“Okay, I cannot fucking wait to wipe the floor with you.”
“You can try,” I warn him as Parrish hands the controller back, and the boys accept my requests.
It might only be digital friendship, as meaningless as a teardrop in a rainstorm, but it makes me feel better anyway.
Parrish creates a match and invites the rest of us in.
He puts himself and his friends on one team and leaves me with a bunch of randos on the other.
Doesn’t matter.
Within five minutes, I find Chas and blow his head off.
“Holy fucking shit, Little Sister!” he calls out as I laugh and notice Parrish peeking at my screen to get a read on my location. Knowing what he’s planning, I make my own preparations, setting up a trap for him that goes off the instant his character enters the room.
“And it’s over!” I cry out as Parrish curses and throws his remote on the floor.
Fifteen minutes in, and it’s down to me and Maxx.
“I’ll admit,” I say, crossing my legs as I mash buttons absentmindedly—still kicking ass, I might add. “Out of the three of you, I didn’t expect Maxx to be the toughest one to kill.” With my left hand, I reach out and snatch a piece from Parrish’s package of red licorice, letting it hang from my mouth as I continue searching the battlefield for Maxx’s green-skinned alien avatar. “Aren’t you big into sports?”
“My family is big into sports,” he replies easily, which isn’t exactly an answer to my question. “My sister just got a six-figure deal with some sports drink company. Her entire bike got repainted with their colors and logo.”
I keep my character hidden in the attic of an old house, peeping out the windows as I wait for Maxx to search me out. I’ve rigged the trapdoor into the room with a grenade, but that was my last one. If he wants to climb up the side of the house and into one of the four windows, I could be in trouble.
“Maxine told me you were into games,” he continues as I check my ammo and realize that I’m dangerously low on bullets. “She also said you had a pretty popular Twitch channel?”
“I ghosted it,” I reply, crouching in the corner of the room with my last remaining bullet waiting in the odd-shaped purple gun that makes up my favorite weapon in the game. “Too much attention for the kidnapping thing.”
I munch down the rest of the licorice strand and reach for another as Parrish taps his fingers on the arm of his gaming chair and watches me like one might observe a new and unfamiliar species they encountered in the woods.
“Are you sure you’re related to Tess?” he asks dryly as Chasm snickers on his end of the mic. “Or is this just a nature versus nurture thing? You’re nothing like her.” The way he delivers that news, I could take it as both a criticism and a compliment; I’m also certain that wasn’t an accident. Parrish’s words are nearly always a double-edged sword.
“How so?” I reply innocently, watching the time in the corner tick down. If this match ends without me taking out X’s avatar, then it’ll be a tie and mar my near-perfect record. I wet my lips and stand my character up as Parrish watches, lounging back in his chair like a boneless prince. Or a rich, well-bred, cranky sloth. A mean sloth. A carnivorous sloth.
“She intends on using this kidnapping thing to milk every extra book sale, talk show opportunity, and dinner invite she can. You’d much rather dig yourself a hole and hide in it.”
I grit my teeth as I pop open one of the windows on the game and hop through it, eyes scanning the screen for X.
“Are you mad at Tess for turning a tragedy on its head and using it to further an already impressive career? Or mad at me because I value my privacy and protected space?” I swing around a corner of the crumbling house to find X waiting for me. That fucker! He read me well: he knew I’d come out in order to keep the match from becoming a tie. “Because both things are valid.”
“Little Sister might be a brat, but she knows how to debate,” Chasm muses as I find myself in a crouch, in a near stalemate against Maxx’s character as he hides on the other side of a burned-out van. In this game, I’m a human; he’s an alien intent on stealing my skin so he can wear it as a suit and invade our planet undetected.
I’m about to kick his ass.
“Tell us,” Chas continues, “what are your plans here? Do you want to rule Whitehall? Hide in the shadows? You say one thing and then do another. If you’d wanted clout, you could’ve just made out with me at the party instead. Now everyone’s going to be watching you.”
A hysterical laugh escapes me as I toss my gun to the right and then swing my character around the left side of the debris pile I’m hiding behind. As expected, X shoots at the weapon with lightning-quick reflexes, and I end up lurching around the back of the van to where his character’s hiding.
He has his back to me, so I leap on him and execute a bare-handed attack that involves pulling his antennae off. It’s his character’s weakness, and he’s instantly incapacitated. I steal his gun and end him, taking the match and a fuck-ton of ‘clout’ along with it.
“You think making out with you is a privilege?” I ask with another laugh, one that Maxx joins in with. “Now that’s hilarious. Aren’t you just Parrish’s shadow?”
“Ouch,” X murmurs, but not unappreciatively. I can practically hear Chasm scowling on the other end of the line.
“Should’ve known you had a stepbrother fantasy when you practically lunged at his face and took his tongue down your throat. Nice playing, Little Sister.” Chasm disconnects from the game and the chat at the same moment as I glance over to find that Parrish is still watching me. Observing, more like.
“Guess I hit a nerve,” I say with a shrug, taking the points I just earned from that match to buy my avatar a new skin. Parrish and I end up reaching for a piece of licorice at the same moment, our fingers bumping together as flames shoot through me. It’s a perfect analogy really, but even though the sensation is warm, pleasant even, there’s always the possibility of catching fire.
We look at each other as I do my best to not think about that kiss at the party; there’s a hell of a lot to unpack there. Neither of us is ready to do the heavy lifting of that baggage, I assure you.
“You found Chasm’s weak spot,” X agrees, the cool confidence in his voice a balm to that unruly fire. I fold the entire piece of red licorice into my mouth as I mull that over. It’s pretty obvious that while Chasm likes and emulates Parrish, he’s a completely different person. Not entirely sure that he’s figured it out yet though. “It’s better not to engage with him. He can be a spiteful asshole.”
“Whose side are you on anyway?” Parrish asks coolly, chewing on the end of a piece of licorice. “Your obsession with my new sister is becoming annoying.”
“I promised my girlfriend I’d look out for her, you dick,” X replies easily, and I feel a strange tightening in my chest. Ah, right, I’m an extension of Maxine, not true friend material in and of myself. The thought’s a sobering one, and I exit out of the game, logging out of my PlayStation account to keep Parrish from messing with my shit. “You kicked ass tonight, Kota. Play again tomorrow?”