Chapter 10

TEN

MAEVE

“I don’t play for keeps.” I tossed back all of the digital currency I’d won onto the virtual green table. “Unless it’s against real competition.”

“How kind of you,” one of the losers said with dry sarcasm.

“I’m bored now. Catch you next time.”

“No thanks,” one of the other losers said.

I pulled off the virtual reality headset, shut it down, and set it under the counter. Then I plopped down on my bean bag chair and took in a deep breath of stale arcade air. Ah, life was good.

I’d walked around all morning with warm fuzzies dancing in my brain like sugar plums. It was the Elliot Effect.

We’d spent an entire night wrapped up in each other, then the entirety of yesterday too. It wasn’t just the mind-blowing sex that had me flying higher than Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. It was the pizza, and the gaming, and the talking too.

Gamer guys always thought they wanted a woman who shared their hobby until they got one. Spank him at his favorite first person shooter and he got all cold and distant and butthurt. Pretty sure what they really wanted was a woman who would bat her eyelashes, swoon over his mediocre performance, and fawn over him after he pushed her into failing at a hobby she knew nothing about.

Then there were the non-gamer guys, who thought all women should never be their own, independent people. They thought women should wear dresses and be both their sex kitten and their surrogate mommy.

There were probably a handful of exceptions to those two rules out in the world. But I hadn’t met any until Elliot Barlow, a man in a league of his own.

We’d parted last night with plans to meet up again this evening after we’d both finished our day’s work. I could hardly wait.

It might even be time to send him a text.

The door opened.

Otto’d locked himself in the back office, so it wasn’t him. I looked up to see who was here.

Riley walked into the arcade without her usual smile or her usual gaming partner Bruce. Being that it was a weekday morning, and ten-year-olds belonged at school during school hours, I was surprised to see her. She swung her red hair over her shoulder as she scanned the machines.

“Hey, Riley.”

When her fierce eyes met mine, they started to water.

Oh no. I rounded the desk to reach her.

“Maeve. Hi. I was hoping you’d be here.”

“I’m always here.” Please don’t cry.

“It’s winter break. My mom’s at work. My brother is the worst. If I have to stay at home with him another minute I….” Her eyes turned into two giant swimming pools.

“You’re always welcome here. Want to play foosball?”

She sniffled. “I didn’t bring any money.”

I shrugged. “My treat.”

She smiled a tiny smile.

“First, do we need to call your mom and make sure she knows you’re safe?”

“I texted her. She knows I’m here.”

“Good. Now I’m totally going to spank you at tiny soccer.”

She laughed. We both knew that I was terrible at tiny soccer. It was my one gaming weakness, probably because it required bigger movements than video games. That made it more of an athletic sport, which was not my forte.

But it was Riley’s.

I set up the little ball and we settled in at the foosball table, twisting knobs and flicking the ball around the tiny field. I waited until Riley had scored her first three points to my zero before attempting conversation.

“What’s Bruce up to? Does he have to go to school?”

“No one has to go to school on break.” Riley scored another point.

“Even Bruce?”

She laughed. “Of course. I wish my brother had to go, though.”

“I hear that. I used to have to deal with my sister Cara every school break.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“Yep, she’s younger. Your brother is older, right?”

“Yeah. He’s thirteen.”

“Teenage boys suck.”

“Yeah. He says I shouldn’t play video games because I’m a girl.” She looked at me with vulnerability in her eyes.

She looked at me like a tiny Maeve, needing that validation I’d come to this same arcade for when I was her age. It was Otto who’d had my back. It was this place that had made me feel like I could be myself no matter what.

“Girls can do anything boys can do. You can like anything you like, Riley. You have nothing to prove to anyone. Take up space. Don’t apologize. You’re an amazing person.”

“Thanks.” She landed her fifth point and smiled at me. “You’re the best, Maeve.”

“Not at foosball.”

“No,” Riley said, “not at foosball.”

“You’re awesome, too.”

“I know.” She beamed at me.

Riley was the reason this arcade was so important, why I needed to keep it alive and going for the next generation to have an escape from life and a community who supported them for who they are, boys and girls.

I felt silly for not talking to Elliot sooner about helping me save this place. Sure, I’d only put it off for a few days, but I shouldn’t have put it off at all. He was with me. I could count on him. We’d save the arcade together.

After Riley left, I went out and picked up some Indian takeout lunch for me and Otto. It was an uneventful walk there, and an uneventful walk back.

As I reached for the door though, a shiver carried up my spine. Honestly, it was surprising I hadn’t been full blown shivering since I stepped outside. Maybe those warm Elliot thought fuzzies provided actual physical warmth. Huh. Weird.

“Maeve.”

And the shiver had nothing to do with the cold. My entire body tensed at the sound of Bradford’s voice.

If I pretended I couldn’t hear him, would he go away? No, he’d follow me inside, and then it’d be even harder to get rid of him.

I turned. He was holding a gift-wrapped box and standing on the sidewalk, three feet away. Any distance would feel too close for comfort, which was why he should do me and the rest of the world a favor and phase into a whole different reality.

Maybe there was an alternate universe where everyone was a raging butt—no head, no body, just a butt with legs. Bradford would fit right in.

I steeled my nerves and crossed my arms, flopping the takeout bag uncomfortably against my side. “What part of I never want to see you again do you not understand?”

“You didn’t mean that.” He took a step closer and smiled his billboard smile.

“I meant it. That’s why I said it.”

“I brought you a gift.” He held out his present, a shoebox-sized package with flowery green paper and a gold bow on top.

It was shoes.

Did I love shoes? Absolutely, especially collector collaboration sneakers.

Bradford knew this about me. It was pretty much the only thing he’d bothered to learn about me as a person after five years together—other than how I took my toast—and it was obvious. Anyone who walked past me on the street could see that I had a thing for shoes.

