"Hey! Nash!"
I turn around to see Daily approaching me from the opposite side of the hallway, wearing a huge smile. I wait for him to catch up, giving him a smile in return as he falls into step with me.
"So, a bunch of us are going laser-tagging after school for fun. You should come with."
"I'll check my homework load for tonight, but I can probably make it. Who's going?"
"Me, Peyton, Emma, Axel, Liam, Isla, Jennifer, Audrey, and Arthur. Oh, and I asked Cody a few minutes ago and he said he'd come if you or Keira did, so if you're coming then he'll probably be there."
"Cool. So, should I ask Keira as well?"
"Nah, Audrey said she would. You're in, though?"
"Probably. Where's the place? I should probably figure out the bus route now."
Daily flaps a hand at me. "Just hitch a ride with one of us. Don't you ride with Axel sometimes?"
I cough to cover my very, very red face. "Right, yeah. I'll do that. Alright, I've got to get to class. See you later, then?"
"For sure." He gives me a cheeky salute, then disappears back down the hallway.
At the end of the day, I find Axel at his locker. He grins. "Hey. Did Daily invite you to go laser-tagging with us?"
"Yeah. Could you give me a ride?"
He gives me a sly smirk. "Sure. And don't worry about Keira and Cody- their rides have been covered."
I try to hide my smile. "So it'll just be you and me?"
I can tell he's suppressing a grin as well. "Yeah, I guess so."
So, naturally, we take a short detour on our way to the laser tag place, pulling onto a neighbourhood street and parking in an alley to make out for a couple of minutes. And then we spend the rest of the drive holding hands over the console between us and coming up with excuses as to why we're late, which kind of devolves into flirting.
Anyways, we show up to the laser tag place about ten minutes after everyone else, but that's fine because we can't get in until the last group gets out anyways. We pay, and then we meet up with the rest of our friends to face the inevitable questioning about why we took so long. And, naturally, we didn't actually end up coming up with a decent excuse, so. Yikes.
"Where were you guys? We all got here, like, ten minutes ago," Audrey informs us, eyes narrowed.
"Errand for my mom," Axel says dismissively, then changes the subject. "So, are we doing truces or not?"
Peyton snorts, not bothering to look up from his phone as he responds. "Like truces ever work. You and Emma are cutthroat."
Emma smacks her boyfriend's shoulder. "I'm not that bad."
"You're ruthless," some guy I don't know that well says (I think his name is Arthur or Henry or something). "Honestly, sometimes it feels like you two are competing to see who can be more savage."
I turn to raise an eyebrow at Axel, intrigued by this new information. "Really?"
Axel looks innocently clueless. "I have no idea what they're talking about. I'm no meaner than Jennifer."
All of his friends collectively scoff at that. Audrey's grinning as she says, "Don't trust him, Nash. He'll bury you."
"I won't!" he protests, looking at me with wide, confused eyes. "Really, Nash. I won't."
I'm not quite stupid enough to believe that he's as innocent as he says he is- his friends know him well, so I trust that he is as ruthless and competitive as they say he is. But then on the other hand... it's hard to say if he'll actually come after me, since we are dating. I can't tell if our relationship is going to give him additional reason to come after me, or if it'll keep me safe.
We finally get called to go into the laser tag maze, so we get suited up with the laser guns and sensor vests, then head inside. There's a thirty second countdown before our guns and vests get activated, so we all scatter to find a good hiding place. There are fifteen seconds left when I feel a hand on my waist. I jump a little- it's dark in here, and there are definitely smoke machines somewhere, because it's really hazy. Not to mention the walls everywhere, making it hard to see clear paths. And fine, maybe the extremely limited visibility is making me a tad jumpy. I can hear Axel snickering behind me.
"Shut up," I mutter at him, refusing to turn around so that he can't see my blush.
I feel his breath on the back of my neck before there's a soft press of lips against my cheek. "Alright, alright. I just wanted to tell you that I won't come after you. 'Kay?"
I relax a little. "Okay. Now get out of here and let me hide."
"Sure." He kisses my cheek again, and then his hand disappears from my waist. A few moments later, my gun and vest activate with a small chirpy sound, and I rush to find a decent hiding spot.
I haven't played laser tag a whole ton in my lifetime. I'm not expecting to be very good at it. And I'm not. My aim is terrible, and I usually end up giving my position away to whoever I'm trying to shoot at before I can actually hit them, meaning that I usually get shot instead. I do manage to best a couple of little junior high twerps pretty consistently, though.
Cody shoots me plenty once he realizes how bad at this I am, usually laughing as he does. I have to put a bit of strategic running and hiding to use once Keira decides to just follow me around and shoot me repeatedly. Emma turns out to be just as cutthroat as she was accused of being- half the time I only catch a glimpse of her bright blonde hair and white-soled sneakers before I get hit by a laser.
