“First blood?” Brett chortled, and Penny revelled in the surprised look on his face.He had no idea who he was messing with."Enjoy that feeling. It’s not going to last.”
“Is that what you said on the ice before you got dropped?”
“Wow. Low blow.”
Penny laughed with zero remorse as Brett stared more intently at the screen. Their soldiers were in a dance of cat and mouse. Penny's agility kept her one step ahead, but Brett wasn't easy to take down. They traded kills, and Penny started to get nervous.
With her health low, she darted around a corner only to be met by a well-timed grenade from Brett. With no time to react, the explosion engulfed her character, and she groaned, falling back on the couch while Brett did the most annoying victory dance in human history.
“You’re not even standing. You’re just scooting your butt across the couch cushion,” Penny muttered.
“Jealous?”
“Of what? Your ass or the couch?” Penny pushed off his shoulder and moved further away from him. "Let’s go. Round two.”
By round six, they were tied at three wins each, but Penny had won the last two. With newfound confidence, she was relentless. She picked up a sniper rifle and found a vantage point with a clear view of the field. Brett's character appeared in her scope, unaware of the danger. She took a breath and hit the button to squeeze the trigger. The shot rang out, hitting him in the helmet.
Brett respawned while he cursed under his breath. He moved carefully, using the sparse cover to his advantage. She still had the upper hand, but Brett took her by surprise and charged her position, his character's heavy gun blazing. Penny's sniper was no match at close range. She scrambled to switch to a shotgun.
Their characters grappled, gunfire and melee attacks blurring into one chaotic clash. With a well-timed hit, Penny knocked Brett to the ground and finished him off. He threw up his hands, brandishing the controller over his head.
“You can’t keep hiding out in the mountains!” he cried out.
“I’m sorry, isn’t that the point of the game? To find an advantage?” Penny couldn't have quelled the giddiness in her gut if she’d tried.
“The point of thegameis to battle, not squirrel yourself away and take cheap shots.” Brett ran a hand through his hair. He was hot and bothered, and watching him all fired up pushed adrenaline through her veins.
“Come on, Brett, are you really going to pretend I’m not just better than you at this?”
He started another round. When her character appeared, she glanced over at Brett’s map view.
“No screen peeking,” he grumbled, and Penny laughed out loud.
“It's not screen peeking! It's the same TV—right there in front of me!”
“Still cheating.”
“Says who?”
“My house, my rules.”
“You sound exactly like my brother.” Penny rounded a corner and ran down a hallway. Brett had wisely chosen a map with a labyrinth of corridors, so she couldn’t employ her usual tactics. She switched out her weapon. He was still going down, and she wouldn't evenpeekto make it happen.
“Which brother?” Brett asked.
“Lucas.” Penny surprisingly said his name without any hesitation. “He was the worst. Anything he could do to stack the deck in his favour, he was all in. One time, he even pretended that my boyfriend was on the phone to distract me.”
“Did it work?”
“No, I didn't care about that boyfriend.” Penny’s chest warmed at the memory. So much of their time together was tainted with his alcohol abuse, it felt almost sacred to think of him as a carefree thirteen-year-old kid.
Brett glanced over, probably noticing that she’d clammed up, and she sent a shot into his soldier’s turned back. When he looked back at the screen, his jaw went slack then clenched as he dropped his controller to the floor.
“Okay, that was definitely cheating.”
Penny threw out her hands, feigning innocence. “I didn't do anything.”
“You were—I thought something was wrong.”
