The last time Eliza had been to an arcade, she was eighteen and left it crying. It was one of the last weeks of summer after she graduated high school, and all of her friends were jetting off to bigger and better lives elsewhere. College (and later grad school) called for all of them, and while Eliza hung back to attend Blackwoods University, where her dad was dean, her friends scattered across the country. About to carry on to the next adventure, the tightknit group of high school grads did a movie, dinner, and then ended their night at the arcade a few blocks from the university where they’d spent countless weekends and evenings during their four years as best friends.
It had been bittersweet then, a difficult parting. Sure, Eliza saw one or two of them after, helping them pack up their rooms or driving out with their parents to the airport, but leaving the arcade that night had been devastating because she knew a part of her life was over. With her closest friends shipping out to new lives, a pervasive emptiness filled her—and, honestly, it had never actually left.
When she’d suggested they head to the arcade after their date, Eliza had hoped she and Nash could change the memory of this place for the better. He was always such a serious guy, his jokes subtle and smiles rare, and she’d thought it would be a good opportunity for them both to let their hair down and just have fun.
Ever since he’d picked her up from campus, he’d been whispering dirty and delicious thoughts in her ear about what he planned to do to her later. Eliza could hardly wait. She’d been so wrapped up in helping Professor Holstein organize study sessions with some classmates that she hadn’t even minded that Nash had bailed on a few more dates again.
Hell, they had no plans for Valentine’s Day, but Eliza was just too busy to care. Secretly, she hoped he’d do something for her on the special day, but considering they hadn’t been official a month yet, her expectations were exceptionally low.
Just a fantastic scene with a stunning orgasm would be fine. Was that too much to ask for? Eliza was itching to tear her clothes off and let him touch her, but it would have to wait, of course. Arcade first. Fun first. Lightheartedness. Playfulness. That was what she wanted, even if it was only for an hour or so.
“You know, this is totally unfair,” she said, laughing, and leaned hard on the stationary motorcycle to guide the digital one on the screen ahead of her. Nash was on the machine beside her, totally kicking her ass as far as speed and precision went. “You actually drive a motorcycle.”
“You said I could pick any game I wanted,” Nash fired back, and she winced when her bike bounced off the wall on the screen, the whole vehicle vibrating on impact.
“I did, but—”
“And this is the game I wanted.”
They exchanged grins…though she couldn’t help but notice Nash’s didn’t quite reach his eyes. He’d been all over her when he picked her up, then backed off completely once they arrived at the restaurant, naughty suggestions aside. While she’d been excited for the arcade, as soon as they arrived, Eliza couldn’t help but wonder if it was a little too…immature for Nash. Families and groups of teens ran rampant at the old arcade, kids rushing from machine to machine without putting any tokens in. Pounding on buttons, stabbing at touch-screens that demanded payment… It was all a little chaotic. The games were loud and flashy, the kids were even louder, and the overhead the radio was a little static-ridden for her liking.
Still, walking into the arcade felt like coming home, in a way. The usual sensation of her stomach churning and her chest tightening whenever she saw the sign in passing was gone with Nash by her side. It would have meant the world to her for him to realize just how much this place meant to her—and that it might mean something to him once their date was through.
Sure enough, Nash’s scores dominated hers. Rolling her eyes, Eliza dragged him away from the vehicle driven games toward some of the more traditional ones. When he turned down skeeball and the strength tester, Eliza headed for the whack-a-mole wall. There were about six different games set up with different characters to whack, but she went for something a little more standard. After sliding her tokens into the slot, she handed Nash one of the thick foam hammers, then grabbed the other for herself. Seconds later, the lights and music started up, and Eliza was smiling like an idiot. There were a lot of good memories associated with this game—definitely more good than bad.
“How do we tell who wins?” Nash asked as they started smashing their hammers down on animatronic moles popping up out of the holes. She scoffed, hitting one extra hard for effect.
“There are no winners in whack-a-mole,” she told him, unable to tear her eyes away from the game. “You just have to hit as many moles as you can.”
“Right.”
Nibbling her lip, she resisted the urge to look his way, worried she’d see him having a bland time in a place she’d once adored. Although she hadn’t told him the importance of the arcade, Eliza had hoped he’d just pick up that she was excited to be there.
