be such a great turnout with summer break on the horizon. Soon the kids might be away at camp or, it suddenly dawned on her, some of them might even be working their first part-time jobs.
A few months prior, Wren started the Teens and Tweens board-gaming event on Thursdays after school at the store. At first parents had been a bit reluctant, afraid their kids’ allowances would be spent on action figures or stacks of collectible cards. She had put up fliers in the community center and posted on the store’s social media sites about the benefits of games for teenagers, including confidence boosting and better social skills. Today’s winner, Alix, had been pretty shy and quiet a month ago, unsure how to play anything more complicated than tic-tac-toe. But Wren had started to see the teen come out of her shell, opting to play games she hadn’t dared to before, trying things outside her comfort zone.
“Let’s play this one now,” another teen suggested, holding up a box with a train on the cover. The other players agreed and began putting away the game Alix had just won, placing all the plastic components back in the box. Wren was grateful the group was following one of the store’s few rules—keep things tidy. Sometimes she’d come across a wooden token or cardboard chit strewn on the floor and have no idea which of the thousands of games in the store it had come from. Usually she’d sic Charlie Reynolds, her part-time assistant, on the job to search the internet for clues to find its rightful owner. They loved solving puzzles and their clever determination made them an invaluable asset at the store. But that could sometimes take hours, time Charlie didn’t always have in between studying at the local university and their other part-time job as a barista at the Drip and Sip. Charlie preferred “they/them/theirs” pronouns and it had taken Wren only a minute to store that in her memory. After that, she’d never thought of or referred to her smart and hardworking assistant in any other way.
“Wren, can you help us with the rules for this game? The rule book is confusing.” A lanky teen in a dragon T-shirt handed her a thick instruction booklet that was starting to fray at the edges.
“Let’s see what we can figure out,” Wren said cheerfully. As she sat with the group, teaching them how to play the new game, there was a familiar jingle at the front door. She looked up from the rule book and her good mood sank as James Iverson, her landlord, strolled in. For a moment, he seemed to hesitate at the sight of the back room full of kids, his dark eyes peering across the store. He grumbled something to himself, closing the door with a thud, and started toward the open play area.
While Wren floated from group to group as needed, James settled himself at his usual spot at a far back table. He had grabbed an open copy of an enormous, table-sprawling dungeon crawl from the shelf and began setting it up. As he did so, he muttered something to himself under his breath that she couldn’t hear. Maybe that’s for the best. . .
“Wren, there’s no air coming out of this vent,” complained a boy with wire-rimmed glasses, pointing to the air vent at the back of the store. “It’s kinda warm.” He took off his Hollow’s Way Middle School sweatshirt and stuffed it into his backpack.
“Oh, um, that,” she stumbled through her words, chancing a glance toward James’s table nearby. The vent had been broken for as long as she could remember, despite frequently mentioning it to James when she paid her rent.
James tossed a dungeon tile down on the table with a slap and folded his arms across his chest, covering the logo for the local deli on his faded gray T-shirt. “I suppose you want me to fix that?” He glared at her and sat back in his seat, as if daring her to ask anything of him.
The boy with glasses sat down, resuming his turn of the game he and his friends were playing. Red tinged his neck and ears as he looked over to her, an apology hanging on his face.
Wren sighed wearily and stretched her aching legs under the table. She had been having so much fun helping the kids, her mind hadn’t been focused on her usual pains, nor on all the things around the Sheep she still needed to do that day. James hadn’t been part of the equation of her day, and she didn’t want a scene with him. She faked a smile and tried to make her voice neutral.
“That’s okay, James. I know it’s an old system, but the other vents still work.” She got up from the group she’d been helping, teasing out a tricky wording in the rule book. She stumbled a bit, her legs buckling beneath her, and pushed herself up from the table. “Maybe I can just prop open the back door to get a bit of a breeze,” she suggested, and started moving slowly in that direction, her feet heavy.
