Date at WcDonalds

Chapter 7 - A Few Games

Cole crouched in the booth, his head low so he couldn't be seen over the top of the seat. Dozens of straws and their crumpled wrappers littered the table behind him and the floor all around. He was almost out of ammo.

Slowly, carefully, Cole peaked over the back of his seat, a straw hovering at his lips. He spotted a flash of pink across the next booth and didn't hesitate to blow through the straw. The paper casing shot through the air and he heard a squeal as Seliel narrowly ducked back down.

But she was back up in an instant and now Cole had to drop back down. However, Seliel's straw wrapper had a hole and only puffed out uselessly.

This was his chance.

Cole dove out of the booth and rolled across the floor, coming to a stop next to Seliel's booth. He saw a spark of fear in her eyes as he ripped the top off another wrapped straw before lifting it to his mouth.

"Any last words?" he asked.

Seliel pretended to think about it. Then she whipped out another straw and with one puff of air, it hurtled at Cole. Before he could even think of trying to avoid it, it bumped his arm and then fluttered to the ground.

"Gotcha!"

Cole shot the wrapper at her, anyway.

"Hey!" Seliel threw her hands up to shield herself.

Cole smirked. "Gotcha!"

Seliel put her hands back down. "Fine, we'll call it a tie."

"Of course that's only because I let you get me."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I guess we should clean this up, now."

Cole followed her gaze to the scraps of paper and plastic littering their little warzone. "You're probably right."

It was a chore to pick up all the shredded paper, especially after they started ripping it up even more and throwing it at each other like confetti. But every bit of paper eventually made it into the trash bin. Once they had picked up all the debris, they were again faced with the question of how to entertain themselves.

"So what's next?" Seliel wondered as she tossed the last handful of scraps into the trash.

Cole considered their inventory. They'd used up enough of the straws already. And condiments would be much too messy. But napkins made a good writing surface. "How about a Tic-Tac-Toe tournament?" he asked. He wasn't really sure what would make it a tournament, but they could figure that out as they went.

Seliel wrinkled her nose in a way that made him smile. "That's hardly a good game. No one really wins when you know what you're doing."

"Oh, come on, it'll be fun!"

Seliel shrugged and finally agreed to give it a try. They were able to get a pen from one of the employees as well as a fistful of napkins. Cole tried making the game more 'extreme' by adding extra lines.

"Well now it's just connect four!" Seliel protested.

"No way, totally different thing."

"How?"

"For one, it uses X's and O's," he said, drawing the symbols to demonstrate. "And connect four just has those little disks. Tooootally different thing."

Seliel screwed up her lips and looked at him with a doubtful expression. "Mmhmm."

"And besides, you still have to make a row all the way across!"

"That's impossible!"

"Well it is with that attitude!"

Seliel just shook her head. "Fine. Give me that pen."

As she predicted, the game was just as futile as any regular match of tic-tac-toe, if not more so. Dozens of napkins were disfigured in the process so they had to clean up after themselves again, and then they tried to decide what else they could do that wouldn't make as much of a mess. But after a few distinct yawns, it soon became clear that both of them were becoming too exhausted to start anything else. They ended up watching whatever played on the televisions in the restaurant. Of course the sound was off and there were only subtitles, but Cole and Seliel had more fun making up their own dialogue.

However, it wasn't long before they both started to get quiet. When Cole glanced outside, he thought there was barely more than a slight drizzle left. Any minute now the storm would be over and they would have to go their separate ways. He didn't even want to know how late in the night it was, he could almost tell by how exhausted he felt.

But Cole soon forgot about going home as he started to lose focus and it became harder and harder for him to keep his eyes open. All the noise from the speakers and machines gradually faded into the background. Soon enough, he was fast asleep, Seliel drifting off next to him. Both of them were much too tired to see the last few drops of rain hit the window.

. . .

A/N: One more chapter left tomorrow! See you then!