Lean on Me || Jill Roord

34. Mario Kart Glory

"Everything's set then, yeah?" I asked Alex who had created a bracket on the large whiteboard Ellie brought over.

"I think so," she paused, looking over the chaos that was soon to commence. "We better get started."

The rules were simple; each match was a miniseries of three races on random tracks, and whoever won that series moved on. Our team bonding today consisted of a full-fledged Mario Kart tournament, courtesy of Kerstin obviously. The winner gets all the Mario Kart glory and bragging rights, which I intended on winning.

"We're going to be here all day," Alanna mumbled from beside me, looking over the whiteboard Alex had set up on the kitchen counter for everyone to see.

"You already knew that." I laughed before feeling a set of arms wrap around my waist, making my heart flutter. A head appeared at my shoulder, making me laugh slightly. "Hey Jill," I said with a light smile.

It had been almost a month since Jill's surgery, and she was progressing faster than I thought was possible. She was doing exercises I wasn't doing until two months post-op, and I was really excited for her even if worry nags at me constantly. Sure, I was happy for her, but I also wanted her to be healthy and not push herself too hard, making her injury worse instead of better. But forgetting injuries, Jill and I had been by each other's side every single day.

"Hey Caro, is it ready?" Jill glanced at the whiteboard as I hummed, raising an eyebrow, realizing this would probably take all day.

"This is going to take all day."

"That's what I said." Alanna cut Jill off, causing me to double over in laughter as Alex stood near us with a sly smile at the interaction.

"Alright!" Alex called out, catching everyone's attention. "Let's get this started! Laia, Jess, you guys are first."

And from then on, the day was filled with lighthearted competition that wasn't really lighthearted, but that wasn't the point. Everyone wanted Mario Kart glory, and that's what actually mattered. It went something like this:

Jess destroyed Laia, winning two races in a row by an absolute mile. It was kind of funny because Leila gave her shit about it in Spanish; nobody else knew what they were saying, but it got heated fast, and I made eye contact with Ellie across the room and had to force myself not to laugh. Though the attention was quickly turned onto me as I was now up against Leila. And let me tell you, the shit Laia gave Leila when I won set off another whole Spanish yelling match that had everyone questioning if we should be doing this. Esme made a comment about trying to learn Spanish, but this whole quarrel was enough to not make her want to learn anymore, and that got everyone laughing.

The next matchup consisted of Mary vs. Sandy, and surprisingly, Mary won after three races. She mentioned that she hadn't played since she was a kid, and that caused Sandy to roll her eyes in annoyance because she lost. Following them were Ellie and Hempo, and if I was honest, I so thought Hempo was going to win. At least that was until Ellie got a rocket in the last race and flew past Hempo for the win; talk about luck. Jill cheered from beside me, and I couldn't help but be amused by the way she was pushing Hempo's buttons. Hempo called for cheating, but there was no argument, and she eventually gave up.

Heading to the other side of the bracket, Kerstin and Chloe were set to face off, and the amount of shit I gave Kerstin had Jill slapping my shoulder. I couldn't help it though; I was competitive. And if we were all honest, this competition was going to come down to Kerstin and me anyway. Back to the matchup though, Kerstin won in two. Alanna and Khiara faced off next, and Alanna surprised everyone with her Mario Kart skills because nobody thought she'd ever really played it. Which was fair because she'd usually watch Kerstin and I battle it out from the kitchen with Alex. But she won in three, and I cheered for my fellow Aussie.