“You can’t do that,” James barked. His tone was harsh and judgmental, as if accusing her of being stupid for such an idea. “You want pollen flooding the store? Or the wind to take the cards? You’ll have an avalanche of decks scattered across the floor.” He waved Wren away and picked up the rule book in front of him once more, shaking his head.
She stood there, her toes curling in her shoes as she tried to tamper the anger welling up in her. She didn’t appreciate James chastising her as if she were a child. Who was he to tell me what to do, anyway? It’s my store.
“Well, I’m open to other solutions,” Wren said, her voice laced with annoyance. She did not need James’s arrogance undermining her, especially in front of customers. “Perhaps ones that should be included in my rent?” She didn’t usually let herself become so agitated and annoyed, especially with James, but his presence had quickly interrupted the easy, amiable mood of the store. Why did he even come when he was in such a snit?
“You think you pay so much?” James chortled, his brow furrowed. He stood and let the chair screech across the wooden floor.
A few heads popped up from the other table, like meerkats alerted to danger. They looked from James to Wren and then tucked back to their game, whispering over the board.
“You pay nothing.” James jabbed at the air with a thick index finger, pointing at her. “I gave you and your hubby a pretty sweet deal because of what you were.” He gestured around the store at the aisles full of board games. “If you were a dog groomer or a florist, I would’ve doubled your rent. But I wanted a board game shop in town, even a bad one.” He ran his hand through thinning, gray hair that was slicked back along his scalp.
Wren winced at the mention of Marcus being called her “hubby.” James’s tone demeaning Marcus and their relationship. She looked around the open play area, where almost all the tables were chock-full of players. Seems like the very definition of a good game store to me. I can’t let him get under my skin. She arched her back, her shoulders straightening. “Well, we certainly appreciate your business and hope we’ve been . . . that I’ve been . . . a good tenant.”
She turned toward the front of the store, hoping James would let the conversation drop.
Instead, he followed her to the counter, nearly toppling a chair in his way as he did so.
She took a deep breath as she resumed her post at the register behind the front counter. One, two, three, four. . . She tried counting to ten, but annoyance still prickled at her. She could count to a hundred and the anger would spiral inside her like a coiled snake waiting to strike. Instead, she looked at the overstuffed sheep dangling from the top shelf above her head behind the counter, as if it were watching over her like a guardian angel. It had been a present from Marcus when they opened the store together over a decade ago. When pressed for a name, the couple had decided on the Cardboard Sheep because so many of their favorite games included ovine-herding themes, often even including tiny sheep-shaped game pieces. “Sheep are social creatures, and games can make even the most antisocial of us more gregarious,” Marcus had said. Some of us, at least. The fluffy face of the stuffed animal, no longer white from years of dust, and its black-button eyes usually filled her with a sense of calm, reminding her she could withstand even the most nerve-racking customer. Even if that customer were her landlord.
James wandered into the front area, a scowl chiseled into his stony face. Stubble rimmed his cheeks and red rimmed his baggy eyes. Maybe he hasn’t been sleeping well. We’ve all had days like that.
“Did you want me to look up a game?” Wren offered, trying to turn the subject away from the rental agreement. Sweat beaded at the nape of her neck and she fished in her pocket for a hair tie. Finding one, she pulled her wavy black hair into a messy bun, still looking up at the toy sheep.
“You know, this place isn’t living up to its potential.” James surveyed the store, peering out from thick, black-framed glasses. He tossed his head back and squinted up at the ceilings, his face screwing upward, shifting his glasses so he could see better.
“I’m always open to suggestions,” she said, watching him warily. She checked her cellphone, hoping her gaming group would be coming in soon, but slumped internally when she realized it was still a few hours from their usual meeting time. She pocketed the phone and sank into the chair at the register.
“I don’t mean this store,” James scoffed. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his black pants and shook his head. “I mean this building.” James turned once more and waved his hand at the far wall. “A little sheetrock and rezoning, and this would make prime real estate for student rentals. That’s where the real money is in this town.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together suggestively.
