On the other side of the room, Mike grunted harshly as he skidded his already-sore knuckles against the side of the arcade game he was playing while trying to pull off a combo. He still swiveled the joystick relentlessly, no matter how much it hurt, tapping the buttons so fast that one tap couldn’t be heard before the next happened.
Cathy grinned at him, almost getting soda up her nose as she did. “Never met a boy who could take out all his frustrations on a stupid game before,” she giggled, turned back toward Xander.
His gaze had dropped several inches from staring at her lips, resting on the smooth, white skin over her collarbone.
She raised an eyebrow at him, a small smile perking over her face as she leaned her head back from her straw. “Ahem,” she grunted, clearing her throat.
Xander continued to stare straight ahead, the shadow from his brow making his eyes nearly invisible.
“Daydream much?” she said finally, a slight hint of annoyance in her voice even though she was smiling.
He still did not respond.
She reached out to where his hand lay upon the table and put hers on it, her soft skin like velvet on his dry knuckles.
He finally looked up at her, the light from the candles all around the room dancing across her face and shimmering in her hair, making her look like an angel. “Hmm?” he hummed, coming back to reality at once.
“You still with us?” she asked warmly, looking up at him with a soothing smile on her mouth.
“Yeah,” he said, looking off into space again for a moment before shaking it off again. “Yes. Sorry, just thinking too much, I guess.”
“Anything in particular?” she asked, taking her hand from his and grabbing her drink with it, bringing it back to her lips. “Or do I even wanna know, the way you were looking at my chest?”
He did not respond to that last bit, his eyes every bit as distant as they had been a moment ago, even though he was looking at her now. “Just the way things are, I guess. They way life is. Mike got me thinking with that stunt he pulled.”
“How so?”
His mouth fidgeted, as if physically uncomfortable as he tried to find his thoughts. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed and distant. “When I was a kid, I always thought that everything would work itself out. I stuck to the shadows like some stupid wallflower, knowing that all the pieces to the puzzle would just fall into place for me. That I would eventually get the girl and grow up and live happily ever after.”
She didn’t speak, laying down her drink to give him her full attention.
“But it didn’t, and I won’t. I thought I learned my lesson when Sara died... but here I am, making the same mistakes again. Sitting around and letting things happen around me to my life, my friends. Hoping that the puzzle will just work itself out. Not taking control.”
There was a silence then as both of them waited for the other to speak. After a moment, Cathy squirmed in her seat and then spoke. “How did Mike beating the crap out of you make you think of that?”
Xander smiled, looking up and really acknowledging her for the first time since the conversation had begun. “He did something. He tried something. It was a stupid thing to try, but at least he did something instead of sitting around on his ass. Made me realize that it’s time to start pressing buttons. That this might not work out unless I make it.”
She nodded, her hair bobbing along with her.
Mike pulled a chair from the next table over and slid it over to theirs, flopping down on it backwards. His face was flushed and showing the first signs of sweat as he flashed a large smile at Cathy, then nodded curtly at Xander.
Xander nodded back.
Mike placed an arm around Cathy, giving her a kiss on the cheek and smiling. “You putting the moves on my woman again, Drew?” he said, a mischievous grin playing over his face.
A slow grin spread over Xander’s face as he looked from one to the other.
“What?” Cathy asked, snickering.
“Bob the squirrel,” he said, in as even a tone as he could muster.
Cathy burst into laughter with Xander not far behind, both of them leaning forward onto the table to catch their breath. Cola finally began running out of Cathy’s nose and when she tried to wipe it away with her sleeve, she rolled off of her chair. Xander’s face turned red, sitting back on his chair and holding his breath to try and stop.
“What?” Mike asked, looking from one to the other, a stupid grin on his face. “What?”
“Nothing, honey,” Cathy said as she got up and kissed him, still giggling a bit.
Mike rolled his eyes, then leaned in and gave her a quick kiss that turned into an extended one, as theirs tended to do.
Xander watched them for a moment, the shuffled in his seat and got up.
Cathy hummed, pulling away from Mike even though his lips kept making the kissing motion for a moment. “Mmmhey, where you going?”
“Something I gotta see to,” he said, both his eyes and voice having gained their far away quality in the interim between speeches.
“If there’s anything you need...”
“Actually there is something,” Xander said, stopping for a second as he walked away.
“Name it.”
“Drop up to the house tonight.”
“Okay.”
“Around dark.”
Both Mike and Cathy turned to look at him when he said that, but he was already gone.
Megan Greene sifted through the files cluttering her desk, the large oak surface covered in carefully stacked piles of
