Page 73 of Eco-Activist's Mountain Men
"One word. Movie."
I make a huge show of straightening my shoulders, squinting like a badass, and slowly drawing an imaginary bow.
"Robin Hood?"
"The Hunger Games?"
"Brave?"
I mime slow-motion walking. Then flexing. Then being ripped in half.
"Jesus Christ," Eric says. "Is it Rambo?"
"Gladiator?"
"No," Jack says suddenly. "Predator."
I freeze, then nod slowly.
"YES!"
I turn to Luna. "Boom. Cultureless deadbeat, my ass."
She snorts. "One lucky win doesn't mean shit. And it certainly doesn't redeem your knowledge of shot roulette."
The room dissolves into laughter. Luke's smiling too, actually smiling, Eric's stopped sulking about Dancing with the Stars, and Jack's still riding high on his A-Team glory.
And just like that, we're no longer four colleagues and a guest.
We're a family.
Goofing off. Playing dumb games. Eating chili and cinnamon apples and arguing about nothing.
It's stupid.
It's loud.
It's kind of perfect.
And I want more.
CHAPTER 22
Luna
Wow, what an evening.
I'd wanted to find a way to show the guys I meant what I said about leaving Kill Climate Change—that it wasn't just some impulsive outburst. I also wanted to bring us all together somehow. To see if we could feel more like a team—maybe even a family. If I could find a way to make that happen, I had to try.
I'd thought long and hard about it, and finally remembered a single lecture from my brief stint at university. Honestly, I didn't attend many classes before I dropped out, but one lecture stuck with me. It was onFestinger's Group Cohesion Theory.
The professor had divided us into random groups and told each group to go back to their dorms, cook a shared meal, and then chat, gossip, hang out, play games—whatever. Then report back in the morning.
What we found was fascinating. Even though the groups were arbitrary, by socializing—by doing normal, silly, everyday things—we bonded. We started to care. We became teams.
That memory hit me like a flash of inspiration.
So I applied it here. I cooked us all a special meal, and then I suggested a game—one we had played in the dorm that time at uni, in fact. Charades.