“Student rentals?” Her stomach sank as the reality of James’s words hit her. Would he really turn the Cardboard Sheep into student apartments? It was a popular real estate scheme in town, but she had never guessed James would stoop to that. How many times had she seen a single-family home go up for sale, only to be bought up by one of the sketchy rental companies and then chopped up into tiny apartments to maximize capacity?
Sometimes when she took a walk into town, she would count the number of gas meters on a house, indicating how many rentals the once-grand home had been subdivided into. More than once, she had counted upwards of eight on homes not much bigger than the one she and Marcus had bought after graduating from Holloway College.
“The apartment upstairs alone could fit four or five students. Do you know how much money that is? Some of these overprotective parents pay top dollar for their precious kids.” He turned away once more, studying the store as if planning the layout of future apartments in his mind.
Not if they’re packed in like sardines with a broken furnace.
Charlie lived in the small apartment above as part of their pay for working at the Sheep. The apartment was a cramped attic space with irregular heat and sloped ceilings that they frequently bumped their head even in the shower. The idea of five students living up there was ludicrous. Maybe James’s pipe dream would never become a reality. Or maybe this was all an elaborate joke.
But what if it wasn’t?
Wren bit her cheek hard. “You know, James, I’m still hoping that one day I can buy this building,” she began. “I just need more time. The Sheep was Marcus’s and my dream, but it’s been hard since he passed.” She never wanted to use his death as an excuse for anything, but things had been more difficult this past year with him gone. She was starting to get the hang of things on her own, but a change in the rental agreement, or worse, would potentially shutter the Sheep.
“Sell? To you?” James sneered. “Why would I sell this place to you when I could make triple the money someday?”
“Because someday might not come,” she said sharply, harsher than she intended. She realized her hands were balled up into fists in her lap and she tried to steady herself, gripping the counter before her.
“Is that a threat?” James stared at her, the gray stubble on his cheeks making him look suddenly much older in the fluorescent lighting.
She could hear the roll of dice clacking against the table in the back room and the soft murmur of the kids discussing the strategy of their next moves. She would have given anything for Marcus to suddenly emerge from the play area once more to ask her to try out a new game. Or for him to walk in and take some of the heat off, redirecting James’s attention to an old war game that had been reprinted. Marcus was good at that kind of thing. He could handle even the most difficult customers and have them buying twice the amount they had come in for. But there was no sense hoping for the impossible.
“No, it’s a reality check.” She shook her head, the anger in her melting. “Take it from someone who knows. We don’t always get time to fulfill our dreams. Marcus and I wanted to do so much more before he died. And now it’s too late.”
James guffawed and narrowed his eyes. “Making money isn’t a fad or an idle fancy. Not that you would understand that.” He looked down suddenly at the large stack of games in front of the counter, ignoring her. He picked up a copy and flipped it over to read the description on the back of the box.
Wren tasted something bitter on her tongue and her face flushed. She opened her mouth, wanting to tell him off, but the words tangled in a knot in her mind. From the back room a squeal of delight erupted, and she took a deep breath.
“Wren, you’ve gotta come see this,” a girl in green overalls called out.
“Coming,” she replied, grateful for the interruption. She excused herself and stepped out from around the register. “I’ve got a lot to do, as you can see.” She plucked a flier from a stack behind the counter. “Our upcoming events. Some of these are sure to be profitable.” She thrust the flier toward James and moved past him.
James barely seemed to notice her. He glanced down at the flier and grunted something or other before crumpling it up and shoving it in his pants pocket. “Your husband knew something about games. But now?” He looked around the store, disgust contorting his face. “This place isn’t a business. It’s a daycare.” He tossed his hands in the air and pushed hard through the door, the bell smacking violently against the frame.
Wren winced at the noise and went to the door. She watched James stumble to his car and drive off. A phrase tugged at the back of her mind, something about hurt people hurting people. James had always been coarse, she thought, a bit curmudgeonly, even a bit of a bear, but today’s performance was more than anything she had ever seen before.
What had brought all that on?
Cheers erupted once more in the store, and she turned her attention back to the games.
End of Excerpt
