Chapter 4
I hopped out of Jason's car before he’d even fully braked in the parking lot. His scent, too close to toothpaste to be anywhere near the realm of sexy, had been fine in the playtest room. But paired with the smell of stale cigarettes in his car?
Fucking pass.
It took everything in me not to gag; the tension headache brewing near my temples dragging my mood into the pits of hell.
Though I’d tagged along with Tara and her pack a few times to enjoy the barcade’s cheap beers and pretty reasonable play-all-you-want pass, I never quite got over the way the outside of the building looked.
Tucked into a strip mall boasting a law firm next door and a funeral home on the far end, the place didn’t exactly scream cheerful and lively from the outside, but the inside was something else entirely.
Jason offered to drive me, and I wasn’t feeling up to the task of sweet-talking Dorothy for her to decide she didn’t want to start this far away from home, so I accepted.
Big mistake.
I would’ve taken a hundred rounds of Pop Goes the Weasel to avoid his half-hearted attempts to tell me that the omega his pack was seeing wasn’t interested in him as much as the other guys. Desperation hung off the dude almost as bad as his scent, and neither was remotely appealing to me.
“Hey, wait!” Jason called as I booked it for the door.
“It’s cold!” I complained, the early winter chill biting into the bare skin of my thighs, barely a factor as I nearly jogged for the warmth of the barcade.
My eyes didn’t take long to adjust to the interior, the bright lights of the games combating the relative gloom of the space, evening out to somewhere near the same amount of light as the sunset outside.
The walls of the warehouse-sized room were painted matte black, absorbing some of the visual clutter of the game cabinets, taking up as much of the floor as possible, inviting players to try their luck at setting new high scores.
Or, if it suited them, deeply embarrassing themselves in front of their friends while they scored so abysmally low that it was a totally different kind of record.
"Do you wanna grab a game card and play a few rounds before everyone gets here?" Jason asked as he came up behind me, panting softly from his short jog.
Pathetic.
I fought my baser, mean-girl urges as I turned to him with a smile. “Sounds like a plan!”
Before I could consider my next move or come up with an idea of what I wanted to play, Jason corralled me towards the bar.
The bartender—not the usual sort of surly guy with long wavy hair that I was used to—seemed a little distracted when we walked up, staring into space in the direction of the game floor.
When he didn't instantly greet us, Jason cleared his throat loudly.
I elbowed him, shooting the alpha a dirty look that I hoped conveyed how rude he was being, but he didn't even spare me a glance, his open palm smacking down on the surface of the bar several times.
“Hello? Buddy?”
Unfortunately for everyone involved, it did get the bartender’s attention. He made his way over to us while I considered whether or not it was possible to use the sixty percent of my body that was water to melt into the floor.
He looked to be our age, with a mop of curls on top of his head and an easy smile broken by a piercing through his lip.
"Hey, sorry about that, I was uhhhh…” His eyes darted for the floor again, and this time I followed them, spying a young woman with dark hair smacking the ever-loving shit out of a Deathly Duel—a PvP or PvComputer fighting game—cabinet. “Never mind. What can I get you?”
"Do you have a pilsner on tap?” Jason asked.
The look the bartender gave me, which I returned with a slow blink of my own, spoke volumes.
What a douche.
“Yeah, sure.” He nodded to me. “What can I get you?”
I hadn't planned to get a drink, but with both of them looking at me, waiting for me to say something, it felt like I should. "Uhm,” I mumbled, casting around for the name of a cocktail, one I’d actually enjoy. “Do you do mai tais?"
"I can," the bartender said, offering me a smile before turning to get to work on the drinks.
"So…" I started, casting around for something to say. Jason and I always had the luxury of a screen between us, something that the longer I spent time with the alpha, the more I realized was actually a feature, not a bug. "Did you have fun at the playtest?"
"It was fine," Jason said, leaning backwards against the bar with his elbows resting against the flat top. "The maps are still a bit rough, but once they get the kinks worked out, I think they'll be a hit."
I hummed, wondering what he meant by ‘rough’, but not particularly interested in being mansplained to about frames per second or whatever his problem was.
Okay, I probably should have cared, given this was exactly the sort of player feedback that I'd need once my own studio was up and running and in the beta testing stage. But god damn, Jason was so not my target audience.
"It's going to be hard to top the last season, adding in those haunted dolls made the game basically perfect. The mechanic was inventive—the change in perspective to match the doll's height as you ran around the map cutting survivors at the ankle?"
He shrugged. "It was fine, yeah. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say nearly perfect. Like, it's good, the graphics are cool, and the gameplay is fun, but my audience is constantly clowning on me about my rank, so I'm thinking of switching anyway."
"That's cause you always just go for it without waiting for the team. It's a co-op game, playing with randoms makes it way harder than when you party up."
The alpha scoffed, rolling his eyes. "It shouldn't matter, you know? I always get put with a bunch of low-level feeders who don't know how to do shit."
That was exceptionally unlikely. Besides, I'd seen how Jason played. He was too impatient. Wanted to be the hero rather than use the co-op mechanics to his advantage.
"Or," I sing-songed in an effort to lighten the mood, "you're not as skilled as you think."
My joke didn't land. That much was obvious from the way his smile tightened, but before he could respond, the bartender returned to set our glasses down in front of us.
Little, tiny, minuscule kindnesses.
"Starting a tab?" he asked.
I put my hand into my bag, fishing for my wallet, when Jason said, "Yeah, leave it open, please. Together."
"You don't have to do that," I said, my hand still rooting around my purse.
"Don't worry, I got it."
I smiled, feeling a little nervous as I stopped hunting for my cards. "Uh, thank you. That's really nice."
The bartender took Jason's card. The alpha taking a drink from his beer reminded me to take a sip of my own.
Lime juice and rum hit my tongue, the alcohol a little stronger than I usually liked. I'd never been much of a drinker, preferring sweeter drinks to almost anything else.
I had no idea how anyone managed to drink beer—it tasted like if you left a bunch of bread in water.
So not comparable to the yummy, sweet, juicy drinks that I preferred.
"Wanna play something while we wait for everyone?" he asked, and I let him lead me towards the cabinets.
"Yeah, you're into like… shooter types. Right? Lots of targets and a handheld gun?"
Walking together through the space, the sounds of arcade machines pinging or playing intro music were undercut by an upbeat rock playlist filtering through the speakers.
Even for a Tuesday night, the place was pretty empty.
I'd expect at least a couple of regulars or maybe a few students looking for somewhere to unwind, but it seemed that Jason and I had the place mostly to ourselves. At least until our friends arrived.
Yippee.
"Yeah, but why don't we start with something to warm us up first? Everyone likes air hockey, right?" he offered, and I thought, foolishly, maybe he wasn't so bad.
"Yeah, sounds good," I said, letting Jason lead me past the woman we’d seen earlier just as she let out a loud, furious curse.
"Just warning you," the alpha said with a wink and a grin that, although did little to excite me, I had to admit was charming as he tapped a playcard from his wallet to the reader, making the puck drop into the far slot with a little clink! "I'm pretty good, so watch out!"
I laughed, feeling myself relax a little now that I had some space.
Maybe he wasn't so bad, and I'd just been wound up because of my nose.
It's happened once or twice before, when an alpha's scent really didn't sit well with me I’d get irritable and squirrelly for no reason.
"We'll just see about that. I'll even let you go first as a thank you for the drink. "