Page 25 of Game Over

“My favorite IPA,” Charlie said as he took the tall, green can with a moose on it.

I passed Tara her blueberry seltzer, earning myself a soft, “Thanks baby,” and a chaste kiss against my lips.

“You guys having fun with skeeball?” I asked, taking a sip of my own drink. It had a lemony hint that added to the earthiness of the tea and the subtle burn of the alcohol… shamefully undercut by the sharp flavor of aspartame, but I would survive it.

“A blast,” Charlie said easily. “You know how much I love this game.”

Tara hissed beside him, her eyes narrowed as she looked up at the alpha irritably.. “You told me you hadn’t played in years!”

Charlie’s smirk was almost… confident. The weirdness, it seemed, was set to continue. “Well, that might have been a bit of ateenytinylie.”

I laughed, unable to help it. “Charlie might as well have been the team captain of skeeball in school. He was almost unstoppable. If they gave out scholarships for that kind of thing he would’ve had it made.”

Tara opened and closed her mouth in outrage, the effect so fishlike she kind of reminded me of the koi they kept in those big tanks at sushi restaurants.. “You tricked me!"

“All's fair in love and skeeball,” Charlie quipped. “Isn't that how the saying goes?”

That time I wassureI caught it.

Charlie, lovable dork and painfully dweebish loser best friend of my entire life—was flirting with my girlfriend.

I didn’t know if I should be appalled or thrilled.

Tara was trying to hold a pout, but it very obviously wasn't working. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips, plush and glossy and so pink as they turned upwards, finally breaking into an incredulous laugh.

I couldn’t help but laugh along with her, the sound infectious.

“Well I want to play something else then,” she insisted, glancing around the room as she took another long drink from her can. “Can’t let you think that I’m not a serious competitor.”

I followed her line of sight, taking in the options as seriously as if we were considering the purchase of a multi-million-dollar art piece. Over the typical din of the barcade, the telltale‘chink’of a puck hitting the edges of a metal play arena reached my ears. The solution to Tara’s problem immediately became obvious.

“Air hockey,” I said, jerking my thumb in the general direction of the noise. “Pretty sure there’s a table back that way.”

Tara turned to look at me with victory burning in her dark eyes.

The girl was good at almost anything that required quick reflexes, and though arcades weren't really her thing as a whole, there were a few games she could get behind. Air hockey was one of them. I’d found that out during one of our first dates after being stomped three times in a row—she swore that the blue razz slushie I’d bought for her as a prize afterwards was the best of her life. To me, it just tasted like cold, bitter defeat.

“Air hockey,” she repeated eagerly. Her hand found mine, warm fingers twining as she led us through the maze of games in the direction of the tables leaving Charlie toddling after us like a puppy. “Now that’s something I can do.”

A pair of frat guys were playing on the far side table, but luckily there was a second as we approached. The white acrylic was chipping away in some spots from the puck slamming against the boards, grey streaks against the play arena from abundant use. The painted surface of the playfield, accented in bright red and blue that matched the outside of the table, looked like your typical hockey arena, a dupe of the ice shown overhead as the playoffs played on the big screens. A metal scoreboard hung above the ice facing either direction, set to a welcoming 0-0.

“What’re the teams?" Charlie asked.

Tara’s head whipped towards him so fast her hair almost flung around and hit her in the face. “What, you too scared to face me alone, alpha? Or are you secretly some air hockey wizard as well?”

I busied myself with my drink, not wanting to get into the middle.

“Nah,” he assured. “Skeeball is really where my arcade expertise starts and ends. Don’t worry, Tara.”

She turned to me expectantly. “Is he lying? And you have to tell me, I know he's your best friend but I'm your girlfriend so you can't take his side.”

“Theyhaveto take my side,” Charlie insisted. “They've known me the longest.”

Tara rolled her eyes. “Maybe. But there are things I do for him that I can assure you are much more persuasive than sunk cost fallacy.”

Her comment landed, Charlie shifting on his feet uncertainly. But it didn’t take him long to recover. “Come on tell her Jesse, we both know I'm horrible at this game.”

I felt two pairs of eyes on me before I met them, sighing. It felt like I’d been thrown in the middle of a couples argument,which was a little weird since I was one of the two people in the couple present.

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