"And so, Lynn was cured of her gloating habit" Lincoln wrapped up the story. "Well, more or less: After the game she went outside and did her victory dance – but at least she didn't shove it into our faces!"

Quietly, Ronnie-Anne nodded.

"Man, that were some tough days" Lincoln sighed, leaning back and putting an arm over his chair's backrest. "I mean it was really hard for us when she started challenging us to everything, but it's a miracle we put up with her gloating for so long! We were pretty generous to let it slipso far – or pretty dumb."

Ronnie-Anne showed Lincoln a weak smile.

"I mean she taunted us, boasted about how great she is, and did her dumb dances and yelled her silly slogans! Can you believe someone would get so worked up over some board games?"

"Yeah, crazy" she mumbled. Her eyes were gazing off, while her fingers tapped around on her desk.

Realizing something was off, Lincoln leaned closer to the screen. "What's wrong?" he asked. "You're strangely quiet today. Did something happen?"

After a moment, Ronnie-Anne shook her head. "Nah. It's just…" Letting out a sigh she looked him in the eyes. "We had a game night here some time ago too."

"So?"

"Well, I just realized… I might have acted a little like Lynn there."

Lincoln nodded. "I see."

The sad expression on Ronnie-Anne's face turned into a frown. "That's all you have to say about this?"

"What did you expect?" Lincoln shrugged. "That I'd yell "No way" while gasping in surprise?"

"Well thanks" Ronnie-Anne murmured, resting her head against her fist.

"Anyway, what did you play?" Lincoln asked.

"Monopoly."

"And you won? Congrats!"

"Thanks, but it wasn't that hard: Grandpa refused to pay more than a hundred bucks for any street and made outrageous prices for his own. Carlotta wasn't interested in getting full sets, but rather gathered streets in colours which she thought were complementing each other – it was hard to convince her there were no extra points for style. Carlos would have been a challenge if he hadn't wasted all his money on sabotaging Bobby – poor bro couldn't do much anymore after Carlos bought all the missing streets of his sets. CJ and Carlitos were forming a team and had a lot of fun, but they didn't really play competitive. The rest wasn't paying attention to the game either: Aunt Frieda was taking photos all the time, grandma constantly left for the kitchen to get us more snacks, Uncle Carlos kept reading about and telling us facts about the game and Mom was so tired after her double-shift, she couldn't really focus. Still, I was pretty proud when I won." With some hesitation, she added: "Aaaaand I might have gloated. Just a little."

"Well it's not bad if you celebrate your victory just a little" Lincoln assured her. "As long as you didn't rub it in with a victory dance while screaming some dumb slogan like "Lynn-er, Lynn-er – chicken dinner"…"

Ronnie-Anne bit her lip.

"…Oh."

"I better apologize to them."

"Good idea. You should also be careful not to brag in the future after winning a game."

"Yeah, I don't wanna go through the same stuff as you guys – you know, get challenged to all kinds of weird games, winning them all, then losing because the others team up against me, trying to regain my lost self-confidence by turning everything into a competition before we eventually settle things over a faked revanche that ends up in us talking things out."

Cocking his head, the white-heard boy put on a thoughtful grimace. "When you say it like that, it kind of sounds like we should have just gone straight to Lynn and discussed things with her in the first place, and it would have saved us all a lot of trouble."

With crossed arms Ronnie-Anne leaned back. "Huh, you're right, it does sound like that… Maybe it' actually better to just go talk about problems instead of coming up with overly complicated plans to solve them?"

Both youths thought about this for a moment. "Nah" both of them dismissed the thought.

"I should have figured though you and Lynn would be similar with board games" Lincoln remarked. "I mean, you two are both very competitive..." Suddenly, his smile dropped, and a look of deep worry and anxiety formed on his face.

"Something wrong, partner?" Ronnie-Anne asked a little concerned.

Lincoln shook his head. "No, no, I'm fine. I just imagined you and Lynn on a game night together." He gulped. "It would be very… intense."

Ronnie-Anne's snicker sounded through the speakers of his laptop. "Yeah – it would probably end up in blood n' tears."

"Well you should go and work on your gloating habit, or there might be blood and tears in your family."

"Good point. Smell ya later, lame-o!"