Page 19 of Cooper & Jake
I nod my head, bouncing on the balls of my feet. “Let’s do it.”
It doesn’t take us long to get to the arcade, and right away, I can tell I’m going to love this place. The overhead lights are dim, but there are flashing lights from all the games throughout the room. On one side, there’s a kitchen with a huge menu displayed on the wall. Next to the kitchen is a wood-topped bar with a few beer taps on the bar.
“Drink then play or play then drink?” Jake asks, looking around the space.
“How about drinkandplay?” I counter, walking past him and making my way to the counter. “You get the tokens, I’ll grab two beers,” I toss over my shoulder as I walk away.
After the bartender hands me the beer, I find Jake at the kiosk, a tub in his hand, gathering up the tokens that are shooting out of the machine. “I might have gotten a few too many tokens. But whatever, it just means we’ll have to play all the games in here.” The machine finally comes to a stop, and Jake shakes the tub in front of my face. “What should we play first?”
I look around, knowing without a doubt which game I want to play first. “Air hockey!” I exclaim, dashing away to the machine. Jake follows behind me, and I hand him his beer after he puts in a few tokens. “Just so you know, I’ve gotten so damn good at this game. I don’t think you’re gonna beat me.”
“We’ll see about that. Don’t get too cocky, Cooper.”
My brain short-circuits on the word cock, my body getting way too excited when he’s not even talking about his cock or, hell, even mine.
“I am very cock-y,” I tell him, drawing out the word.
Jake’s eyes darken, and he licks his lips, his eyes flicking down to my jeans. “Show me.”
“This isn’t the spot to show you,” I reply huskily, leaning forward against the machine.
“If only we weren’t in a public place,” he says, his eyes darting around us.
“And what would happen if we weren’t?”
Jake shakes his head, coming out of his stupor. “Oh, I see what you’re doing. Trying to get me all riled up, so I play like shit. Nope, not gonna work. Buckle up, Dalton. You’re in for a ride.”
Fuck, I wish he would takemefor a ride.
I don’t say that, though. I raise an eyebrow in his direction, then get into my ready stance. “Let’s play.”
I press the start button, and the puck drops on Jake’s side. He places it on the surface and fires it towards me. The first few taps are softer, getting a feel for the disc. Neither of us scores, with the puck bouncing between us. My competitive side kicks in, and I hit the puck with all the force I have. It slides straight into his goal, and I jump up and down, doing a happy dance.
“Take that!” I yell, raising my fists in the air.
“Lucky shot. And you still need six more.”
His arms flex as he reaches down to grab the puck, and my tongue wants to be like one of those cartoons whose tongue rolls out onto the floor. As soon as he walked up to me this morning, I was a goner. He’s wearing these dark blue, tight-as-hell jeans, with a plain black tee that might be one size too small. But my dick is very appreciative of how tight it is, stretched across his thick chest. And then there are his tattoos covering the entire length of both arms. When we were in high school, he only had one tattoo on the upper part of his forearm. Plus, the piercings in his ears are new, too. He didn’t have those back in school. The lights flash, and the sounds go off, my body jerking as I look down, seeing that he got a goal.
“If you weren’t ogling me so much, you wouldn’t have missed that,” he snarks, leveling me with a huge smile.
“I was not… okay, whatever I was. But can you blame me? You’re trying extra hard to flex those muscles there, buddy.”
“I would never try to do that,” he says, placing his hand on his chest, giving me what he thinks is an innocent look.
Okay, two can play this game, I think. I snatch the puck out of my goal and place it on the game surface; I don’t hit it too fast because I don’t want it to ricochet back to me just yet. Once my paddle hits the disc, I use my other hand to grab the hem of myshirt and wipe away my invisible sweat. It’s not even hot enough in here to perspire, but he doesn’t know that.
There’s shuffling on the other end of the table, and I look up to see he’s fumbled the puck, and his eyes are dead set on me. “Well, that’s not fair at all.”
“I know.” I shrug my shoulders, letting my shirt drop back down. “But you’re playing dirty, so I want to play dirty too.”
“Trust me, Cooper, if we were playing dirty, you would know it. Now watch me kick your ass with no distractions.”
He puts the puck back into play again, and this time we play back and forth without trying to mess up the other person. I kick his ass seven to four, and I might gloat a little too much, but it’s all fun and games. Taking my beer bottle, I walk over to him and tap his chest.
“It’s okay. We’ll find a game you might be good at. Well, we’ll see. What should we play next? I’ll let you choose since you lost and all.”
“Fine. How about basketball?”
