Chapter 33 Kiera
KIERA
With Spencer hauling the bucket of coins, I took my time wandering up and down the aisles of games, pondering the best choice.
“We don’t have all day, Bunny.” Spencer called, though I could tell from the lilt in her voice that she was having fun watching me explore.
“Don’t act like you don’t love the view.” I called back, dragging out my footsteps a little slower.
In truth, there were far too many games to pick from. I could have walked the arcade for half an hour and not seen everything. So I turned on my heel, walking backward as I smirked at Spencer. “Any favorites, keeper of the keys?”
“I don’t play much. The ‘job’ part of my job keeps me kinda busy.”
“I don’t buy that for a second.” I rolled my eyes. We’d already passed by Frogger, Donkey Kong, and Galaga, but I was craving something more tactile. Nothing was speaking to me.
Until we rounded the corner where the classic cabinets gave way to a wall of shooting games. And at the center of the shooters, plastered across the cabinet in sunglasses and a leather jacket, The Terminator called.
“What about him?” I pointed with my chin. It was hard not to laugh at how serious he looked watching over the arcade, movie prop gun clutched at this side.
“That your type?” Spence tilted her head playfully.
“Why?” I laughed, “Would that intimidate you?”
“Me? Never.” Sauntering over to the machine, she carried the bucket of coins like it was weightless. “Let’s give it a spin.”
Giving me my pick of the big plastic guns holstered on the front of the cabinet, Spencer slid a handful of gold coins through the token slot before grabbing the gun to my right.
The second the coins clinked at the bottom of the bin, the machine let out a long droning note, and the blue “insert coins” screen went black.
“Get ready.” Spence smiled, testing the trigger of her gun.
I grabbed my own gun, trying to get comfortable with the feel as a tinny man’s voice rumbled out. “It’s Judgement Day.”
Suddenly, the black screen opened to a pixelated wasteland.
The ruins of Los Angeles burned blood red beneath a white scroll of text setting the scene.
I peeked over at Spencer just in time to catch her mouthing the last of the words: “They lived only to face a new nightmare, the war against the Machines…”
I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t play the games.”
“I don’t now. Used to as a kid.”
Before I could press her on it, our tinny Terminator piped up with a new command. “Fire at will.” Suddenly, two crosshairs appeared on the screen, one red and one blue.
“Which one am I?” I waved my gun around the screen, trying to figure it out.
The red one let off a round, downing a drone as it soared over the distance directly toward us. “Not the helpful one.”
“Hey!” I nudged her, but her eyes never left the screen. She was too busy mowing down metallic skeletons armed with machine guns of their own.
Rolling my shoulders, I matched her focus, whipping my shaky gun around the screen and firing off at anything I could hit.
As one of the enemies died under my barrell, I smirked at Spencer. “See? Not so useless after all.”
But just as I was starting to get my bearings, the screen shifted, scrolling right as if we were walking through the battle field. Everything was a blur of motion, and I couldn’t keep track of the moving targets. “Shit…”
While Spencer cleared out the right side of the screen, I was quickly growing overwhelmed by enemies on the left.
“Fuck!” Before I could get a grip, a huge metal skeleton with blaring red eyes popped up directly in front of us, larger than life. I tried to aim for him, but the mechanical recoil of the gun made it hard to aim.
Spencer swung her crosshairs around, lodging a bullet right between his eyes before he could strike us. “Not that we’re keeping score, but that’s twice now that I’ve saved you. In case any special thanks are in order.”
“Oh, shove it.” I grumbled, squeezing the gun tighter. “Wouldn’t need you to save me if this fucking gun worked properly.”
“Hey, I know damn well that thing works. Serviced it myself.” Her chest puffed up as she shot another robot. “Only a bad gamer blames her tools.”
“If it’s so great, then you try it.” I grumbled, swinging the crosshair across the screen again, overshooting my target.
Not wasting a second, Spencer dropped her gun and stepped in behind me. Her character was taking tons of damage, but she ignored their cries, wrapping her arms around me as she reached for the gun. “The problem is that you’re panicking. Don’t swing it like this….”
She shook our hands around, making the crosshair dance across the screen. “Subtle motions are your friend. She’s a sensitive beast.”
