I'm Here | ✓

26 - Arcade

Steve kept one hand on my waist as he put fifty dollars in a small red machine. Quarters fell out the bottom, clanging loudly. As Steve gathered them up, I glanced around at all the flashing machines and neon lights and patterned walls. It was somewhat disorienting, but I wasn't ogling for long. From here, I could see four security cameras pointing in various directions, small lights on them blinking as they recorded. They made me anxious.

"It's okay. I think it's dark enough that nobody can see our faces, anyway." Steve saw where I was looking. "Most of the time they're just for show, but thanks for being careful."

I nod, swallowing my nervousness. "So? What to first?"

Steve glances around. "I'm not really sure. I've never been to an arcade like this before. How different can it be?"

I slide his hand off my hip and instead lace my fingers through his. This is gonna be fun, you're okay. This is your thousandth first date. "Is that ski-ball?" I exclaim, suddenly spotting a game in the corner. I grin at Steve and drag him over to it. I was right; it is ski-ball, except way more digital than I remember. The lane is lit with turquoise lights that flash as we walk up. "Can I have a few cents?"

Steve drops a bunch of quarters in my hand, and I slide a few into the machine. Ten plastic balls roll down the side and I grip one in my hand, trying to remember. I feel like I was good at this once. I squint my eyes and focus on the smallest hole labeled "100," swinging my arm back and forth until I think I have the perfect trajectory. I let it slide from my fingertips, but the ball bounces off the hole and falls down to the larger hole labeled "10."

"Aww," I moan jokingly. "I thought I had that for sure." I grabbed another and aimed for the "50" hole instead. I made this one, and went for another ball. Finally, when I ran out, I gestured to Steve. "Check it out. 430."

He put in coins of his own. "I'm betting I could beat that."

I shove him playfully, leaning against the wall. "I'd like to see you try, punk."

And he does. He makes 470, somehow. I stick my tongue out at him. He scrunches his nose in response, and we laugh together, abandoning ski-ball to go find another game.

The arcade feels like a never-ending swirl of lights and laughter and colors and music I don't recognize. We sprint from game to game like children, but I wouldn't have it any other way. We hop onto matching plastic motorcycles and I easily dominate Steve in racing through a virtual jungle against imaginary opponents. I try to forget the flickers of missions that were startlingly similar to the game and instead focus on Steve congratulating me on my win. We experiment with joystick games like PAC-Man and Galaga, which were apparently popular in the 1980's. I pull my hair back into a messy ponytail and Steve whips out his phone to get a video of me attempting a giant dance game. Trying to be witty, I choose 'hard' and immediately regret it, as the instructions on the screen race past too fast for me to even comprehend it. Steve cackles madly as I nearly trip over my feet dozens of times in less than a minute, and then the game ends, leaving me with a score of 20 out of 10,000, and then Steve and I are both dying of laughter at my pathetic attempt to impress him. We try our luck at claw games, which results in Steve carrying two tiny plush frogs, one grey bunny, a little donut, and one giant Captain America plush apparently called a "tsum-tsum," pronounced "soom soom," to my surprise. I swipe Steve's phone from his pocket and take a photo of him beaming from behind his massive pile of stuffed animals. Quickly, we develop scores of photographs, our faces barely lit up by pink and purple lights, laughing with each other, displaying our winnings and scores for only the camera to remember.

We collapse onto orange stools, out of breath. My face hurts because I've been smiling so much, and it's the best feeling I've ever had. Steve dumps the plushies into the counter and I hold his hands in mine. "God, Stevie, thank you so much."