His transgressions piled so high, they were mountainous.

He’d forgotten my birthday and our anniversary on multiple occasions. He’d gaslit me over and over again. He’d cheated on me and brought the other woman to my step brother’s wedding. His favorite color was taupe.

The reasons I hated him weren’t a mountain. They were a frigging volcano.

It didn’t matter if there was a pair of signed Michael Jordan gummy bear sneakers inside that box. I didn’t want anything if it came from him.

“No thank you,” I said.

“You’re going to love it.” He jabbed the corner of the box into my boob. “Just take it.”

“What is wrong with you?” I flung my hands in the air, and during the process, both hit the gift box away from me and knocked it from his hands. It fell to the ground and into a small pile of old dirty snow.

Fortunately, the Indian food was still okay, though maybe a bit bruised.

A lump protruded from the center of Bradford’s forehead. The tiny hill spread into a winding mountain range of a blood vessel pulsing there.

Maybe they were volcanic too.

The tendons in his neck tightened. A wave of red washed up his neck, over his cheeks, and across the pulsing Appalachian trail.

“What’s wrong with me?” A droplet of spittle flew from his lips and landed on my shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”

He wasn’t wrong to be surprised by my behavior. I’d always taken his gifts and pretended to believe that he was actually sorry for his terrible behavior. I’d told myself whatever offense he’d committed didn’t really matter that much.

Because he’d never mattered that much.

It felt wild looking back at how long I’d put up with him.

It was pathetic, really.

It had taken seeing him cheat to pull me out of my apathy. That was the push that started my momentum. Playing revenge with Elliot had propelled me even further. I’d grown. I was stronger. I would never go back.

I looked at the foamy glob of saliva on my coat. I looked at the seething creature who’d produced it. Then, I did the only thing I possibly could—I laughed.

“Are you laughing at me?” Bradford’s jaw dropped. That throbbing vein grew even longer, snaking from his eyebrow into his hairline. “Stop that. Stop that right now.”

Now that I’d started, I wasn’t sure I could stop even if I wanted to. For the record, I did not particularly want to.

“This is all his fault. Barlowe did this to you. He turned you against me.”

I never did post the picture of Elliot’s and my make-out session in front of the Christmas tree. I wouldn’t. It was a special moment and I wouldn’t use it as a tool. Still, given Elliot’s and Bradford’s contentious relationship, it made sense for Bradford to blame him.

“Elliot didn’t do anything to me.” Nothing I didn’t ask for and thoroughly enjoy.

“It’s his fault. You’re mine and he wants to steal everything that belongs to me. He’s like a rabid dog who’s too hopped up on crazy juice to leave well enough alone.”

I couldn’t believe Bradford was going to ignore his own fault in what had transpired between us. He had no one to blame but himself. “I. Am. Not. Yours.”

Bradford raked his hands through his hair, leaving what had been a perfectly-moussed wave standing straight up. “You can’t trust him. No one should trust him. He’ll do anything to get what he wants. He’ll say anything.”

That wasn’t true. Elliot wasn’t like that.

“I bet he told you he’s not in investment for the money.”

Because he wasn’t. Elliot wanted to help people.

“But you’ve seen the reviews. You took them down. It had to be you.”

Yes, I’d seen them. But those were fake reviews that Bradford had paid to go up on Elliot’s business. That’s what Elliot had said, and I believed him.

“He’s like me. But he cares even less about the people he has to hurt to reach his goals.”

Elliot was a good person, and nothing like Bradford. Except…they chose the same job.

Bradford straightened his spine, suddenly appearing two feet taller like a monster rising from the shadows. His pulsing vein still taunted me, but it was his smile now that scared me the most.

If anyone was a rabid dog, it was Bradford.

It was like he’d latched onto something I’d said…no, something I did?

My lungs tightened in my chest.

Maybe it was the uncertainty I felt that he could sense. He could smell it, like an open wound he’d gnaw until I broke.

“Whatever he told you to get in your pants is a lie,” he said. “You know he’s screwing Tatianna?”

They were together in so many pictures. I could feel Bradford’s fangs digging in deep. I knew I couldn’t believe anything he said. But it still hurt.

His eyes lit up with joy. “They’ve been all over each other for years. He’s in love with her, but she won’t take him. Why would she when he’s such trash?”

That wasn’t true. None of this was true.

“Tatianna comes from money. Only people of value come from money, like me, obviously.”

I didn’t come from money.

“He’s overstretching what little he has, scamming one pathetic schmuck at a time. That’s how he grows the wealth he needs to invest.”

“Like you.” Oh my…was I wrong? I’d been ignoring the little voice that told me to watch out for similarities between the two. If Elliot did come from humble beginnings like he said, where did his money come from?

“No, no. I’m running a business, not a scam. You know he’s buying your little game shop too, right?”

The arcade?

A wall of brick crushed my chest, heavy and unyielding. My thoughts spiraled.

“Tricking that old man into believing it’s his only chance.” Bradford clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Pure manipulation.”

I couldn’t breathe.

My lungs wouldn’t expand.

I caught a blur of motion from the dark edge of my vision—Bradford.

He lurched forward, putting his arm around my back, and his disgusting mouth on my face. He tasted like ash and regret.

He felt crazed and desperate and disgusting.

I could swear I was blinded by a flash of light, but that was probably just a punch of disgust.

Every nerve in my body screamed in concerted alarm. My elbow wrenched back, and I punched him in the nose with a satisfying crunch.

The door flew open and Otto was there. He pumped his shotgun.

Bradford stumbled back.

His nose was bleeding.

His eyes were wild.

I still couldn’t breathe.

I broke.