Miles Away | Nick Mara

Nine

Just as I'd said, we ended up playing 5 games of Mario Racers. Nick and I sat in the same chairs for 20 minutes, racing each other over and over again. The rest of the guys stood behind us, cheering us on and screaming and yelling when one of us won.

It became even more intense during the last game. I started to yell and shout whenever Nick passed me, and smiled and laughed when I drove ahead of him.

"Oh my GOD," Nick groaned as I crossed the finish line, milliseconds before him.

I laughed and sat back in my chair. "I told you I'm better than you!"

"Nope," he shook his head. "Today was just a one off. Trust me. I'm good at this. I'm good at everything."

"Pfft." The boys laughed.

"Name one thing I'm bad at." Nick said with confidence.

"Texting back." Austin said.

I laughed and nodded, agreeing with what he'd said. Nick's head dropped as he broke into a guilty smile.

"And also..." Edwin started.

He looked at me, then at Nick, then back at me before saying: "Nevermind."

I squinted at him, wondering what he'd meant to say. When we decided to split up to play whatever games we wanted to play, I followed Edwin to where the basketball games were. Everyone else had gone to play air hockey.

"So what were you going to say?" I asked, standing next to him.

He turned around in surprise before speaking. "It's nothing."

"Tell me." I said as he inserted his tokens into the machine.

A bunch of basketballs rolled down as the countdown started. He grabbed each ball and threw it into the hoop, not missing once. Once he finished, he turned to face me again.

"I was going to say," he paused. "He's also bad at realizing certain things."

I tilted my head to the side. "Like what?"

"Like the fact that he shouldn't have let go of the girl that he's been in love with for the past four years." He said, looking at me.

"He hasn't been in love with me for the past four years," I said with a laugh.

My laugh slowly began to fade when I realized that he was being serious. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged when looked down to the floor.

"But wait," I said. "We only dated for one."

"Yeah well..." He trailed off.

I ran up behind him, trying to keep up as he walked around, trying to find a game to play.

"It took him a while before he asked you out on that date. And it just because you broke up, it doesn't mean he's not in love with you anymore." He stated.

I blinked. He shrugged.

Just as I was about to ask another question, Austin came up behind us and asked if we wanted to play Tomb Raider with him. Edwin nodded eagerly and followed him to the other side of the room. I stood by myself, leaning on the side of a chair.

He's lying, I said to myself. He's lying. What does he know?

After reassuring myself, I got up and started to look for the other guys. They were all crowding around a Pacman game, yelling at the screen as Zion played.