“Shit,” Gabriel said, shuffling through a pile of Nintendo 3DS systems. “They’ve only got black, blue and red ones.”
“Were you hoping for a pink one like Sang’s?” Luke asked.
Gabriel punched Luke in the arm. “I wanted orange. Or at least something else.”
“Take the black one,” I said. “Paint something on it.”
Gabriel’s eyes lit up. “Ah. Customize it. I can do yours, too.” Gabriel picked up a black one. Luke took a blue one. “Luke, help me find the Animal Crossing game.”
“Are you going to get one?” I asked Nathan.
Nathan’s eyebrows drifted up. “I get one?”
“Then we can all play,” I said.
Nathan smirked. “I don’t know if Animal Crossing is for me.”
I didn’t mean to, but I felt my lip pouting. Not seriously, just teasing. I had this funny idea of all of us playing a game all weekend. Taking time off wouldn’t feel so weird if they were doing things with me.
“Nu-uh,” Gabriel snapped at me. He swung a lean finger at Nathan. “You’re getting one. We’re all playing with her this weekend.”
Luke grinned. “You’re spoiling her.”
“I don’t give a shit. That girl got nothing for sixteen years. We can play a game with her.” Gabriel shoved the three DS units, black for him, blue for Luke, and red for Nathan, along with three Animal Crossing games at Luke. “Go buy these.”
Gabriel and Luke took a spot near the counter. The attendant took one look at the stack and his face tightened skeptically, but started ringing up the order.
I stood behind Nathan. I touched his elbow to get his attention. “If you don’t want to play, you don’t have to. I was only joking before.”
Nathan slipped his arm away, and threaded it around me until his palm was warming the small of my back. “I’ll play with you.”
I gazed away, mostly to hide the smile I couldn’t get off of my face. Should I feel giddy that he was willing to play with me?
The cashier scanned all the boxes and rang up the total. He planted his palms on the counter, looking at us. I got the feeling he thought we were toying with him about our big order. “Total’s $657.”
I ducked behind Nathan to hide my gaping mouth and huge eyes. That much just to play games? Maybe I should have suggested we take someone’s Xbox for the weekend instead of spending so much.
Luke took out his wallet, and started counting off bills. I found myself thinking that maybe they all had credit cards like Victor, but realized that probably wasn’t the case. Luke must have money he earned while working at the diner.
Luke started frowning at the end of counting. “I’ve got four hundred.”
Gabriel groaned and pulled out a wallet. “I’ve got eighty.”
Nathan let go of me, finding his wallet and opened it. “Aw man, I haven’t been by the bank.” He held up a handful of twenties and a couple of ones. “It’s all I’ve got. We’re still thirty dollars short.”
I worried we’d have to put them back, but then remembered the money I stuffed in with my phone. Heat flooded my cheeks as I reached in, pulling out my phone and the cash next to it. I unfolded a couple of twenties and held them up.
“Here’s some,” I said, my voice sounding awfully quiet. It was the first amount of money I’d ever had. I thought it was as good a time as any to spend it.
Gabriel’s crystal eyes lit up. “Aw yeah, hey. There we go.” He reached out, taking the bills from me as casually as if I was passing him a dollar bill he had dropped instead of money I’d had.
Luke and Nathan didn’t flinch. I had been waiting for them to say something. It took me a moment, but then I remembered for Academy boys, whenever someone needed something, they pitched in together, a favor, money, anything.
At least now I was contributing something. We didn’t really need games, but they wanted them. I guess that counted.
The cashier collected the money and we walked out with several brand new 3DS systems.
“Looks like dinner is on Sang,” Luke said, hitting the unlock button on the Jeep.
I reached into my bra again, pulling out the cash I had left. “I’ve got thirty dollars.”
Nathan laughed. “I believe Sang is telling us we’re getting hamburgers tonight.”
???
We stopped by a fast food place and took the food to go. Since we had a couple of hours until the game and no one wanted to go home, we took our dinner and headed to the school parking lot.
We mostly ate quietly, with the boys occasionally talking about the upcoming football game and me staring out the window and spacing out.
As they finished, they started opening their new DS systems. Their systems were already powered up all the way right out of the box and they started playing Animal Crossing and naming characters. I took mine out and started fishing just to do something a little mindless.
“Ha,” Luke said, holding up his blue DS. “I’m the mayor of Sang.”
“Nu-uh,” Gabriel said. “I’m the mayor of Sang.”
“We can’t both be mayor.”
“Name your town something else.”
Luke tapped at his game. “I already clicked OK. It won’t let me.”
“Shit.” Gabriel poked at his screen. “I don’t want to start over.”
I was sitting in the back with Nathan. I slid over, leaning against his shoulder while he was tapping away at his game. “What did you name yours?”
“Awesomer Than Sang’s Town.”
I laughed. Nathan beamed.
Gabriel perked up in the front and fished his phone out of his back pocket and answered it. “Oy,” he said. After a moment, he turned around to look at me. “Sang? Did you take your vitamin?”
“Uh...” I’d forgotten all about it.
“I’ve got it,” Nathan said. He found his book bag and shuffled through the pockets.
“You remembered?” I asked.
“I grabbed it last night and just put it in my bag so I could keep track of it.”
“She’s going to take it now,” Gabriel said to the phone. “Yeah, we’re fine. We’re at the school lot.”
“Tell Kota I said hi,” I said.
“It’s Mr. Blackbourne,” Gabriel replied.
My lips parted. He was calling to check up on me? He never called. I wasn’t sure what to say now, as if not saying something might make him feel like I didn’t care. “Tell ... tell him I said hello.”
Gabriel waved me off as if to say Mr. Blackbourne was talking. “Sorry, Sang’s trying to tell me to tell you hi. What do we need?” He made a face. “Yeah. We fed her. We’re taking her to the football game tonight and we’re going home. We even bought her a video game to play with all weekend. What? Yeah, she likes it. She played it today. She’s not going to the party with North and Silas. She’s staying with us.” Gabriel pulled his mouth from the phone, leaning back and blowing out a sigh.
Luke grinned at him. He looked back at me and started moving his hands to sign to me. “Have to check in when someone is on sick leave.”
“I’m not sick,” I said, though quieter.
Nathan and Luke started chuckling. Gabriel smirked but talked into the phone. “Don’t worry. After this game, she’s going home. We’re all taking it easy this weekend. No work.” Gabriel hung up. “Oy, he’s worse than Kota and North combined.”
“He does it to everyone,” Luke said.
“No kidding,” Gabriel said.
“Here,” Nathan said, handing me a big vitamin pill. I had to borrow his drink to swallow the pill down because mine was empty.
Luke clicked at his game. “Sang, open the Wi-Fi on your game. I want to come visit your town.”
“Hey, we can do that?” Nathan asked.
I turned on the system on my game. “The town of North is open for visitors.”
Luke laughed. “North is going to hate this game.”
I wasn’t sure how long we had to wait for the football game to star
t, but I found myself leaning against Nathan, trying to get cozy while we played.