“Goodnight, Mack.”
She blows a kiss at the screen and hangs up before I can respond. I stare at the ceiling for a long time after, my phone warm on my chest. It’s the first time in two days that the tightness behind my ribs has loosened enough for me to breathe. And somewhere underneath the relief, a smaller, quieter voice whispers:you just chose the one thing you can't afford to lose.
12
MACKIE
We’ve been datingfor 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 becausehe’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.
