12. Mackie
MACKIE
We’ve been dating for three weeks and I use the word “dating” loosely because our dates consist of two things: eating takeout on Zach’s couch while watching whatever movie we can actually agree on, or driving three suburbs outside of Seattle to some place where the chances of being recognized are low enough that we can sit across a table from each other and act like normal people.
There’s always a chance. We both know there’s always a chance.
Zach is the one who obsesses over it, pulling up Google Maps before every outing, checking how far we are from the arena, whether there are any team connections in the area, whether anyone from the organization lives nearby.
He does this the way he does everything, which is quietly, thoroughly, with the kind of focus that makes me want to shake him and also climb into his lap.
And then there’s the masochistic part of me, the part I don’t tell him about.
Because I wish someone would recognize us.
Not in a catastrophic way. But in a small, petty, deeply embarrassing way where some girl sees us together and knows who he is because he’s the sweetest person to ever exist and I’m keeping him a secret.
Some days that feels less like protection and more like a waste.
Tonight we’re at an old arcade in a strip mall three towns over, between a laundromat and a vape shop. I bought thirty dollars in tokens before Zach could reach for his wallet.
“Tournament. Best of seven. Loser buys food.”
He doesn’t even hesitate but I watch him go from what I think of as sweetie-fish-dad Zach to competitive-goalie-with-a-game-face Zach and it’s hot as hell.
I pick air hockey first which felt smart in the moment, but is what I’m now realizing was a horrible choice because I can’t get a single shot past him for the first three minutes.
He reads everything before I finish the motion, his hand already in position, redirecting the puck, and I’m starting to understand what shooters feel like when they go up against him because it’s infuriating.
But then when he slides the puck back to me he doesn’t even try.
Just gives it a polite little push instead of the deranged shots I’ve been taking against him.
“Zach, are you serious right now?”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“You’re playing like you’re delivering a hand written Christmas card.”
He gets frustrated and tries harder, overpowering it completely and the puck flies off the table and hits a kid in the leg.
“Oh my god.” He’s already apologizing, hands up, looking mortified, and the kid doesn’t even care because he goes right back to his game, but Zach’s face is red and I’m doubled over laughing.
“You just assaulted a child.”
“I didn’t assault anyone. It glanced off him.”
“You’re a professional athlete and you assaulted a child with an air hockey puck.”
“Can we not use the word assault?”
I win at air hockey, finally, after he gets distracted and I manage to get a lucky shot in.
He wins game two on the basketball shooting game but it’s like watching a robot with the same motion every time.
Same release point, same follow through, which is actually mesmerizing because his body basically doesn’t move except to pick up the basketball as it rolls back down the ramp to him.
Game three is the racing game and this one I actually care about because I love driving fast. Not in a reckless way.
In a my-dad-put-me-in-performance-driving-school-at-fifteen way, which means I know exactly how much speed a turn can take before you lose traction, I know what a car sounds like right before it does something stupid, and I’ve been waiting for someone to compete against who isn’t Kara, who drives with both hands at ten and two and won’t go five over the speed limit. That person is not Zach.
Zach brakes going into turns. Every single turn. I’m watching his screen from my seat and he’s treating this arcade racing game like it’s a driver’s ed simulation. Meanwhile I’m drifting through corners and cutting inside lines and I lap him before he’s finished the second straightaway.
“How are you doing that?” He leans forward, staring at my screen now instead of his.
“You just don’t brake.”
“You have to brake. There’s a turn.”
“You don’t brake FOR the turn. You brake before it and then accelerate through it. The car does the rest.”
“Mackie, you can’t just not brake.”
“I literally just did. I lapped you. That happened.”
I beat him by a full lap and a half and when the race ends he sits there for a second.
“Okay,” he says. “So the Costco parking lot thing actually makes sense now.”
“I TOLD you I was a good driver.”
“You’re not a good driver. Good drivers follow traffic laws. You’re something else.” He’s looking at me like he’s putting something together. “The yellow light thing. The way you take turns. That time you parallel parked in a spot I would’ve driven past.”
“It fit.”
“It fit with two inches to spare and you didn’t even check your mirrors.”
“I didn’t need to check my mirrors.” I’m grinning at him and this is the part where I go for it. “So now that you’ve seen what I can do, when do I get to drive the Mustang?”
