“Come on, dude, that’s giving me too much credit, I got lucky,” I said uneasily.
“How many times have you seen Joel hanging out with the group?”
A shiver ran up my spine when I heard that name. I would have liked to have felt the full gravity of his point, but I was too busy thinking of how easily he could beat me up.
Kevin took my silence as acceptance. “There, yeah, see?”
“Are you trying to tease me about being a good boyfriend?” I asked, annoyed.
“Um, no,” he flatly replied. “I’m teasing you because you still hold your face up to your phone when you text, like a dork.” He slapped my phone from behind to prove his point. It instantly hit my face.
“Ow,” I complained. “Let me see how you text then. I’m sure Mr. Popular has soooo many text messages to answer.”
He gestured around. “This is how I text,” he told me. “Keep ’em on their toes. You see this pocket?” He pointed to a bulge in his pocket. “Inside this pocket rests about seventeen messages, all eagerly waiting a response from…”
I waited a bit with half-lowered eyelids. “…You?”
“Bingo. Yours truly. The one and only. Anticipation, Quinn. People wanna talk to me, and I let them know that it’s not gonna be so easy.”
“But… what about if you really want to talk to them too? If Morgan messages me, I want to know what she said and I want to say something back.”
“So, you’re in what we in the biz would like to call the ‘idealistic’ stage of texting,” Kevin began. I grinned in disbelief. Much like with Mother, the sun would be a lot closer to setting by the time he had finished his speech.
***
“Like a fuckin’ truck,” Crystal finished as we walked into Morgan’s house.
“What an idiot,” Morgan replied lowly, shaking her head.
“Was he okay?” I asked.
“After what he did to me? I didn’t ask,” Crystal replied with a vindictive tone. She flipped her hair past her ear and paused. “But yeah, I texted him like an hour later. Not, like, ‘I miss you’ text him. Just regular text him.”
“You still tried to go out with him like two weeks later,” Lexi pointed out.
“Lexi!” Crystal practically whined. “Can you fucking keep quiet about anything I tell you?”
“It doesn’t help that you all talk so loud you give Godzilla a run for his money,” Doug quipped from the living room.
“Hey Doug!” Crystal sang, not even caring about his dig. If I understood her, or even people, correctly, she seemed to have a major crush on him. She and Lexi quickly moved over to him.
They left just Morgan and myself giggling and looking at each other as we heard the inevitable ring from the living room. “Hey, hey, knock it off, I’m trying to play here!”
Morgan and I took the opportunity and stole a kiss. It turned out Crystal had a limit, and she wanted us to cut it out with the “high levels” of PDA around her. Lexi never complained though — probably too busy being jealous of us.
“You got two hot girls coming up to you, and you can’t even pause your stupid game?” Lexi’s annoyed voice rang.
“It’s Bloodborne, you can’t pause,” Doug angrily responded.
Morgan instantly rolled her eyes when she saw my attention spike. “Bloodborne?” I asked quickly, and walked over to view the screen. Sure enough, he was playing my favorite game, and struggling, though to be fair he was at a hard part and he had two girls clamoring for his attention.
Morgan caught up to us and clapped her hands once. “Alright bitches, let’s go. Doug’s off-limits anyway.”
“You don’t own him, you can’t speak for him!” Lexi playfully replied.
“Doug’s off-limits,” Doug repeated. “There, you heard it from me.”
“Deadbeat,” Lexi angrily name-called.
“Child,” Doug replied, with a suave smile. This was a game to him, and by he looks of both of their faces, he knew how to get under Lexi’s skin without her even coming close to getting under his. “Besides, you could do better than a deadbeat like me.”
“I’m starting to think not,” Lexi replied, a hint of genuine sadness to her voice. She got up off the couch, waiting for Crystal, and turned to me. I gave a sad, lipless smile at her, and she gave me the same smile back.
While Crystal attempted to keep talking to Doug, I turned back towards Morgan and leaned in close to her ear.
“I don’t mind to imply or rush anything, but-”
She turned to me and kissed my nose, giving me a chastising smirk. “I know I promised it would be just us tonight. I’m working on it,” she clarified. I smiled in return. Hanging out with her friends was fun, but… but to be frank, Morgan was hot and I wanted to fool around with her.
“C’mon, you two,” she turned back to the other girls, going so far as to grab Crystal by the wrist. “Time to go.”
“You just want to be alone with Quinn so you two can spend some alone time together,” Lexi complained.
“No we don’t,” Morgan lied, reassuring her.
“Jealous?” I asked, speaking at the same time as Morgan.
Morgan, in response, gave me a bit of a shocked face that quickly turned into a half-smile. “You are getting too confident too quickly, mister,” she chuckled. “Anyway, out.”
It took a little more convincing for the others to leave, but once they did, Morgan shut the door and sighed. “They’re a handful sometimes,” she said simply.
