Page 95 of Bite Marks

“I thought it was more fun than some dinner.” I shrugged, barely keeping the overly smug, pleased-as-fuck grin off my face at her praise.

Even if the circumstances were a little sour, I wasn’t going to waste my opportunity to spend time with Vi. Especially if it meant I could cheer her up.

“What do you want to play first?”

She hummed thoughtfully, weighing her options as she sipped her lemon-lime soda, bouncing on the balls of her feet on the custom-poured resin floor. The entire thing was lit from underneath, providing a sort of hazy bluish glow like an aquarium, something I’d loved from the first time I’d stepped inside the place.

The overly high ceilings filled with silvery ducting and distinct lack of windows were industrial, but the finishings—ultra-modern down to the sliding doors, reminiscent of Star Trek, leading to the bathrooms—that was all sci-fi.

A blend of retro and modern that wasn’t unlike me, in a way. Ever changing as I aged yet somehow still as devastatingly young as I was when I was thirty.

Not that I felt it.

Loss always made you feel older, and you didn’t live as long as I had without your fair share of it.

Vi stepped up to aWhac-A-Mole-style game featuring little green aliens disappearing into moon crater-like holes, taking hold of the spaceship-shaped hammer.

“Coin me, Dana?”

I chuckled, obediently digging in my bag to free a couple of tokens. During my hunt, my fingers brushed an object that was foreign to me, my mind trying to work out why the hell I had a tube of lipstick in my bag.

Makeup wasn’t really my thing, and although I didn’t mind a bit of eyeliner or mascara, the tacky feel of lipstick or gloss always made my skin crawl.

Oh.

A memory of Elsie handing me the object with a sly smile on Valentine’s Day floated to the top of my mind, formerly buried in the chaos of Vi’s attack.

I slipped a few of our tokens into the play slot and watched as Vi used the hammer’s foam end to smack the start button with a whoop of excitement.

She attacked viciously as the animatronics burst to life, popping in and out of the holes with an overly cheery tune playing loudly from the speakers, punctuated by her laughs and grunts of effort. With every strike on top of an alien’s head, the red score numbers climbed, though she was still far off from the jackpot before the game ended, spitting out three measly faded red tickets for her efforts, leaving her slightly winded and panting.

Humans. So much struggle, so little payoff.

But my mind was only half here as I kept my eyes on her, wondering what it’d be like to tug her into my backseat and use the little lipstick tube-shaped vibrator on her until she was grunting and panting for a whole other reason.

“Excellent work, darling,” I praised, putting my hand out for her prize. “Let me hold onto those? We can try to exchange them for something at the end.”

She handed them over, warm fingers brushing my hand and making my stomach flip-flop.

“You got it, boss. What’s next? No, wait—let me guess.” She hummed thoughtfully, looking between me and the games.

It was… nice.

Normal.

Even if I had no idea what normal was supposed to be anymore, not with the mass of anxiety and stress continuously looming overhead.

Fucking Garrett.

“You seem like you’d be into pinball,” she said, hooking her thumb up toward the lofted second story where the machines were visible behind the railings.

My stomach sank and I made a face. “Absolutely not.”

“No? I thought for sure you’d be into like… vintage cabinets or something. You know, likeBack to the Future?”

“I—”

The last time I’d brought someone here, it’d been Cherie, right before she got sick. She’d been fascinated by the pinball machines, playing them for hours even though it was nothing but the same game over and over.

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