I'm so tired that I can't think straight. So if this doesn't make any sense at all, or it fell flat like the last one, I'm really sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me lately.

EDIT: I am officially going to stop being so negative. So you know what? I actually like this chapter. Hah.

Well...I liked it after I posted it, read it a bajillion times, and edited it...a lot...:D

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Prompt #2: Queen

"I hate gin," Jinx mumbled, just loud enough for Wally to hear her. She frowned down at his battered kitchen table, which was covered in messy piles of cards, and wondered how long they had been playing.

Long enough for her to be bored out of her skull.

Long enough for her stomach to be complaining of malnutrition.

Long enough for Wally to rack up twenty-seven wins to her meager four.

There was a challenging, if flirtatious, glint in Wally's eyes as he rifled through his fan of cards, looking for one to play. "It's better than solitaire, isn't it? You used to play that a lot before I introduced you to the finer mechanisms of gin."

Jinx sighed and shuffled through her cards again, looking for something to throw down onto the discard pile. "Not really. It's pointless. And complicated."

Wally smirked. His devilish charm took her breath away, although she wouldn't admit it even if threatened at knifepoint. "Would you rather be drawing unicorns instead?"

Jinx's face heated abruptly, but she said nothing. She gave crap to him and he jazzed her back. It was an unspoken rule that neither could complain about the other's behavior.

But that didn't mean she couldn't get pissed anyway.

Jinx shuffled through her cards for a minute or two more, and then gave up. "There's nothing for me to put down," she complained, and threw the cards face down on the table. She huffed and buried her head in her arms, bored out of her mind. Wally reached over her forearms and rifled through her cards.

"Oh, here. Put down the queen of hearts."

She scowled. "I don't want to."

His achingly blue eyes were laughing silently at her. "But you don't have a meld for it. Seriously. Just put it down."

"What if I don't want to?" she hissed, uncommonly vehemently. She snatched her cards back. "Isn't it cheating to look at my hand anyway?"

Wally backed off. "Okay. Whatever. Don't put it down."

Jinx scowled and looked at her cards again, more to avoid looking at Wally than to consider her options again. There was another awkward minute of silence before she gave up again and threw the queen of hearts down on the discard pile.

"Thank you." Wally smiled, and it was like the sun breaking over the horizon after the long, cold night.

What. The. Hell.

I am comparing Wally's smile to the sunrise.

Oh, Christ on a cracker.

She scowled, irritated with both the complicated game and her own stupid mind. "Can we just have dinner or something? I've been your freaking prisoner of card games for like three hours."

"It's all practice for when you become my love slave, sweetheart." Wally smirked at his own wit.

Jinx rolled her eyes and got up to rummage around the refrigerator. "Whatever. Feel free to rejoice in the fact that the only way you could get a girl is through unlawful captivity." She managed to scarf down a banana and half of a Twinkie before Wally pulled her over to the kitchen table again.

"Hey!" She swatted at his arm, more than a little angry. "I'm eating."

He pried the last bite of Twinkie from her fingers and popped it in his mouth. "Not anymore," he laughed. Then, seeing the tell-tale irritation in her eyes, he rearranged his features into a remorseful face and sighed. "Sorry. Jeez. Take it easy."

They were quiet for a minute or two, Jinx seething inwardly.

A thought came to her uneasily. Why? Why am I always so angry?

She knew the answer. She had always known it.

To be honest, she hadn't even wanted the Twinkie. But when he took it, and his hand brushed across hers, and it sent that bolt of lightning through her veins like it always did…She was confused. So she let anger take over. Because it was easier to get mad at Wally than to allow herself to feel anything for him.

Anger eclipsed all emotion. Even when his beauty took her breath away.

Finally Wally stirred and gave her a little smile. "Finish this last round?" he asked her hopefully, and when she succeeded in fighting to keep the blank mask over her face, he nudged her playfully. "Please. One more game. For me."

For me.

Please. Do it for me.

Jinx wondered if she would ever have enough anger to shadow all that she felt for him.

It's one card game, she told herself. It's not freaking matrimony.

Her conscience was quietly elated at even the thought.

"Fine," she sighed. "I'll finish this one game."

Wally beamed and kissed her cheek, obviously delighted.

The kiss was nothing. A gesture of friendship. An expression of happiness.

But Jinx had to clench her fists and look down at the table to keep the neutral look on her face. Her stomach was doing stupid-ass cartwheels and backflips. She was seeing freaking rainbows.

For Wally.

Her only friend.

Wally.

He shuffled his cards, and Jinx looked up against her will. Just to glance at him.

And he was so beautiful. So devastatingly beautiful.

To distract herself, Jinx looked back down at her own hand of cards, laying one down on the discard pile, picking another up and adding it to her hand—and a thought came to her, a thought that gave her a painful little jolt.

She suddenly wished she had her queen of hearts back.

Because, she realized, Wally was the kind of boy who could let go of his own heart without a thought.

But Jinx was the kind of girl who was always holding it back.