“Are you sure you’re up for this? Your wrist’s not fully healed.”
“I’m fine.” I unbuckled my seatbelt. “The action revolves around mashing buttons and steering wheels.”
“Okay.” But he hovered as I got out of the car, as though he was expecting me to keel over.
I’d come back to Stan, or come home as I now thought of it, for more PT. And I needed it because my shifter genes hadn’t fixed the lingering issues. But my injuries aside, for once my mind wasn’t on hockey.
Yes, I wanted to recover, and yes, battling for the puck was thrilling, but now that Stan and I were mated, I had what I’d wanted since I was eighteen. And for the first time since I laced up my skates as a kid, hockey wasn’t my first priority.
My wolf said I had him to thank for getting me and Stan together, because if he’d been paying attention, we wouldn’t have been hit by the car and we’d never have met Stan again.
Inside the arcade was exactly as I remembered the other one. There were the same flashing lights, electronic beeps and buzzes and the smell of popcorn mingling with the harsh smell of cleaning solution. A handful of teenagers were clustered around a game on one side while a family with two young kids were trying to grab a toy with the claw machine. I was tempted to tell them to save their money.
“Sorry, they no longer use tokens.”
“What? Oh no.” I had fond memories of feeding tokens into the machines.
“It’s card only now. I’ll put fifty bucks on the card.”
“Make it a hundred.” We were here to celebrate, damn it.
“Okay, big spender.” He pointed to the baseball hoops. “We should have a rematch.”
I groaned at the memory of how he’d whipped my ass when we last played.
But we started with the racing games because they needed the least amount of physical effort. I slid into the seat of a motorcycle racing simulator, and Stan took the one beside me.
“Loser buys dinner.” He grinned, but maybe he’d forgotten how competitive I was.
“You’re on.”
The race started, and I concentrated on the screen. I leaned into the turns, even though it hurt, and gripped the handlebars carefully with my bad wrist. Stan was aggressive. He cut me off at every opportunity and laughed hysterically when I yelled at him.
“You can’t do that. It’s not legal.”
“This is a video game, Ax. There are no refs.”
I grumbled that there should be.
My mate won the game by half a second, and I demanded a rematch which he also won.
“I’m so out of practice.”
Stan got up and stretched and helped me up. He nudged me and giggled. “I’ll let you win at something else.”
We moved through the arcade, trying everything that didn’t require too much wrist movement. Skee-ball was safe, but Stan beat me at that too because I was mainly using my left hand. Thanks to my eye-hand coordination from playing hockey, I edged out my mate in the shooting gallery.
“Finally.” My score flashed up on the screen.
“Beginner’s luck,” my mate teased.
“But I’m a professional athlete.”
“In hockey, not arcade games.” He put his hands on his hips and gave me a look.
Despite knowing the odds were stacked against me—though I had a better chance of winning than humans did—I swiped the card at the claw machine. Most of the toys were tired-looking and dusty, but there was a small fox in the middle that I wanted to win for Stan.
“You’re not going to get it.” My mate shook his head after my third failed attempt.
