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And sheshook his hand. God, even thinking about it made her want to scream into her pillow in mortification. In front of Stephanie, she tried her best to look collected. “What’s that?”
“I just got a call from a certain Nathan Rondeau asking me how you were doing.” Stephanie’s eyes held the accusations and questions that her words skipped.
“You’re right, that is interesting.”
“That’s not even the weird part. The weird part is when he said something about you ‘calling off the deal.’”
“I didn’t call it off, I ended it per the terms of our agreement.”
“Well, why the hell did you do that?”
Tully frowned, growing defensive. “We said we would do it until we felt we’d gotten what we needed, and we have. Joliet’s finally been ignoring me and he’s going to make it to college. Win-win.” She crossed her arms to hide the shaking in her hands. “I don’t know what the big deal is.”
Stephanie shook her head. “The big deal is that you two are crazy about each other and you’ve pushed him away.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh yeah?” She gestured to the scene of the bedroom and Tully’s unfortunate outfit. “Then what’s all this?”
Tully looked down at her pajama bottoms, and the stain from a drop of orange juice she’d spilled two days ago.
What a disaster.
“That’s it.” Not even two minutes after her arrival, Stephanie was back off the bed, this time dragging Tully with her. “We’re going out.”
“Where?” Tully only half resisted.
“No questions. Consider this an early gift since I’ll be gone for Christmas. I promise it will make you feel better.”
* * *
When they pulled into the arcade parking lot, Tully gave Stephanie a hard look through the corner of her eye.
“Don’t look at me like that. I know you love this place.”
Unfortunately, it was true. She’d loved the arcade when she was younger, dragging Stephanie behind her for weeks, maybe months, on end. She’d played the games so much she’d at one point held the highest score on half the machines until her interest plateaued. Since then she’d come likely four times since starting high school.
Now it was Stephanie’s turn to drag her through the doors, and into the large, dim room lit almost exclusively by the blinking and glow of the variously colored neon lights and screens of the arcade games.
A few new ones stood here or there, but for the most part it seemed almost the same as her golden days.
“What first?Dig Dug?No, I know. I want to kick your ass inJoust.”
Stephanie was already heading towards the co-op game to battle it out.
Tully’s brow raised. “Kickmyass?” she scoffed. “Sure you will.”
Side by side, they took hold of their control panels and put in two coins.
Tully still had it in her. Even during the few warm-up rounds, Stephanie had no chance against her. She quickly lost track of their rounds, and winning didn’t matter as much as having fun and letting go for a little while.
They hopped between games, taking turns on all the machines that they couldn’t play together. Stephanie cheered her on when she got her name back onto the top ten board, and for a little while Tully was a careless twelve-year-old again with her best friend.
Her best friend whom she would have never lied to, and would have never hidden things from.
Her skilled movements paused and she stared at the green lines on the black screen ofBattlezoneas the enemy tank escaped off-screen.
Stephanie lightly tapped the screen. “What are you doing? You let him get away.”
