Page 25 of Hide and Sneak
“I’m not going for either of them. I’m going to see what happens.”
“What if he pulls out handcuffs?”
“Shut up,” she scoffs, and puts her headphones back on. She leaves her Small on auto and it’s my turn to laugh when she goes straight to mine and starts flirting. Mission accomplished. When we walk away from the keyboard, they’ll get together more naturally.
I can’t resist any longer. I pop into the inventory and grab a set of handcuffs. As soon as Stone holds them up, Lila yanks her headphones off. “You asshole!”
Blinking, I try my best to look innocent. “Hmm?”
“You’re Stone? When…how…”
All I needed was her screen name to request to join her neighborhood. It was easy. “You added me, remember? I thought you wanted to play together. It’s okay, we can be roommates here and neighbors there.”
“No the fuck we can’t.” She charges over to Stone and orders him to leave the neighborhood. Sometimes what the Smalls do on their own tops what we make them do. He begins to dance. Really shaking his little ass.
“What the hell?” she mumbles and gives the order again. Stone walks over and sits on her couch then waves to Small Lila.
“What did you do?” she demands, glaring at me.
“I may have a few mods installed. They apply to any neighborhood where Stone lives. He can’t be evicted.”
“Fine.” A devious grin grows on her face. Small Lila starts grabbing nearby objects and throwing them at Stone. He gets smashed in the head with a lamp, then a toaster. She goes out to the garage and when she returns, I burst out laughing. “Why do you have a flamethrower?”
While he’s being attacked, I keep control of Stone and make him sit calmly on the couch, unbothered. “You’re going to get the cops called if you keep it up,” I chuckle as she tries to set him on fire with no luck.
“Good idea.” She heads to a phone and summons the police. “If I can’t kill you or evict you, then they can lock you up.”
The most fun thing about this game are the mods. I have a ton of them installed, including one that not only keeps my Small from being arrested, but triggers another response. Two police officers show up, hand me a box of donuts and leave.
“Oh, I hate you!” She can say that but I saw her face when the cop handed over the donuts. She was trying not to laugh. She points her finger at me. “You’d better not mess with my neighborhood. And stop following me around.”
“You’re the one flirting, look.” Sure enough, as soon as she released her, Small Lila started making heart eyes at Stone.
“No! Get away from him.” She types furiously. “Go find One Night Standrew.”
We both play for another twenty minutes and she manages to keep our Smalls apart. When I log off and set my laptop aside, she isn’t far behind me. She probably trapped my guy somewhere, but that’s fine for now. This is going to be fun.
Lila declines when I offer the rest of the joint that Amos left, and goes to her bedroom instead so I finish it on my own.
The rest of her bag of cookies is too tempting. I do feel bad about polishing them off. Instead of tossing the bag, I scribble out an IOU, tuck it into the empty bag then put it back in the cabinet. I’ll replace them before she even realizes.
After a solid night’s sleep, I wake early and in a good mood. I’ve been on light duty at work—driving the truck—since my vasectomy, but I’m back to my normal job today. Not that we’ll be here much longer by the look of the weather. We have heavy rain and thunderstorms predicted over the next few days. Asmuch as I like having some time off work, it’s screwing up my plans at my property. I’m getting very little done lately.
On most days, I bring my lunch to work, and today is no exception. We’re working in the city park area. Camron and Shawn join me at one of the picnic tables to eat. I’m looking forward to the fat roast beef sandwich until I bite into it. My teeth scrape against plastic.
“What the hell?” I open the sandwich to find the roast beef is missing. Camron and Shawn watch me pull out a slice of cheese from between the lettuce and onion. It’s still in its wrapper. The indentations from my teeth slightly obscure the words written on it.
I owe you three slices of roast beef.
They crack up laughing at me. “What did you do to your girl?” Shawn asks, pulling at his gray beard.
“If that was Amos’s prank, tell him well done,” Camron adds.
I guess she found her empty cookie package last night or this morning before I woke. That little brat. “Not my girl. Fucking Lila,” I chuckle, shaking my head as I take a picture of it then text it to Amos.
Me
I’m going to kick your sister’s ass.
