Mabel

14

I step aside to let him in.

Any vague, pondered, distant plan I may have had to confess tonight tragically dies just as I take one last look down at my t-shirt.

("Wasn't that the perfect opportunity, though?"

"How was that the perfect opportunity, Talia?"

"You could've said 'but I'll suck yours anytime, big-boy' insert real-life semi-colon face here"

Wink. She means winking.

"I—ew, how did you actually make me think that was a missed opportunity for a second? "Big-boy"... Jesus fuck. You're disgusting.")

<・)))><<

My paint water is gross. Really, really gross.

You see, I have this habit of using water and then not cleaning it out for four days until I decide it's fine and I can just re-use it under some guise of it being resourceful.

I love recycling.

I dip my brush in, and more goes on to it than comes off of it.

Seems like it's time to probably go change it.

So, I wrap my blanket cocoon a little tighter around myself and waddle out of my bedroom, gross water in hand.

It's then, when I reach the living room/kitchen area that I realize that there are two people in said living room/kitchen area and not one as I had initially thought.

"Hi, Adkins. I didn't know you were here."

Talia gives me a doubtful sort of look as she asks, "Didn't you hear us?"

I dump the water down the sink, not really wanting to know what the lumps in it are, and say, "I did, but I thought that was just you being very loud and lonely."

"What are you guys playing, anyway?" I ask, ignoring the look of repulsion Talia gives me as she watches the goop spilling out of my cup.

Talia shoots me a sly sort of smile, then, and I raise an eyebrow at her, scrubbing at the... mold?... that  formed where water once was. I only have to take one look at the television screen to see why.

"No fucking way, you play Dead Nation?"

Kai looks around with a glimmer of hope in his eyes, as if he'd been trailing Talia's sorry ass along as his pathetic teammate all afternoon.

"You, too?"

Talia scoffs, loudly, obnoxiously...

...over-exaggeratedly.

I narrow my eyes at her. This is one of her plots to get me to confess, isn't it? Just like the 5-minute warning text last week.

"Mabel spent all last summer glued to this couch playing that stupid game. I don't like shooters, or top-down games, or zombies, so I never played with her. But now you're here, Mabel, you can put poor Kai out of his misery."

So, I do, I take the bait—'confess to him, Mabel Ortega' look and all. Even if the wiggle of her eyebrows is a little more R-rated than I feel it should be.

I plant myself down beside Kai, taking the second controller just as Kai graciously decides to start a new game.

Playing as Talia Alpin's—Queen of Bad Video Game Choices—crusty ass character? No thanks.

"Just so you know, I'm super good at this game. Never die until at least the ninth level."

"Ninth, huh? Ever beat it?"

"Plenty of times."

"Good, me too."

Talia chirps in then, saying in a bad-faux-innocent voice, "Why don't you guys make some sort of bet? You're both super competitive..."

A sleazy wink's shot my way, and I send Talia a glare.

But I get the message.

Some 'Interesting Penalty.'

"Okay, we'll keep playing until one of us dies. If we manage to beat it first time, not having to start over, then we'll play again."

"Oh, sure. How about the loser has to..." Kai drifts off, eyes darting around the room and I almost want to obstruct his view like me, kiss, we have to kiss look at me.

His eyes light up when he looks at me and I'm happily thinking 'yes, Talia Alpin, you beautiful person, you got me this, baby' until Kai opens his mouth.

"Down that entire bottle of hot sauce."

Talia.

Alpin.

The idiot in silent question makes a clean, nervous getaway before I can throttle her.

I'm not all that good with spice. I'm definitely not good with a bottle of hot sauce that has a warning label with a skull on it on the front, either.

I will not die first.

("You absolutely let me win, Kai Adkins."

"Did not!"

He downed the bottle quickly, erupting into a funny sort of dance when the heat hit him, shaking his limbs as if ridding himself of a demon and yelling.

I poured him six glasses of milk before telling him he'll overdose in lactose or calcium or something if he has any more.)