Snapping our wrists just a few degrees to the left, Spencer’s fingers squeezed over mine to pull the trigger, mowing down a new crop of robots against a background of explosions. “Got it?”
“Yep…” I swallowed hard as she stepped back to her station and got back to work.
Her touch had done anything but calm me. Maybe it was just the adrenaline of the game, or maybe I’d hit my head after she picked me up at the bar, but all I could think about was the warmth of her arms wrapped around me and what it would take to feel that again.
I cleared my throat and tried to recenter as the tinny voice cut in again: “Hasta la vista, baby.”
We’d reached a small reprieve in the onslaught. To my shock, my character was still surprisingly high on health. Spencer’s not so much.
Exhaling through pursed lips, I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Kind of intense for a childhood favorite. Your parents were okay with you playing this kind of stuff?”
Spencer shrugged as she corrected me. “My mom wasn’t around much to keep an eye on what I got up to.”
I nodded, trying to hide the shock from my face. “I know what that’s like. My mom was always too busy with her stupid boyfriends to bother raising me. But I spent less time at the arcade and more at the library, I guess.”
“That sounds hard.” Spencer glanced at me as the next level started up. “I feel lucky that my mom wanted to be around. It was just life that kind of got in the way there.”
“Work?” I asked, lifting my gun back up to the screen.
Nodding, Spencer took one last glance at me. “Among other things.”
A round of crackly gun fire rang out from the machine. Now, mini airplanes had been added to our host of enemies. My aim was getting better, but not quickly enough to keep up with the onslaught. Spencer was taking hits faster than we could knock out robots.
I tried to keep my eyes on our attackers as her energy bar crept lower and lower. But there was nothing I could do to save her. After a few valiant minutes of fighting, bold red text flashed across her side of the screen as the digital man made the call. “Terminated!”
“Shit!” She threw her hands in the air.
“What do I—?”
“Keep shooting!” She cried before I could loosen my grip on my gun.
I squeezed the gun tighter, heart racing as more enemies approached me and more upgrades became available. I flicked my eyes to her side of the screen where a countdown urged her to put in another coin. “Spencer! Tap back in!”
“No way!” She stepped closer, watching over my shoulder. “You’ve got this.”
Just as her countdown hit zero, the level began to shake. New music crept in, discordant synthy tones announcing the beginning of the boss battle.
“Spencer!” My jaw dropped as a hulking metal monstrosity wheeled across the back of the screen and began shooting me with balls of light.
Spencer was jumping up and down now. “Shoot! Shoot!”
With Spencer’s coaching, I took aim, alternating between the oncoming attacks and the behemoth itself. My energy bar was taking heavy hits, a flashing red “danger” sign floating just above it. But I didn’t dare let up with Spencer watching.
Soon, the robot lost its head, then its arms, and then its ability to fight back entirely. Spencer gripped my shoulders. “Come on, Bunny! Bring it home!”
Vibrating with excitement, I squeezed hard on the trigger, shooting at the robot’s base until —
WHOOSH!
The whole thing exploded in flames.
“Let’s go!” Spencer leapt into the air, pumping her fist.
“I did it!” I cried out, matching her excitement.
Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around her neck, letting her lift me off the ground as we hooted out our celebration. The sound of explosions — and my character dying — still rang out from the machine, but nothing else mattered. I’d won.
As she jumped for joy, Spencer lost her footing, stumbling toward the machine. She dropped my legs, lifting her arms just in time to stop herself from crushing me in the fall — caging me against the side of the machine in the process.
“I’m…” She froze halfway through her apology, her gaze lingering on my lips.
There was only an inch or two between us. It would be so easy to bridge the distance, to lose myself in the celebration…
But before I could decide what I wanted, Spencer pulled away.
My cheeks heated. “Sorry, did I—?”
“No apology necessary, Bunny.” She gripped the back of her neck, craning to peer at the front door.
“You could have.” The words left my mouth before I could think better of them. They bubbled out even faster as Spencer furrowed her brow. “Kissed me, I mean. If you wanted to.”
