They played. Billy bought Boardwalk with a gleeful cackle. Sheldon calculated the probability of landing on it and found it disturbingly high. When Billy landed on Sheldon’s Baltic Avenue, Sheldon charged him $4, and Billy paid in lint and a half-eaten granola bar.
“Did you really make a friend?”
Sheldon sighed. “Close enough.”
“That’s what Georgie said about his first girlfriend.”
The unseasonable Texas heat had driven most of Medford inside, but ten-year-old Sheldon Cooper remained on the front porch, armed with a stopwatch, a clipboard, and an expression of profound disappointment.
Billy grinned. “It’s a dinosaur.”
The family gathered in the living room. George Sr. stood by the TV, looking like a man who’d rather be coaching football than parenting. Georgie slouched on the couch, phone in hand. Missy sat cross-legged on the floor, already bored.