"Yeah, when did you do something with no purpose except enjoying yourself?"
"I don't remember."
"Exactly." I spotted the neon sign half a block down that read Game Galaxy Arcade. "Come on."
The arcade was exactly what I needed. It was loud and chaotic. Nothing serious could happen here.
Renard looked around as though he'd entered an alien world. "I haven't been to an arcade since I was twelve."
"You're overdue." I bought us a card loaded with credits. "What do you want to play first?"
He studied the rows of games. "I have no idea."
"The dance game. Come on."
I dragged him to a DDR machine in the back, and his expression when he realized what it was made me laugh out loud.
"Absolutely not."
"Absolutely yes. You owe me."
"For what?"
"For scaring me half to death when I caught sight of your wolf and for upending my world. Get up there."
He stepped onto the platform as if he was being marched to the guillotine. I picked the easiest song and an easy difficulty, and the arrows started scrolling.
Renard was a disaster. He had the timing of a man who'd never heard music before, and his attempts to hit the arrows looked more like a goalie tracking a puck than dancing. I was bent double on my own platform, missing half my own arrows because I couldn't stop laughing.
"This is humiliating." His deadpan expression had me giggling more. "I'm doing terribly."
"You're doing terribly with great commitment."
The song ended. My score was mediocre but his was so low, the machine made a sad noise.
"What's next?" He staggered off the platform as if he'd just survived a natural disaster.
"What are you good at?" I wanted to give him a chance at winning, much as I wanted to ace every game.
"Anything that doesn't involve coordination on a platform."
We tried air hockey next and Renard was ruthless. I caught myself watching him more than the puck and lost three games in a row.
"That's not fair," I complained after the third loss. "You play hockey for a living."
"But remember you said this was just for fun." He raised a brow and smirked.
"I'm changing my position."
He elbowed me and grinned.
The whack-a-mole was where we both lost it. Renard missed one and swore under his breath, I laughed so hard I nearly dropped my hammer. He kept missing them on purpose after that, just to make me laugh again.
Between games, we talked, starting with favorite foods followed by my college major and how he'd started playing hockey.
"Can all shifters control when they change?" I asked as we wandered to the prize counter.
"Most can. We don’t usually have our first shift until puberty."
