Chapter 18 #2
“There are no friendly games, Riley,” Tobe said, seething. “It’s every man for himself.”
“What about the women?” Marta asked, crossing her arms as she twisted her pretty mouth into a smirk.
“Or us, actually, Tobe,” Riley replied, latching on to Marta’s teasing.
“Oh, fuck you both, you cheating witches. I’m going to pee. Where’s your crapper, Oscar?” Tobe stood up, and Oscar took the opportunity to go to the kitchen for more drinks, pointing them in the direction of the bathroom.
He was still laughing as he poured himself a soda and drank it by the sink.
His eyes settled on Aaron, whose eyes were bright, a million light years away from that afternoon at the care home.
Joe elbowed him in the side, muttering something that made him laugh.
Marta and Anna were chatting with Riley.
And Tobe was farting audibly in the bathroom just a few paces away from Oscar.
It felt like family, like a picture Oscar had wished to be painted his entire life. Something about it choked him with want, with the desire to freeze time and live in this minute forever. Inadvertently, he pulled out his phone and found Lucas’s thread.
They’d texted back and forth as normal, although not quite as much as they used to, and Oscar had missed it. Had missed him.
Spikey: Team Jacob, do you receive this transmission?
Luke SkyRacer: I do, chico. What’s up?
Spikey: All good. Just hanging out with Aaron’s friends and thought of you.
Luke SkyRacer: I miss you too. You *can* be a bit sappy sometimes, you know. Everything else good, though?
Spikey: Everything’s great. I promise. What are you doing?
Oscar had told Lucas about seeing his mother and costing Aaron his job.
He’d told him about arguing and about how disappointed he’d been in himself.
It had happened after Oscar had finally texted Christina back following her string of messages and missed calls to apologize for ghosting her.
She’d said she was glad he was okay and next time to call her or speak to a friend.
So Oscar had. He’d spoken to his best friend.
Luke SkyRacer: Watching Philip wheel the cart at the supermarket. He’s getting more kale. T.T
Spikey: You should sneak in some chicken nuggets.
Luke SkyRacer: Nah, I have a run soon. Gotta practice.
Spikey: I should get back to the game. They’re going to start fighting over the blue lots in just a minute.
Oscar refilled his glass and followed Tobe to the table, taking a seat beside them, and watched them study the board to check that nobody had messed with the pieces.
In the end, Joe won, which seemed to both upset Tobe a great deal but also fill them with glory as they declared any winner was better than Marta, to which Marta responded with an eye roll.
“Let’s play Clue. I know who the killer is going to be,” Riley said, sticking their tongue out at Tobe, who muttered expletives their way while trying to suppress a smile.
In the end, the killer was Aaron’s character, at least in the first round. The second and third time, the killer was Anna. As the night wore on, Oscar’s fridge began to empty itself, colas and lemonades and orange sodas being gulped down like they were racing a marathon and in need of hydration.
“I’m actually hungry for food,” Joe said. “Oz, you wanna get kebabs for the team?”
“Sure. Let’s go, Dot.”
It had become their little tradition to use these pet names for each other.
Nobody else understood the reference, but Joe and Oscar did, and although it was a good time with the rest of the group, Oscar was glad to head down to the street with him.
Maybe he’d been unfair to think of them as Aaron’s friends.
They were and they always would be Aaron’s first, but in a strange and unexpected turn of events, Oscar had found himself loving Joe a little better than most people he knew.
“Tobe’s actually just competitive,” Joe explained while they waited for their kebabs and sipped on ice cold sodas. “They’re the sweetest thing. Riley really looks up to them.”
“Looks up to you, too,” Oscar said, swinging his legs beneath the bench.
Outside, the streets were dead. This was not the living part of town on Saturday nights, and everybody else had gone to sleep. A delivery man rolled in on a motorbike, ready to pick up the order that preceded theirs.
“I’m a big brother too, you know.”
“You should have invited them tonight,” Joe said. “If you get along.”
“Oh, yeah. Lina’s amazing,” Oscar replied. His phone buzzed, stopping him from the long-winded story he’d planned to tell about Ryan.
Luke SkyRacer: Hey, I was talking to Phil. Do you guys ever wanna have a video call? Like a…digital double date? I’d love to meet Aaron, and Philip would like to talk to you properly instead of just shouting hellos from across the house
A light sparked in Oscar’s chest, weaving a tapestry that told him perhaps he and Aaron could have all of it—their friendships, joint and separate, together and shared. He smiled down at his phone, preparing a reply.
“What are you smiling at?” Joe asked. “Don’t tell me he’s texted you he misses you already.”
“I mean, he surely does,” Oscar said, narrowing his eyes at Joe. “But it’s actually Lucas. You know, I told you about all his gaming, but I’ve never spoken about the other things you have in common.”
“Is he a gymbro, too?” Joe asked, and his laugh brought spring to the end of September, reminding Oscar just how well he liked him.
“Yeah,” Oscar replied, mouth twitching. “Something like that.”