When they finished the first round, Eliza paid again so they could play another, and Nash picked up the hammer with a sigh.
“Everything okay?” she asked, hoping to keep her tone light—non-confrontational. Any other girlfriend would have laid into a guy like Nash by now for skipping out on so many of their dates, but Eliza hadn’t said a word. They both knew he wasn’t upholding his end of things. It wasn’t a secret. He’d said dinner tonight was his way of making up for not being as present as he could have been, for goodness sake. While she was steadily finding her backbone, all the while settling into the position of submissive in the bedroom, Eliza didn’t quite have the stones to call him out face-to-face yet.
Besides, what good would that do? It was too early in the relationship to get in a fight over something like that. She vowed to talk to him a little more seriously if the behavior kept up, but Eliza was optimistic things would get better.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you okay?” was his answer, and she swallowed hard. Why didn’t he sound… happier?
“Totally,” she said, head bobbing up and down as the lights and corny music started up again. “I just… I know this probably isn’t somewhere you’re used to going. I came to the arcade all the time in high school. I thought we might have some fun.”
“I see you were one of the cool kids in high school then,” Nash teased, nudging her arm as they started whacking moles. There it was. Some playfulness had seeped back into his words, and she felt the familiar prickle his attention usually brought to her cheeks.
“I was totally the coolest.”
“Were you a part of a knitting club then too?”
“I was,” she replied as she slammed the hammer down over a mole close to his hand. “Taught me how to handle sharp and pointy things with grace and precision.”
He laughed. “That’s terrifying.” A brief pause. “But kind of hot, I guess.”
Eliza brightened at the compliment. “Really?”
With a swing of his hammer, Nash managed to get two moles at once, effectively ending the round. He set his hammer down with a smirk, then pressed a kiss to her forehead. When he pulled back, he held her gaze and crouched down a little so that they were at eye-level.
“Hot in a scary kind of way, sure,” he told her, then winked. Eliza rolled her eyes and carefully set her hammer back on the game, handling it with more care than necessary. Nash could say whatever he wanted; Eliza knew he liked that she was a knitter. He was even wearing the scarf she’d made him a week earlier, which was a much-appreciated touch.
Working her hand into his, Eliza led him toward one of the hardest games of them all: The Claw. Inside the glass rectangle was a mountain of stuffed toys, most very dated, especially toward the bottom, and the objective was to fish out a stuffed animal with the claw-like grabber hanging overhead. A deceptive game, if anything, with a very low success rate.
When Nash declined the first attempt, Eliza paid her required tokens—which she seemed to be doing a lot of since they arrived—and grabbed the joystick. Her tongue poked out the side of her mouth as she readied herself, and the joystick rumbled once the claw was active.
“I’ve never been very good at this game—”
“How’s Professor Holstein?” Nash asked, speaking over her when they both started at the same time. Eliza steered the claw down, aiming to a fat pink seal that was sure to be an easy mark.
“He’s good,” she said when he ignored her comment about the game. “I was helping him finalize study aids for one of his first year courses.”
“Why?”
She glanced up and caught Nash’s reflection in the glass, noting the way his features had contorted into a frown.
“Well, his TA had some big family emergency over the holidays and the school hasn’t issued him another one yet,” she explained. Professor Holstein was one of her favorite professors. In fact, he’d been one of the few who had noticed her grades slipping after she and Nash started spending more time together. Young and relatable, the professor seemed to genuinely care about her bringing her grades back up, and he even helped her prep for other classes in his own time.
“You’re bright, Elizabeth,” Professor Holstein had said when she asked him why he bothered at the time. “I just hate to see people burn out in their final year. You can do this. Don’t give up.”
Of course, Eliza also knew he was probably hoping to score brownie points with her dad, but she couldn’t blame him. Young, new professor hoping to make tenure early in his career? Who wouldn’t spend a little personal time with the dean’s daughter to bolster his reputation?
Still, once he was done helping her, Eliza actually liked the guy enough to volunteer a few hours a week assisting with the tasks his old TA normally did. It was the least she could do; his tutoring had made her grades even better than before they took a horrible nosedive.
“So why do you have to do his work for him? Is he even paying you?”