“I guess,” I chuckled. A beat of silence passed between us and I glanced off towards the stairs. “So, should we…?”
Morgan gave me the same half-smile. “Too confident, too fast,” she repeated. “Actually…” she continued in a teasing voice. “I was thinking of spending some time with Doug first. Care to join us on the couch?” She gave me a wink as she walked past. I could only laugh and join her.
Soon, the three of us were on the couch, idly chatting and watching Doug attempt to beat the Orphan of Kos, one of the most challenging boss monsters of the game. Something inside me wanted to dislike Doug, but…
“You’re okay, Doug,” I said out of nowhere.
I didn’t register that he’d just died to the Orphan and my comment came across as sarcastic. “You know what, fuck you, he’s harder than he looks,” Doug replied in the heat of the moment. He cleared his throat and chuckled a bit, as if to let me know he didn’t mean anything.
“Oh, Quinn knows Bloodborne,” Morgan told him, nuzzling into me. “It’s the game he plays the most often.”
“You are so hot when you listen to me,” I quipped and gave her an innocent kiss.
“Yeah, I’m training you to be hot in the same way,” she quipped back.
“Hey, I listen to you!” I protested.
“I know, I know, I was just joking, just kidding around,” she soothed me. “Hey, I’m going to get a drink. Like, a ‘drink.'” Either of you want any?”
Doug got to a safe point in the game and turned to us. “Uh, is that a good idea?” he asked. “Is he staying over?”
I turned to Morgan. “I probably can’t stay tonight of all nights,” I told her, then turned back to Doug. “But it’s summer. I actually kind of like walking home. If you want to drink, have fun, no need to give me a ride home.”
“You sure?” he asked me, fully serious. “I don’t want to leave you in a bad situation.”
I shrugged. “I’ll be sober anyways, so sure, why not?”
“Hey, cool.” He turned to Morgan. “Surprise me.”
Morgan disappeared into the kitchen while I watched Doug play. “So you’re really good at this game, huh?” he asked.
I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me nod. “Yes.”
“So why aren’t you bossing me around and backseat gaming me?” he asked jokingly.
“Because my brother does that to me all the time and I hate it,” I honestly answered.
Eyes on the screen, Doug started laughing a low, slow laugh. “Yeah, alright,” he eventually said. “I hear ya.” With that, Morgan reappeared from the kitchen, putting two glasses of orange juice down onto the TV table in front of us.
“Screwdriver,” Doug observed. He took one of the glasses and took a swig. “I said, ‘surprise me,'” he added jokingly.
Morgan just stuck her tongue out at him, took a swig from her own drink, and cuddled back into me. Around half an hour later, the glasses were empty and the drinks were starting to take effect — Morgan’s hands were getting a little more adventurous, and Doug was making more and more preventable mistakes. Luckily, he was also getting into it, so we could get bolder and bolder on the couch next to him.
My lips detached from Morgan’s, both of us looking each other in the eyes, trying not to make a sound, both with our lips and Morgan from her throat. Below a blanket we’d found, my hands also got a little adventurous (though nothing too crazy in front of her brother) and occasionally the sounds of dying Fishmen would drown out a small whimper emitted by Morgan.
Right around the time I got up the confidence to whisper in Morgan’s ear if she wanted to take this to her room, we heard an “ugh” from Doug, coupled with the setting down of the controller on the table. Instantly, my hand retracted from inside her shirt but stayed under the blanket, trying to play it cool.
“You alright?” Morgan asked, a little hazily. I smirked at her. She smiled shyly back.
“I just fuckin’ suck at this game, man,” Doug replied dejectedly. He eyed me and his head made exaggerated movements from the controller to me, back and forth. He was clearly as much of a lightweight as his sister.
“Alright, Quinn. Here ya go,” he told me, as if he was holding out until I was ready or something. He passed the controller to me.
“Yeah? You want me to beat the Orphan for you?” I asked.
Doug chuckled and closed his eyes. “If you can,” he simply said.
I shrugged meekly. “Okay.” I felt around the controller with my hands — a little sweatier than I was used to, but I could make it work.
Morgan pulled me back and whispered in my ear, “You’d better beat it on the first try,” teasingly.
I smiled back at her. The harder the boss, the more time I dedicated to learning it, inside and out. And bless her, even though Morgan had no idea what was going on, she was enjoying this power play between her brother and myself.
My smile got bigger when I got an idea. “Hey Doug.”
“Yo.”
“How many blood vials do you think I’ll need to beat the Orphan of Kos?” I asked innocently.
“Like, all twenty?” Doug answered, confused.
“Okay,” I simply replied.
Morgan audibly giggled as Doug understood where I was going with this. “Oh, no way, dude. Come on. You can’t play me like this, he’s one of the hardest bosses in the fuckin’ game.”
Great story! And..great story telling!