“You go first this time!” I insisted to Sandy, who gave a devilish smile back to me.

She teased, “Well, you have to let go of my hand first!”

Gah! I jumped at the fact that she told me. I thought I let go! This is like a jumpscare for my heart! I quickly tried to mask my embarrassment with words, and I told her hurriedly, “J-just go!”

She flashed a gleam in her eyes. She knew how embarrassed I was, but she thankfully didn’t tease me anymore about it. She instead walked onto the black pad in front of the convex light oval.

“Gyahhh—hahahaha!” A loud and high-pitched scream and laugh rang throughout the arcade.

I knew who it was without even looking. Only Gia’s voice could hit that shrilly pitch and carry that much. I looked behind the jump rope arcade game to the bumper cars arena behind it. Rom, Danny, and Gia were all happily playing with a couple of other highschoolers. I smiled when I saw Rom’s gleeful face. I’m glad she’s enjoying this. I know it can be tough always being a third wheel, but she seems to be having a genuinely good time right now.

“Hey Mark! You watchin’?” Sandy asked, piercing my thoughts, and I tore away my wandering gaze back to her. She was looking back at me while standing on the black square platform in front of the machine that detected whether you jumped successfully over the surging light in front of you.

I smiled and gave her a thumbs up saying, “Let’s see if jumping rope that much as a kid pays off!”

She smiled as she arrogantly told me, “Watch this!” and she put the tokens in and started to jump the lights. She was a natural at it. You could tell that she used to jump all the time. As the lights went progressively faster and faster, her braid bobbed up and down more and more erratically. She eventually got to where the lights were going so fast that she was basically just furiously stepping. She put one foot down and raised the other one up, so the light passed under her the split second neither foot was touching the ground.

Her oversized aqua shirt caught air when she jumped leaving her tanned stomach bare and her Nike shorts visible. I was focused on her expression though. Through her concentrated face, I could see her eyes lighting up in excitement of the competition as she progressed through the levels of difficulty, but it could admittedly be because of the circle of light rapidly rotating in front of her.

She finally got knocked out on the third hardest difficulty, but she only received a measly twenty tickets. “Phew! That was more of a workout than I was expecting.” Sandy commented, wiping the beading sweat from her forehead. She did better than I could honestly ever hope for on this game.

She reached for her tickets and handed me the cup of tokens saying, “Let’s see what you got track star.”

A knowing smile grew upon my face, “I’ll do my best.”

“Let’s see if that YouTube video was right.” I thought to myself as I stepped up onto the square platform. I got down on my knees right beside the black pad.

“What are you doing?” Sandy asked with confusion painted on her face. I looked up to her from the ground and gave her a smile as I said confidently, “Watch this.”

I slowly put the two tokens into the machine and waited for the game to start. I watched it countdown from 3…

2…

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1…

As the light started to go slowly around the oval, I lifted my hand up every time the light passed under where my feet would have been. The machine didn’t know that it was my hand, and it still thought it was my feet. The sensor on the pad couldn’t tell the difference. It couldn’t detect the rest of my body because it was off the pad, and I could easily avoid the lights this way. “Holy shit that works?! No way!” I could hear Sandy exclaim behind me as the lights went faster and faster.

I smiled with a sense of accomplishment as the lights went faster, and I slammed my hand up and down quicker. My tempo hastened as I started to focus on winning the game. I eventually got to the highest difficulty before I eventually wasn’t able to keep up with the breakneck pace of the lights. I let out a frustrated sigh when I got knocked out. I really wanted to flex and win the one hundred ticket prize, but I guess I can settle for seventy-five.

As I reached to get the tickets since I was already on my knees, Sandy ran up to me in excitement probing me, “How did you know that would work?”

I took the tickets from the machine, and I started to fold them up as I looked up at her and explained with a giddy grin, “I didn’t. I saw it on YouTube, and I didn’t know if it was fake or not hahaha!”

Sandy rushed onto the black pad again. “I have to try this again.” She muttered as she fumbled with the cup of tokens. “There can’t be that many tokens left.” I thought to myself as I stood back and leaned against the neon green colored racing game beside the circle of lights.

Feeling myself a little, I cockily asked, “So does that mean I won?”

She whipped her head up with an aghast smile, “You cheated!”

I brushed her off saying, “Excuses, excuses. I could say the same thing about you choosing games that you’ve had tons of practice on. This is just another way of being good at the game.”

“Hmmph! Fine!” Sandy cutely pouted before cracking her knuckles and prepared for another round, “Well, watch this!” She told me as she shoved the now empty token cup into my hands. She inserted the tokens into the game and began hyping herself up. I looked into the cup and smirked to myself, “I guess I was right about us being about out of tokens.”

As soon as Sandy hit start, she immediately dropped to the ground and put her hand in wait for the light to cross again. I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdness in front of me. She is way too serious about this, but that’s what makes it so cute. Sandy spat back at my laughter, “You won’t be laughing when I beat your score!”

“Oh, I’m sure haha!”

I didn’t doubt she could beat me either, but I was happy I got one up on her just once on this trip to the arcade. She breezed through the first three speeds, and she didn’t seem like she was slowing down either. She was completely concentrated.

Bang!

Sandy had her concentration broke by the loud noise and vibration that reverberated the machine, and she got knocked out because of it. She let out a frustrated sigh that sounded exactly like mine when I got knocked out, and I looked up from her to see what the loud bang was. I looked up to meet the eyes of Rom who just slammed into the wall of the bumper car rink in front of us. I smiled from the situation where my win still remains due to Rom’s interjection, and I waved as I exclaimed, “Oh, hi Rom! How’s the bumper cars going?”

Sandy bolted up and followed my gaze to Rom, “It was Rom! Rommm I was sooo close. Give me some more tokens!” Sandy held her hand out expecting more tokens.

“I can’t. We’re out, and I’m out of money.” I explained as I turned the empty cup upside down in her hand showing her it’s empty.

“Dammmnnnn…” She drew out as the sad realization she finally lost a game came into fruition. I smiled, satisfied with my win as I gave a thumbs up to Rom. Rom returned the favor and flew off back into the bumper car rink.

Sandy stood there looking longingly at the jump rope machine, and I felt bad for her. I matched her gaze at the machine and stated, “Relax…You’ll beat me next time we come here anyway.”

Her eyes lit up as her all too familiar grin returned to her face, “Next time?” she asked, “Look at you being bold! Who says there is going to be a next time?”

“I-uh… Like only if you want to of course! A-and I meant as like a thing like we did today with everyone. N-not like with just us alone. You know?”

“I never said it’d just be us alone. Do you want it to be just us alone?” She gleefully teased.

Oh no… What situation did my nervous words put me into now? “I—uhh…”

“Pffftttt hahaha!” She laughed ecstatically in my face, “That’s payback for beating me!”

She then turned to try and hide her face, but I could see her ears get a little pink. I pleasantly smiled. I’m being overwhelmed with feelings I shouldn’t be experiencing right now. I couldn’t help it. Who could after being so close to something so cute? I can’t fight off this overwhelming warm feeling in my chest when I saw Sandy blushing and feeling embarrassed along with me…