Her eyebrows lifted just a touch before that cocky smile settled back onto her face. She lifted a hand to tuck a stray curl back behind my ear. “I know. But…I don’t want it like this. When it’s time, I want you to know what you want.”
She leaned closer, pressing her soft lips to my cheek. “And exactly how bad you want it.”
Based on her smug reaction, it was safe to bet my face had gone redder than my hair.
Spencer didn’t mind flustering me though. In fact, she seemed to thrive off of it.
While I stood a stuttering mess with my back pressed against the cabinet, she bounded back to the prize cabinet, speeding to get the last of it set up before the morning rush. “Let me know if those coins need a refill.”
I couldn’t catch a full breath: not when she was holding me, not when she left, not even as I zipped deeper into the tangle of machines.
Had I really almost kissed a girl? Kissed Spencer?
My heart was pounding hard enough to block out my hearing.
I wasn’t sure what had gotten into me, but it was clear that pushing off dealing with it wasn’t working.
Craning my neck to check that Spencer was still at the counter, I raced to the back of the arcade until I found a far corner where she couldn’t see me.
I just need a minute to think. Or to not think. Fuck, I don’t know what I need.
Desperate for a distraction, or just something to do with my hands, I reached down into the bucket, sliding three coins into the Ms. Pacman machine in front of me.
From across the aisle, I could practically feel the retro Pacman machine giving me the side eye, but as far as I was concerned, he could fuck off. Men had caused me enough trouble already.
As the last token clicked into the bin, the machine started up with a chipper tune before Ms. Pacman and her ghostly pursuers spawned into the game. The rhythmic chirping was soothing as she slid through the aisle with her singular goal.
It was meditative, calming despite the adrenaline of the chase. It was an easy way to keep my mind off of Spencer’s lips.
I still couldn’t believe how soft they’d felt on my cheek. Each time I imagined it, some unknowable thrum of energy passed through me. Was it excitement? Dread? I should be relieved that she had pulled back — most guys wouldn’t have — but instead, I just felt suspended on an edge.
What am I doing here?
I was pulled from my thoughts by the sad boop, boop, boop of the game. Stuck in my spiralling thoughts, I’d let Ms. Pacman get stuck in a corner and caught by the ghosts. It happened again and again until I was forced to feed the machine more tokens.
But no matter how fast or how hard she ran, my little yellow avatar wasn’t able to outrun what was coming for her. Before I knew it, I was out of tokens, and no closer to the answers I sought.
And if running wasn’t going to help me, there was only one place left to go.
Tucking my tail, I scooped up the empty bucket and made my way toward the front of the shop, looking for Spencer. The sign on the glass door was now flipped to open, though there wasn’t any sight of patrons yet, and I had to try not to scoff.
I told her no one would come in this early.
Spencer wasn’t hanging around there though, so I moved on to the back: to that bright beacon of a prize counter.
Apparently, you didn’t win many tickets running into walls in Ms. Pacman.
But maybe with another bucket of tokens, I’d be able to win enough to cash in for a finger trap. A girl can dream.
Drawing closer, I still didn’t see Spencer around. I let the bucket swing at my side, hoping the clink might draw her out of hiding, but she was nowhere to be found.
Maybe she’s still burning off the embarrassment too.
But as my eyes roved over the cacophony of arcade games, my eyes caught on something. A warm beam of light, streaming out from a cracked door labelled Employees Only.
I wrinkled my nose, tapping my fingers against the counter as I considered what to do next. It was probably rude to go barging in, especially if she was feeling as embarrassed as I was.
But on the other hand, I couldn’t stand to be alone with these thoughts any longer.
I’ll get a job here next month, and we can just call this early employee access.
It was as good a reason as any — as good a reason as Spencer would expect from me anyway. Taking one last look around the floor, I slipped behind the counter and started to push the door open.
“Hello?” I called out between knocks. “Anybody home?”
Once the door swung open, there were no words for what I saw. Spencer was sitting on a rolling chair, whipping back and forth between duffel bags full of cash and several bill counters like she did this every day.
But the second her eyes landed on me, her demeanor shifted from king pin to caught criminal. She shoved a wad of cash back into the bag, standing as she closed the gap between us. “You shouldn’t be here. You weren’t supposed to see this.”