Moonlit Waters

Chapter 27

"Hey, babe," I say as the telltale sound of somebody entering the voice chat rings through my headphones. "Know what's on the menu? Me-n-u."

There's a moment of silence on the other end of the line and I have to try very hard to keep a straight face.

"Me-n-u in the duo queue," he replies and I can hear the deadpan face he's making right at then.

It's also the moment I can't hold back anymore and break into a small giggling fit.

I've left Claire's hours ago but the good mood has accompanied me home. The rest of the evening had been a lot of fun. Claire had finished my make-up while the others applied theirs and we did a photo shoot in those wildly different outfits. I'm pretty sure there's even a photo where I lean against Emma, her hand on my butt as I smooch her on the cheek. Then, when was already past midnight, Claire put on a horror movie and Mika fell asleep after only fifteen minutes of it.

Claire took a picture of us making weird faces around the sleeping girl and we stayed up a little longer, but soon realised that none of us were likely to finish the movie in a waking state. So we cleaned off our make-up and changed into more comfortable clothes and arranged ourselves around the slightly snoring Mika.

In the morning, I woke up with Mika's head resting on my calf and Claire snuggled up against my back. I was the first to wake up and had to stay in the same position for easily twenty minutes before Mika began stirring.

In spite of the awkward positions some of us had slept in, the mood at the breakfast table was great. Claire's Dad and Mum were there too, but neither of them participated much in the conversation we were having.

"So, how did the sleepover go?" Alex asks as the queue pops.

"Good!" I reply enthusiastically. "Like, it was just great and so much fun. Claire has this small room next to hers just filled to the brim with clothes and we spent hours just putting together outfits and goofing around. Claire even tried teaching me a little about make-up but I'm just terrible at it." I'm not really frustrated about it though. I began practicing yesterday, expecting to be terrible with all of my heart.

"Don't you think that's a question of practice rather than talent? I mean, I've never used any of those things so I can't say for sure but it really seems like that."

I nod, even though he can't see it. "I guess so." The ban phase begins and I do a little speedrun where it takes me less than two seconds to ban Yuumi. The little bastard cat. "What do you wanna play?" I ask then.

"Oh, I'm kinda open... What do you wanna play?"

I lean back and pinch my lower lip, staring intently at the neat rows of little portraits with names underneath. "Janna or Rakan? If you wanna, I could also play Thresh." I feel like playing something difficult.

"You sure you don't wanna first time that Pyke?"

"Oh hell nah!" I've always kept well away from the support-assassin. Taking over the carry role just doesn't sit quite right with me.

"Okay. Then let's go windwoman emoboy."

It's grown to become a bit of a standard combination for the two of us. I've gotten better and better at Janna and so has he with Aphelios.

The game loads and he tells me about the new patch that's coming up next week. A juicy set of nerfs and buffs that are bound to thoroughly shake up the meta.

I complain about the Yuumi buffs and the Rakan nerfs, acting like it's the literal end of the world when really I don't care. I'm happy, I'm with Alex. Outside, the rain has let up and right at that moment, the clouds tear and light falls onto my desk, warming my left on the keyboard.