“Star Wars Battlefront II. Matt’s squadron had someone drop out, so he asked Mia for help. But Mia asked me to fill in for her.”
Nadia’s gaze flitted back and forth in confusion, then landed on Mia. “Youturned down a video game tournament?”
Mia shrugged, her purple-tipped blonde hair bouncing on her shoulders. “I couldn’t get into it. I don’t doStar Wars, so I figured Rosie would have better luck.”
Just then, Olivia shouted at the door. “Ding dong!”
A laughing Rosie raced to open the door since Olivia had her hands full. “Dinner is served!”
Rosie took the bags while Olivia took her coat off. “It’s starting to snow; I might have to cut the evening short if I want to get home.”
“You can always sleep on a couch here.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t seen Jake today. He had to film a commercial and wasn’t home when I left.”
“I see how it is,” Mia teased. “Olivia wants to get laid.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Not at all.” Mia stretched. “Ugh, it’s been ages since I got any. I’m so jealous of you two.”
“Your last date didn’t work out?” Rosie handed out white cardboard containers of rice and other goodies.
“Nah. We just didn’t click.” Mia dipped a piece of fried shrimp into her tub of sweet and sour sauce and took a bite.
“You know, you could double your available dating pool if you were honest in your profile.” Rosie twirled her lo mein around a fork. “There’s nothing wrong with being bisexual.”
Mia sighed. “It’s — it’s athing. Gay or straight, nobody wants to trust bi people because they think you’ll leave them for the opposite sex of whatever they are. Or they automatically assume you’ll be willing to have threesomes. I’ve gottenso manymessages like that when I’ve been honest.” She stabbed at the next piece of shrimp like it had offended her. “It’s just easier not to list it.”
Rosie’s heart hurt for her friend. Out of the entire squad, only Mia had been actively looking for a partner. Everyone else had had reasons to steer clear of men since college. Rosie of course, hadn’t been looking even then, due to her high GPA requirements for her scholarship. Nadia and Olivia had basically stumbled into their guys, and she was sure Mia felt hurt that she hadn’t found “the one” yet.
Nadia chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed her broccoli. “It can’t be easy. I’m sure Jade could tell us horror stories, too.”
Mia shuddered. “Trans women have beenkilledon dates. I don’t know if Jade’s ever beenona date, except that one time she texted us an S.O.S. back in college.”
A dark cloud of regret came over the squad. No one wanted to reminisce about that.
“Back to the original topic,” Nadia cleared her throat. “Rosie, how did the tournament go?”
“It went pretty well! We made it all the way to the semi-finals,” she answered brightly, glad for the change of topic. As an only child, the squad were the closest things to sisters she’d ever had, and she couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to any of them.
“Wow, that’s awesome!” Mia high-fived her over the table.
“Matt seemed to think your teammate should have been more focused on the game and less on flirting with you.”
Rosie almost choked on a noodle. “Is that what he was so mad about?”
“Mad? Did he say something?”
“No, he was just grumpy all night and the longer it went on the worse he got. After we got eliminated, he practicallybolted.” It still irked her how he’d barely even said goodbye. Why did she find him attractive, again?
“Back up a second. Who’s the teammate, and why haven’t we heard about him?” Nadia smirked at her.
Rosie felt her face turn red. “Keith. He works with Matt. He was chatting with me after practice the other night on Discord, and then he got kinda clingy at the tournament. It was … uncomfortable.”
“Why didn’t you tell him off?”
“Well, I had already committed to playing the tournament, and I didn’t want to cause a rift. He’s not bad-looking, and he seemed nice enough. But he’s not my type. He was just … too much.” She shuddered remembering the night. “I mean, who meets someone at a video game tournament and kisses her hand? This isn’t some regency ball. It’s abar in the twenty-first century.People were staring. And I tried to give off the ‘not-interested’ vibe but apparently he’s clueless!”
