Page 40 of What Is Love
“I’ll just have whatever you’re getting,” I told him.
“You don’t have to settle,” Roe said. “We’ll get whatever you want.”
“I—I don’t know,” I blurted.
“You don’t know what?” Roe asked.
“She doesn’t know what toppings she wants,” Reid said.
I glanced in his direction, and he was frowning at me. I wasn’t sure, but something in his eyes told me he knew. My hands squeezed the controller. What I wouldn’t have given for my textbook right then.
Roe and Wyatt went quiet for a few heartbeats.
“Are you indecisive?” Wyatt asked me.
“Um.” I was so pathetic. They were going to think that, too.
Roe leaned forward and turned toward me slightly. He cupped the back of one of my hands and put his other around the controller. “Let go of this,” he said softly.
I let it go, but an ache remained.
He set it aside and took each of my hands in his and began massaging my palms with his thumbs. “What’s wrong?”
Fuck it.
“I’ve never had pizza before,” I admitted. Of course, I had heard of and seen pizza before. I wasn’t completely sheltered. But to Mother, it was an unhealthy food and strictly forbidden.
They went quiet again.
“I had a feeling that was the case, but even hearing you say it is still hard to believe,” Reid said, breaking the silence.
I met Roe’s eyes. “I’m not lying.”
He stared back at me. “I know.”
“Personally, I like pepperoni,” Wyatt said, acting like what I’d just admitted was no big deal.
Pepperoni! That’s it! I can’t believe I couldn’t remember freaking pepperoni!
“I like pineapple and ham on mine,” Roe said as he continued to knead my hands.
Wyatt groaned. “That’s because you have weird taste. Pineapple doesn’t belong on pizza.”
Roe rolled his eyes. Then he tilted his head in Reid’s direction. “Reid likes a buffalo chicken pizza that has chicken, bacon, and buffalo sauce on it.”
“They also have a ton of veggies and meats to choose from to create your own,” Wyatt said.
“Just pepperoni is fine,” I said.
Wyatt went back to typing on his phone.
Roe let go of my hands and retrieved my controller. As he handed it back to me, he asked, “Ready to play?”
“Sure.”
For the next half hour, Roe and Wyatt explained the buttons on the controller and what they did and how to play the game. We were a team, and we had to kill other players in the game. It was very violent, graphic, and bloody, but a lot of fun.
I tried to remain composed and dignified. That all went out the window the moment I was finally able to kill someone after dying ten times in a row. I’d never thought there would be a time that I’d say, sounding very happy and surprised, “I did it! I finally killed someone!”
