Ava fell onto Nic with a squeal of excitement, enveloping her in a hug until she gave in and succumbed to the inevitable. “Yeah, yeah,” Nic mumbled, smooshed against her favorite superhero. “There better be fancy champagne.”
Gwen watched Ava flit about the apartment like a hyperactive bee.
They had spent a very lazy morning in bed, during which Gwen had wished Ava happy birthday in so many delicious ways until around noon, when Ava realised they hadn’t acquired anything in the way of snacks for that evening’s game night.
Gwen’s assistant, Cari, came by around three that afternoon, having ticked everything off Ava’s shopping list, with at least twenty paper bags filled with everything from crackers to sangria.
“I see you bought out Whole Foods,” Gwen quipped at Ava in amusement.
“I couldn’t decide between a cheese board or a charcuterie board, so I told Cari to get enough for both.” Ava looked panicked. “Too much?”
Gwen bit down on her lip to keep herself from smiling. Ava was adorably flustered. “No.” She kissed her softly. “It’s fine. This is your day.”
Ava smiled, nerves calmed by the simple kiss. “Okay. I just want it to be perfect.”
“It will be.” Gwen leaned in for another kiss, hoping it would soften the lie.
“Hold on! Is that legal? Can she just take my sword?” Nicole looked as if she was about to stand up and punch something, so Gwen tightened her grip on her item card.
“The rules say that I can pilfer anything that you haven’t already added to your vault, and as of your last turn, your sword was still in the common area.”
“She’s right.” Ava shot Nicole an apologetic look that annoyed Gwen for some unfathomable reason. “You should have put your weapons in the vault.”
“Well, that’s just stupid.” Nicole huffed and slumped back in her seat. “How am I supposed to do that and attack Gwen’s pillar?”
“Um, you’re not. This is supposed to be cooperative, babe.” Soo-Mi, whom Gwen liked immensely, put her hand over Nicole’s.
“But she took my sword,” Nicole grumbled and directed a scathing glance at Gwen who took a sip of her wine, determined to remain unruffled. “You took my sword.”
“I needed your sword because I have the orb card, which allows me to move us through the Tombs of Wisdom.” Gwen felt ridiculous spouting this nonsense, but if she was going to play, then she was going to win, and winning meant having fastidiously learned the rules half an hour before their guests arrived. She also wanted Ava to see that she was trying. Trying, however, was definitely the mood since Nicole had arrived.
It wasn’t that Gwen set out to dislike her. It was that Nicole made it so difficult to be liked. She was prickly and insisted on always being right. It was frustrating. But Gwen could have forgiven all of it, if she was supportive of Nic’s relationship with Ava, which she wasn’t. Three years in, and Nicole still seemed to be waiting for Gwen and Ava to break up and for Ava to move back in to her shabby little Studio City apartment.
Gwen had once asked Ava if there was any chance that Nicole was in love with her, to which Ava had laughed so hard that she’d given herself hiccups. “It’s definitely not like that,” she had said, once she’d finally caught her breath, and Gwen had to admit that Nicole’s hostility was not jealousy so much as possessiveness.
It was ridiculous, really. Nicole had known Ava all her life. There was nothing to be possessive about. If anything, Gwen was the one who constantly felt left out of their inside jokes and silly meme references.
“I don’t get it,” Nicole was saying. “If there’s an item card on the board, but a quest card is not in play, then can we still pick up a token?”
“I think.” Soo-Mi looked lost. “Maybe? Ava, what do you think?”
“I think.” Ava looked around the table with a panicked puppy expression. “Maybe we should play Jenga instead?”
“Not again.” Nicole cried out, beating Gwen to it.
“Okay, okay.” Ava held up her hands. “Maybe we should read the rules ag—” She stopped midsentence and cocked her head slightly. Gwen knew what that meant.
“Trouble?” Both Gwen and Nicole asked, then looked at each other, startled.
“There’s another fire,” Ava answered, already standing. “But…it’s arson. I think.”
“Arson?” Soo-Mi jumped up as well. “You’re sure?”
“I’ve gotta….” Ava flashed to the bedroom in the blink of an eye. When she came back, she was in her suit and at the living room window. “I’ll be back soon.”
And then she was gone.
Gwen looked at Nic; Nic looked at Gwen, and Soo-Mi said, “Well, shit.”
Gwen watched the strangely familiar scene unfold in front of her, but this time, she wasn’t one of the players.
“Are you sure you’ll be safe?” Nicole was asking, as Soo-Mi furiously typed something on her phone, barely looking up.
“I will.” Soo-Mi looked up at Nicole somewhat distractedly, already inching towards the door. “Look, babe. My feed is already going crazy. I have to get down there.”
Emotions played across Nicole’s face—panic, fear, and ultimately, resignation. Gwen understood those feelings all too well. Which is perhaps why she felt compelled to say, “Take my car. My driver will get you wherever you have to be. That way Nicole will still be able to get home safely, and—”
“I’m staying,” Nic interrupted, “until Ava gets back.”
Gwen sighed. “I’ll open another bottle of wine.”
It was only after the door closed on Nicole’s goodbye that Gwen realised what she had committed to—alone time with Ava’s best friend, a woman who by all accounts was not a fan.
“Red or white?” Gwen called from the kitchen.
Nicole’s voice answered back from the living room, muddled with the sound of other voices from the TV. “Got anything stronger?”
Arsenic? She was tempted to call out but instead opened the freezer and got out her favorite bottle of gin, gifted to her by Ryan Reynolds. Martinis then.
By the time she got to the living room, Nicole was sitting at the edge of the couch, remote in hand, eyes glued to the screen.
“Anything?” Gwen set the tray with drinks down on the coffee table.
“Nah. The fire isn’t even that big. Nowhere near as big as the one on the 405 last week. I don’t understand the urgency.”
“But if Ava said it was arson, it might mean—”
“A Keela.”
A shiver ran up Gwen’s spine at the name. Keelas were known as a particularly volatile race from a sulphuric planet a galaxy away. They had been on the same ship that crash-landed and brought Ava to earth. Unlike most of the alien races that had been on the Andromeda, Keelas had no desire to play nice with earth’s law enforcement. Many of them disappeared into the world of undocumented immigrants and were never heard from again. Some, however, reveled in destruction, their preferred method being fire. Ava had gone up against a Keela a few years back and barely made it out of the fight alive.