Page 66 of Game Over

“I told you I’m bad,” I said.

“You’re not bad. You just need some help. Here, try again.” The ball went flying up as she shot it, and I tracked it. It fell down, and I hit it the way I normally would have.

“Try later this time,” she instructed.

“Later?” I asked.

She hummed her affirmation next to me. “It will send the ball higher up.”

I tried what she said, and realized it didn’t matter anyway. The ball shot back right between the flappers, so I couldn’t hit it at all.

“Again,” she said like she was my drill sergeant and this wasn’t just pinball in a very mid mall arcade.

The ball flew up the shooter lane and back into play. There were only two left and I was determined to make this count.

I did as she said this time. As it came down I waited, trying not to hit it until the last second. At this point my palms were sweaty, nerves getting to me.

It seemed her enthusiasm was wearing off on me.

But as the ball came down and touched the very tip of the flapper, it launched up, smacking through the little door and around the top. It pinged around, the points racking up on the screen above. When it bounced back down, it came through the little ramp on the side, making it easy to shoot right back up once more.

Every bounce was like a hit of dopamine to my system. The screen above showed crazy animation before yelling “Combo.” Spiderman flew across the small screen as it disappeared, and the rush I felt was unreal.

I volleyed it around for much longer this time, racking up a 75,000 point score before it fell down one of the back gutters and disappeared.

I looked to Tara, and sure enough, her validating smile was waiting. “You did so good.”

Her praise made me heat all over. She bounced towards me and into my arms. I lifted her easily, my hands resting under her ass like a chair.

That’s where I normally preferred my face, but this was fine for in public.

“I had a very good teacher,” I told her.

“Told you I was good.”

“I never doubted.” I pulled her in for a brief kiss. “Why don’t you finish out the round.”

When she pulled back, the dreamy look in her eyes almost had me bending her over this table and having my way with her right there.

She slid down my body before turning and launching into the last game. She was so good it was astonishing, managing 250,000 by the end.

When the game over screen appeared ticket after ticket ran from the machine.

“Want to go earn a few more and maybe grab a prize?”

“Yes please.”

We played a ton of games. I beat her at basketball shots, and she quickly returned the favor when we played Alien Exterminator, but she always had the advantage on first person shooters.

City Fighter is where it got really intense. We were pretty evenly matched, so every hit count and every missed dodge hit harder. It was tied in overtime going into the final match.

“You’re going down, Martin,” she said, and she smashed the buttons in front of her.

“In your dreams.” I’d somewhat learned the combos in the time we’d been playing, but it was still a lot of button mashing and praying, which seemed to be both of our strategies, and working moderately well.

We were both down to a sliver when I used my special attack, hoping it would take her out. What I didn’t expect was the dodge at the exact same moment, making me totally miss. It took me so off guard that she was able to use hers. I was just barely too late to dodge, and she landed that final hit.

“GAME OVER” flashed across my half of the screen while “VICTORY” flashed across hers.

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