It's about halfway through the game when I finally run into Axel. From what I know, he's kept to his word pretty well throughout the game, though there have been a few incidents where I've gotten shot without being able to pinpoint the shooter. I generally credit those to Emma, though.
Even though Axel did tell me he wouldn't come after me, I keep my gun trained on him and make sure to keep my vest hidden behind a wall section. From what I can see through the darkness and haze, he's grinning at me.
"What, you don't trust me? Come on, Nash."
"I don't trust anyone," I inform him.
"Probably a good policy to have," he admits, still smirking. And then he moves, whipping his gun up and firing- but not at me. I have to squint to see Audrey through the haziness, but I'm pretty sure she's giving him the bird. Though, she cleverly leaves before her vest reactivates and he can shoot her again.
He looks back to me, grinning. "You thought I was going to shoot you, didn't you? I'm wounded."
"I told you, I don't trust anyone," I tell him. His smile widens as he starts towards me.
"Couldn't you make an exception for me, though? I haven't come after you."
I eye him suspiciously as he circles around the wall section I'm hiding behind, stepping closer to me. He glances around, not seeing any flashing vest lights, and cups my cheek in his free hand.
I lean up to meet him halfway as he tilts his face down to kiss me, and he hums, pleased. I melt a little, leaning back the wall I'm pressed up against as his lips capture mine over and over and over.
And then my vest vibrates, informing me that I've been shot, and he pulls away with a smug smirk. I scowl as he steps back, wishing I would have seen that coming. "You're so mean."
"I'm sorry, I had to," he says, but it's hard to take him seriously when he's still smirking like that (though, honestly, I'm suppressing a grin myself).
"Get out of here, you liar."
He grins, leaning in to peck my cheek/ rub it in even more, then disappears into the maze again. I sigh, wishing I could actually be even a little irritated with him.
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I spend the rest of the game trying to get him back and consistently failing, since he always seems to be able to hit me first. Not to mention the fact that he's apparently targeting me now- I get shot about once every minute, and every time I turn around and it's him. I try so hard to actually be able to be annoyed, even a tiny bit, but it doesn't happen. What he's doing feels a lot more like flirting than anything, and I suck at this game so much that I wouldn't have a shot at winning anyways, so the result ends up being that my cheeks hurt from suppressing so many idiotic grins.
When we finally leave the laser tag maze and regroup outside to wait for our scores, Audrey smirks at me. "So, Nash. Did you learn your lesson about Axel?"
My heart feels like it stops for a second, wondering if she saw Axel kissing me. I decide to act like nothing happened, because if she doesn't know, I don't want to make her suspicious. I scowl at Axel. "Yes. He got me."
"We tried to tell you," Peyton says, smirking without looking up from his phone.
"I know, I know. But he said he'd leave me alone!"
Jennifer sighs and shakes her head. "You just can't trust him when it comes to competitive things like this."
"Yeah, don't worry. I've learned my lesson."
Axel's still grinning. "I'm sorry, Nash. You were terrible, though, it was just too hard not to come after you."
"You were pretty bad," Keira tells me.
"You weren't worse than Daily though, if that's any consolation," Peyton tells me. Daily pouts at him, then comes over to me and throws an arm around my shoulder.
"You guys are all so mean. Nash is my new bestie. We can be terrible at laser tag together."
"Hey, stop trying to steal my best friend," Keira says, faux scowling at him. Daily practically flies away from me to hide behind Peyton. The rest of us laugh.
Eventually, we go in for a second round of laser tag, which I also bomb, despite knowing that Axel is ruthless and will probably target me because we're dating (which he does).
After that, a few people have to leave, so the group decides to just call it a day. Axel offers to drive me home, but I decline in favour of taking the bus with Keira. Partially because I don't want to be suspicious (having Axel drive me everywhere) and partially because we just spent a while hanging out with Axel and his friend group and I'd like to spend a bit of time with just my best friend.
We head to the bus stop, and I check my phone as we sit down, looking to see when the bus should be getting here. I put my phone away as we sit down on the bench. "The bus should be here in about fifteen minutes."
"Great," Keira says, but I don't know if she actually heard me, because she's looking at me with big eyes. "Okay, Nash- um, don't freak out, please. I don't want to scare you, I just think you should know that I know. I'm not planning on telling anyone, I promise."
My heart is racing, and my stomach is filled with dread. "Keira... what is it?"
She presses her lips together, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk. "You're dating Axel, aren't you?"
Thoughts on the chapter? What did you think of the game of laser tag? (My favourite laser tag place shut down over quarantine so writing this chapter was my coping method.) How about Keira's question at the end? Let me know all of your thoughts in the comments!
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