“I don’t have to do anything for him,” she remarked stiffly, matching the tone he’d suddenly taken with her. The claw swung a little too far to the right, and Eliza steered it back over the seal since she only had one shot at landing her prize. “He helped me when my grades weren’t doing so hot, and I thought it’d be nice to return the favor.”
“He’s manipulating you into giving him free labor,” Nash snapped. Eliza pressed down hard on the red button on the top of the joystick, her cheeks hot at the accusation, then forced out a groan when the claw missed—as if she was too into the game to catch his insinuation.
“He is not,” she said as the game reset itself, no prize won. Unable to look at Nash when he scoffed, she fished out another token, ready to try again and hope the conversation went away. “I like helping him. He’s a nice guy.”
“Nice guys are always the worst kind of guys,” he growled as the joystick rumbled in her hand. Eliza gripped it tight, glaring at the immense pile of stuffed toys in the glass case. “At least assholes are up front about what they want.”
“And you’re the king of being up front, aren’t you?” She bit the insides of her cheeks. Apparently her backbone was getting bigger. She steered the claw around on the hunt for her next target. Behind her, Nash had started to pace.
“Look,” he started, “I’m just trying to watch out for you.”
“Well, you don’t need to.”
“Clearly, I do,” he bit back, and a flood of angry tears made her eyes burn. “You can’t even see that this guy is just using you. I’d stop doing him any favors. Maybe tell your dad that he’s trying to—”
“He’s not trying to do anything,” Eliza snapped, her voice taking on a weirdly hysterical high-pitched quality that made her face even redder. Turning, she fixed him with a narrowed look. “I think it’s ridiculous that you’re lecturing me about him… You barely know him. And, honestly, I wouldn’t be spending so much time doing him favors, as you call them, if you bothered to show up when we have plans.”
Backbone engaged.
Nash bit down on his back teeth, making his jaw flare, and for a moment she saw real anger in his eyes. Not the kind of anger he used when they were behind closed doors, the Anger Lite he sometimes used when she’d been “bad.” No, this was real anger, and for a moment, it made her want to shrink down and hide behind the game until the storm had passed. But she didn’t. Eliza stood tall, knowing that she was in the right here, and as difficult as it was, she refused to look away.
“Eliza, I really just think you should stay away from him,” he said, each word laced with forced softness—and it made her sick. “He’s being so obvious about—”
“You know what? Stop.” The joystick vibrated in her hand, as if telling her she’d been stagnant for too long, but she ignored it, planting her hands on her hips. “I seem to recall you telling me very tactfully to stay out of your business when you were getting random, secretive phone calls from your landlord.” She added air quotes around it, telling him right then and there that she’d never completely believed the story. “Maybe you should take a page from your own book and butt out of my business. It’s none of your concern… at all.”
All around them, the noise of the arcade grew to a thunderous volume. Suddenly, it was all too loud, the lights too bright, the venue too crowded. Her words hung between them like stale air, Eliza wearing a mask of defiance and Nash staring at her as if she had six heads. Her blood pounded through her tingling body, each beat of her rapid pulse whumping in her ear.
It was the first time she’d actively stuck up for herself.
And it felt good.
Terrifying, but good.
Unfortunately, what Nash said next was far from good.
“Fine.” He zipped up his coat, handling her homemade scarf a little too roughly as he stuffed it under the leather. “You want me to butt out? Happy to oblige.”
He then gave her a too-hard kiss on the forehead, nothing like the one he’d given only minutes earlier, and then took off without so much as a word of goodbye. Eliza stood there for a long moment, cheeks burning and eyes still prickling with tears, then turned back to The Claw.
How had the night gone in this direction? If Nash hadn’t mentioned Holstein, would they have moved on to a different game by now?
Glaring through a teary field of vision, somehow Eliza managed to pick up that damn pink seal. The game shrieked her victory after depositing her prize in the pick-up compartment, but Eliza left it there, arms wrapped around herself as she made a beeline for the exit Nash had just stormed off toward in a fury. If he wanted to be a childish prick, she wouldn’t stop him. Eliza thought Doms were better mannered than that, but apparently Nash wasn’t just the king of being up front, but also the king of proving her wrong.