“No.”
“Zach. I have been sitting in that passenger seat watching you drive your car like you’re transporting a wedding cake. It’s a Mustang. It has a V8. You take it to the grocery store at thirty-five miles an hour.”
“It gets me where I need to go.”
“It could get you there so much FASTER.”
“I’ve actually been thinking about selling it.”
“SELLING it? You can’t sell it. Why would you sell it?”
“It doesn’t really make sense for me. It was kind of a nostalgia thing.” He fiddles with the edge of the racing game’s steering wheel. “My dad had one. Before he left.”
And just like that, there it is. One tiny, little hint into his childhood. The thing he keeps locked down tight and never lets anyone see. I want to ask a hundred questions but I don’t because Zach gives you things when he’s ready and pushing gets you nowhere.
“Hey,” I say. “That’s actually really sweet.”
“It’s not sweet. It’s impractical. I don’t drive it the way it’s supposed to be driven.”
“I KNOW. That’s what I’m SAYING.” I bump my knee against his. “Don’t sell it. Let me drive it. Just once. Somewhere with no traffic and no cops and actual room to open it up.”
He looks at me. “Maybe some night. We could take it somewhere you can actually drive.”
“I know the perfect spot.”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “Of course you do.”
We play three more games after that and by the end of it we’re tied 3-3 because he wiped the floor with me at skee-ball.
He figured out the angle in about thirty seconds, which is genuinely offensive because I’ve been playing skee-ball since I was eight and I still aim for the 100 and miss every time.
He rolled consistent 40s like a machine and then looked at me like this was a normal thing to accomplish on your first attempt.
“When’s the last time you did something like this?” I ask.
He looks around the arcade. “I don’t think I’ve ever done something like this.”
And suddenly my brain just starts making a list of all the things he’s probably never done because he was training or traveling or being raised by grandparents who loved him in their quiet way but weren’t taking him to arcades on a Saturday night.
Bowling alleys. Laser tag. Making out in the back of a movie theater.
I want to do all of it. I want to figure out every normal stupid thing he missed and take him there and watch his face when he tries it for the first time.
I’m falling for him. That’s what’s happening. I’m sitting in an arcade and I’m falling for a boy who’s never played skee-ball and says things without realizing he’s breaking my heart.
He stops in front of the claw machine that we passed on the way in. The one where I pointed at the stuffed penguin in the corner and said ‘I want that one’ and he told me claw machines are just gambling for children.
He puts the last token in.
I watch him maneuver the claw with his tongue between his teeth and his whole body leaning into it like he can physically will it into position.
He looks like he’s defusing a bomb, completely locked in.
The claw drops, grabs something, and for a second I think it’s going to fall because they always fall, but it holds.
It drops into the chute and he reaches in and pulls out a small orange stuffed fish with one eye lower than the other and a fin that’s bent sideways.
He holds it up and studies it then hands it to me. “It’s Shredder’s brother.”
I look down at this misshapen little stuffed animal and I’m suddenly blinking back tears, which is insane because it’s a stuffed fish from a claw machine, but it’s also the nicest thing anyone’s ever given me and he didn’t even mean to win it.
He was aiming for the penguin. He remembered I wanted the penguin.
“He needs a name,” I say, holding the fish up to my face like I’m examining it so he can’t see that I’m about to cry.
“Muffin,” he says. “Look at him. He’s soft. He’s a little pathetic. He’s a muffin.”
“A muffin’s a bad shot.”
“He’s not bad. He’s just... gentle.” Zach reaches out and tucks my hair behind my ear. “Muffin.”
We leave the arcade hand in hand as he walks me to my car.
He opens my door and I go up on my toes to press a quick kiss against his mouth, pulling away before his hands come up to my face, because I know myself and I know once his hands get involved I’m not going to be able to stop.
He’s got morning skate and I’ve got an early class and the only thing keeping me from pulling him into the backseat of my car is the smallest amount of self-restraint and the fact that this parking lot is lit up like it’s midday.
“Your turn to pick next week,” I say.
“I’ll find somewhere.”
My phone vibrates in my cupholder before I’m even out of the parking lot.
Zach
For the record I let you win game 5.
Me
you didn’t let me win anything.
also you owe me a rematch and access to your mustang.