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It was enthralling to watch him work—big hands doing such delicate things—and he had the devices repaired in no time.
We loaded up the game and settled next to each other on the couch. It was the best way to see the TV, but I couldn’t ignore the heat of his arm and thigh brushing against mine.
I was great at most of the games I had, and this one lingered in my muscle memory, so I won the first few races. But Cole caught on fast. By the end of the night, we were evenly matched with him winning as many games as me.
We spent the next few nights playing PS2 games and taking turns kicking each other’s asses. It was ridiculous, simple, and more fun than I’d had in a while, aside from those stolen moments I’d had with Luna.
“Have you ever modded this one to play anything else?” Cole asked shortly after he arrived one evening.
I shook my head. “Not the PS2. But I’ve got an extra Xbox I tweaked about a billion times. It’s easier to play with the OS on that.”
“Wanna put a copy of Hoarde on it?”
Seriously? Duh. “What kind of geek are you?”
“Same kind as you.” Cole was unfazed by my teasing question. “Is that a yes?”
“It’s a hell yeah, I do.”
Cole pulled a USB stick from his pocket. “Original game and source code.”
I grinned. “Fucking sexy.” I grabbed the device, and we hooked it up to my laptop.
We spent the rest of the night tweaking the operating system on the Xbox to support the older game.
The next night, we dove into decompiling and modding the code. But no matter what we tried, we couldn’t get past the loading screen.
I was bummed when Cole had to head out at the end of the night and we didn’t have the game up and running. The experience was fun, but success would’ve been better.
Day Three, we were spinning our wheels. Nothing we tried worked.
“We had some issues with this when we did our first builds.” Cole sighed heavily. “Some of the anti-piracy security we had installed struggled on certain machines.”
“If Luna were here….” I trailed off as her name tumbled past my lips. It hurt to think about her, but to bring her up made it worse. “Holy shit, I know what to do.” Something she’d taught me. I made a few changes to trick the party check on load.
When we started up the game and made it to the character selection screens, I whooped loudly. Cole’s yes was more reserved, but for him I assumed it was the equivalent of a cheer.
We fumbled our way through a level. It had been more than a decade for either of us, and games had changed a lot since this one was built, but it was a riot. We were laughing at how many times we each died, but better, it had been so much fun making this all work.
I looked up to see Cole watching me, heat in his gaze, and my laughter stuck in my throat.
Cole crushed his mouth to mine, and I grunted with surprise and desire. God, that felt even better than seeing it happen to someone else. He gripped the short hairs at the back of my neck, tugging and holding me captive at the same time, and deepened the kiss.
This was incredible. Not because it was physical contact and I needed to get laid, but because it was Cole. Fuck, the man could kiss.
I pressed a palm to his chest, hating that my brain had to put things on pause. “Is this… cheating?” I felt ridiculous asking, but the concern lingered.
“On whom?” Cole asked. “Our girlfriend dumped us.”
“But neither of us is over her, and I know you haven’t given up on getting her back any more than I have.”
Oz relaxed his grip on my neck, but didn’t let go. “She and I agreed to leave things open. That seeing other people was okay. In part so she could see you. I assumed the two of you talked about something similar.”
“Not in so many words.” Realization settled in. I’d let her assurances about the whole dating-two-guys thing make it okay, because part of me assumed I’d win her over in the end. I didn’t want that now. Not in the way that would push Cole out of the picture. “We should have.”
“I wouldn’t do it if I thought it would hurt either of our chances of winning her back, and I won’t keep it from her once she’s here again, but this is about you and me.”
I was good with that. Fantastic, even. I didn’t want more because it had been too long since I got laid. Cole was tugging at parts of my heart and mind Luna didn’t, and together the two pieces of desire built an incredible picture.
