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“I’m meeting Shay there.” Maggie pulled a small pleather skirt out of her closet. It was short enough to just cover what it needed to, and Maggie knew it would hug her hips. She reached into the top drawer of her bureau and pulled out a loose cropped shirt covered in neon dinosaurs.
Audrey eyed the shirt, “And here I thought we were going for adult.”
“I’m not meeting Dean,” Maggie added, and flushed because she was hoping to end the night with Dean even if he wasn’t going to the bar with her. “I just thought it was time to leave PG-land behind and remember that I’m twenty-five and can go out and grab a drink with a friend if I want to.”
“I’ve been enjoying PG-land,” Audrey said. “Cal and I keep reminiscing about high school. We role-play that he’s the quarterback and I’m the innocent honors student tasked with bringing up his grade-point average, but really I’m bringing up his—”
“Stop.” Maggie pretended to gag. “There will not be enough bleach in the world to clean my brain if you finish that sentence.”
While she might not want the mental image of Audrey and her boyfrienden flagrante, their nostalgia was a reasonable explanation for Dean’s lack of advances. They’d been going on sweet, innocent, tell-your-granny-about-them dates. The kind that probably cemented Maggie’s status as a kid sister in Dean’s mind. She’d suspected as much, but hearing Audrey confirm what it was doing for her and Cal was the conclusive proof she needed. It was time to club Dean over the head with her innate sexuality—Maggie tried not to giggle just thinking that—or at least her adult status.
“Make safe choices tonight,” Audrey said, “And text me or Cal if you need a ride.”
“I’ll text my boyfriend first.”
“Fake boyfriend.”
Maggie sighed, shoulders hunching inward. “I know.”
***
The Dark Side had been open about a year, but Maggie had never set foot inside. The arcade and bar were pretty popular. The town’s two technical colleges provided patrons and the weekend gaming tournaments provided entertainment. With over seventy arcade games, a row of glowing pinball machines, and a room for Skee-Ball, air hockey, and more, it was a gamer’s paradise. A roar from the back room sounded the end of a round on the Super Smash Bros tournament.
Maggie cozied up to the big wooden bar and laughed as she saw the cocktail menu broken down into fandoms. She scanned the list, debating between a Hufflepuff-themed drink and something from the Pokémon section. She settled on a Metroid-inspired drink and watched as the bartender poured vibrant green Midori and coconut rum into a stainless steel shaker. As a final garnish, three strawberries floated on the top of the neon liquid. The effect was so close to the actual Metroid larva that Maggie almost regretted drinking it. The strawberries were the best part, each one clearly steeped in the coconut rum until they burst with a sweet heat on her tongue.
“Hey.” Shay leaned in for an armless hug, hands wrapped around two shot glasses, one with orange liquid and the other with a bright blue. Portal shots. “I was wondering if you’d make it tonight.”
“I wouldn’t bail on you.” Maggie glanced around the filling room. “Well, not without a fantastic, fake excuse texted at the absolute last minute.”
Shay threw their head back and laughed. “You are a refreshing delight, Maggie.”
“Let’s see if you still think that after I crush you at Pac Man.” Maggie downed the rest of her drink, tried to hide her wince at the alcohol, and slipped off the stool she’d perched on.
“Where’s your boy toy?” Shay asked. “He didn’t want to keep an eye on you tonight?”
Maggie shook her head. “This isn’t really his kind of place. I’ll call him if I need him.” She looped her arm through Shay’s. “Tonight is about you and me playing outside of work.”
“Really? I’d have thought this was exactly the kind of place Mac would love.”
“What?” Maggie turned her head to stare at her friend. Why was Shay talking about him? Surely Maggie had shared that she was dating Dean. Right?
“Gary’s here,” Shay said. “Does that still count as outside of work?”
“We aren’t on the clock, so yes,” Maggie said, trying to shake her thoughts back into place. “We’ll just avoid him, anyway.”
One rousing game of air hockey later, which Shay won by a landslide, and back-to-back rounds at Street Fighter, Maggie excused herself for a quick run to the bathroom. On her way back, she poked her head into the tournament room to see how things were going. Several large television screens projected the eight different mashups, and sixteen players sat with their backs to their milling audience. In true gamer fashion, most of the participants and viewers were men, but one head drew Maggie’s eyes like a magnet pulling cobalt or nickel.
Thick hair, a deep purple Henley, dark jeans, and a scruffy beard. Maggie watched Mac’s blunt fingers fly over the controller cradled against his palms. He wasn’t the biggest guy there, but the plastic looked positively tiny in his hands. She didn’t have to see his face to know he was frowning at the screen in front of him. Meta Knight, the little gray and black ball he controlled, flashed his knives and flew across the screen as a blue fox tried to out-kick and outmaneuver him.
Maggie rubbed the palm of her hands down the faux leather of her skirt and dragged in a shaking breath. Mac had pushed the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows, and she could see his forearms flexing as he hit buttons and circled the joystick. She couldn’t help but imagine how those movements would translate to the bedroom. Maggie took a step back towards the door, needing to put some distance between herself and the wrong man.
On the big screen, Meta Knight took the win, and Mac turned his head. Their eyes caught and Maggie forced herself to give him a thumbs up through a wave of heat. Mac dipped his chin in a nod. He looked devilish sitting there, ignoring the tournament proctor announcing his victory. The next round would start any minute. Maggie backed out of the room, Mac’s eyes fixed on her.
Maggie made her way back to the bar and grabbed another drink. She couldn’t focus long enough to remember what she’d ordered, but there was a bite of cinnamon and whiskey. The plan was to get pleasantly buzzed, but this drink also meant she could blame the heat crashing through her body on alcohol and not on Mac’s corded forearms and dexterous fingers.
Dean. She was supposed to call Dean and let him come collect her and cart her back home. Her short skirt, combined with the high percentage of male patrons, should get things back on track like they had been at mini golf. If she was going to break out of her comfort zone and frequent a bar, at least this one was nerdvana. And the drink menu was an adult version of spiked Kool-Aid and root beer floats.
The crowd was thickening, a press of bodies moving towards the bar. Maggie debated the merits of ordering her last drink while she still had a spot to stand. Three was the perfect number to get her just tipsy enough to convince Dean she needed a rescue, but not so drunk that she was unsafe. Not that she would actually be unsafe. She had Shay.
