“Does she think you run a day care?”
I laugh. “She likes me to have my snacks,” I tell her. When she backs up to let me grab some crackers from the pantry, I catch another whiff of her. “Did you go surfing this morning?”
“Yeah. Just went to Black’s for a couple hours.”
Black’s Beach is probably the best surfing in San Diego County. I know this not because I’ve spent any time swimming there, but because it was one of Dad’s favorite spots back in the day—and I try not to think too much about it also being a nude beach back in the day, too.
“It was pretty busy,” she adds. “Entitled surfer dudes everywhere.”
My body reacts to her as if she’s a girlfriend, and I need to tell my brain to cut that shit out. Grabbing two juice boxes from the fridge and the sleeve of Ritz crackers, I point to the living room. “I believe we have a date with some Titans.”
London follows me into the living room. “You sound pretty confident.”
“I’ve been practicing since the night you spanked me.”
“Probably a good idea,” she says, and bends to grab a controller off the coffee table. “You sucked pretty hard.”
“At the game, you mean. The sex was stellar.”
She doesn’t answer, but her practiced silence tickles me, and I can’t help but push, just one more time: “Does being back here, at the start of it all, have you feeling nostalgic?” I ask her over my shoulder before bending to grab the remote.
“No,” she says, and then shoves my shoulder so I know even if she means it, she’s not trying to be an asshole.
Even if I am, just a little.
We sit down next to each other—definitely not touching—waiting for the game to load. The crinkle of her straw wrapper crackles through the silence and when I look at her, she cheekily punctures the top and slides the straw into the side of her mouth, saying “I love fruit punch” around it.
Fucking fuck. I am so screwed.
The best and worst part about being near her is that I know she’s not trying to flirt. She isn’t a cocktease. She’s just honestly that cute.
I look away from her mouth and back to the television. “I’m usually an apple juice guy, but I thought it was time to mix it up.”
We sign in, choosing our Titans, and drop down into the map without more discussion. When I’m not obsessing about kissing her, being with her is surprisingly effortless. We can just hang, talk or not talk—it’s easy either way. It’s like being with a guy friend I just really want to bang.
Wait, no.
I fumble with the controller, get shot, and the game resets.
London turns and looks at me with her bright smile. “You okay there, Sparky? I thought you had been practicing?”
“Just had a mental tangent that left me momentarily incapacitated.”
She shakes her head, looking back at the screen. “I don’t think I want to know.”
We drop in again, and this time the action continues for ten, twenty, thirty minutes. Our elbows collide as we work the controllers, and London shoves Ritz crackers into her mouth the same way I do—in handfuls, in the few seconds we have between bouts of action. I’m definitely better than the last time we played together, and it makes for a perfect afternoon. The idea of falling in love with a girl who plays video games, eats crackers like Cookie Monster, surfs, and bartends feels in some ways like the perfect male fantasy, but it’s also a little shadowed because I know there is more to London than this. This life—games, bars, girls—for me is just a phase; I know with some distance that it isn’t going to define this entire decade, or even the rest of this year. I’m going to leave for law school in a matter of months, and it will require me to have true responsibility away from my family. But what does London even want out of life?
I’m pulled out of the preposterous train of thought when she does something really stupid—hits the jump control instead of fire—and is killed.
“Damnit!” she yells, smacking the couch cushion. “Mother-trucking truck!”
I turn to her, smiling in delight. “Did I just kick your ass?”
“I think that’s an exaggeration.” She looks at her watch. “We were playing for—”
I interrupt her, leaning in. “You were totally thinking about my penis just then, weren’t you?”
She throws her empty juice box at me and her eyes widen when I catch it before it hits me and chuck it right at her, hitting her squarely in the chest.
London lunges for me, shoving me back on the couch before lifting a pillow and smacking me in the face with it. Her bubbly laughter hits me in an emotional space, somewhere high, where chest meets throat, and I’m unprepared for her assault, cough-laughing through a flurry of her fingers digging down, tickling me roughly.