Page 22 of Lucky Shot
I receive a thumbs up. I give it thirty seconds and then I pull one of the short dresses out of my bag and get his character in it. Once again, he’s pliable in my hands and I dress him easily enough. There are high boots that aren’t exactly feminine like the dress, but I love the way they shine. I add a string of dark pearls to his neck that I situate lower on his chest, so they don’t interfere with the collar.
Lastly, I add the crown I was forging. I kind of wish it was real. I’d totally make it and just set it on my shelf. Did I take a screenshot to save? Yes. You never know when something like it will be necessary in life.
The skirt isn’t so short that it’s obscene, but I like that the graphics are realistic enough that you can see that he is in fact a man under all these pretty decorations. If I had nail polish, I’d totally have painted his nails.
When I’m done, I stare at his character for a second. In my peripheral vision, I swear I can almost see him standing at the end of my bed. He does a little twirl, grinning at me, before fading away.
I hit the ping and wait. Five minutes is almost up, so he’ll come back one way or another.
PrettyInLace:You better fuck me now, god. I can’t believe you did… this is just so…
The sunlight reaching in between the trees glistens on a tear that streaks down his cheek. One of his hands touches the pearls while the other does the crown. I imagine he’s doing that so I can see what he’s looking at. How he’s feeling.
But I’m transfixed. Watching him show me his response. Once more, I see him at the end of my bed, doing these things. Maybe breathless. Shaking? Licking his lips?
PrettyInLace:Thank you.
I offer him my hand and he practically jumps into my arms. For the first time in a very long time, I wish there was someone here to hold. We don’t speak for a while. I think we’re both just staring at our characters embracing on the screen.
There’s nothing dirty going on. Not even kissing. They’re just hugging and holding each other. Maybe he needs to feel that too.
EIGHT
NOAH
My clock saysit’s almost noon when I crack my eyes open. When I roll over, I once again land on my tablet and a silly smile covers my face. I stayed online with Demi until well after sunrise. When my tablet died, I crashed.
I roll to my other side so I can peer out the window. We’re docked at the Isle of Kala. In the nearby distance, there are people everywhere.
For a while I just watch. I’m too far away to see what anyone’s doing, but I can pretend to see from here. When I was younger, I used to make up stories as I watched people to pass the time. Especially when they would stare at me for too long. The stories I made then weren’t always nice. I’d gotten out of the habit as I aged but sometimes, like now, when I can see nothing but their bright, highlighter yellow shorts, I make up a story about them.
They have a fear of getting lost in the water so they wear the brightest color they can so someone can always see them. Why not orange? Because it’s an offensive color unless you’re hunting. Safety first.
After a while, I roll out of bed and plug in all my devices. My phone is blinking, so I pick it up to see that the group messenger chat has an ungodly number of messages.
I open up the app, musing about how we rarely actually exchange phone numbers. We always use Spectrum Messager, even though we regularly commiserate with how much we hate Spectrum and their absolutely fucking ridiculous community standards. You can get ‘jailed’ by their bots for something that’s all hearts and puppies because they don’t employ actual people! The last time I was stuck in jail for thirty days was because I commented on a hockey post that the game was amazing, and I couldn’t wait to catch up.
Yep, that mundane. And apparently, it went against their community standards for SPAM. Not kidding. I don’t think I’ve logged in since. And that was something like seven months ago. Fuck that, community standards!
Don’t get me started.
Anyway… I scroll through the messages about who is going where on the island and their planned itinerary. Since there’s no electronics allowed on Kala, we try to give each other an idea of where we’re going to be and leave our phones behind.
It can be a little frustrating, but I also really look forward to walking around a place where no one can take a picture of me. It’s stupidly refreshing.
While it crosses my mind that now would be the time to wear something from my bag, I can’t bring myself to do so. So I head through the shower and slip into a salmon colored Speedo. On my way out the door, I catch sight of the shell necklace I picked up at a stand when we docked in California to pick up Roux.
I’m not even sure why I purchased it. We weren’t exactly on a big beach or anything. The shells were almost certainly imported from Indonesia or somewhere else.
But there was something about the strand that I couldn’t walk away from.
I bite my lip and remind myself that I’m about to step onto an island where no one can take my picture. Where probably very few people will recognize me, and my friends won’t care.
Grabbing the necklace, I put it on and then quickly leave my room with my sunscreen in hand. Azure messaged in the chat that he was heading to the island, so I know he won’t be around to lather up my fair skin. Although, when I look down, I’m still tinged in paint. Most of the color has faded so it’s dull, but the black lines are holding out. Now I just look like I have some very odd, not quite finished tattoos.
Not that it protects me from the sun.
On deck, I find the crew moving about and cleaning. When one looks at me, I ask, “Has everyone gone ashore?”
