Game Girl
I
Bobby stepped out of the wooded trail to stand on a bluff overlooking Adams Lake. Ordinarily, he preferred to do his workouts indoors, but his trainer kept recommending more cardio, and treadmills bored him to tears. This view was definitely worth the hassle of hiking all the way up here, the rocky bluff dropping steeply into a valley with the vast lake spreading out before him. The hills rose up on the opposite shore, packed thickly with pines, and the water was so still it made an upside-down copy of the trees and sky, lightly distorted by the rippling water.
“Hey.”
The feminine voice startled Bobby, and he almost jumped in surprise. He looked for its source and found a girl about his age with a light brown ponytail and glasses. She was dressed like a typical hiker: khaki cargo shorts, a pale blue athletic tank top, and a flannel tied around her waist. Bobby thought she looked like that Tomb Raider character.
He said, “Oh, hey. I didn’t know anyone else was up here.”
Bobby guessed the girl was more of a casual hiker, though he didn’t have much room to talk. Her limbs were thin and lithe, but she didn’t have much muscle definition. She was cute, though, and that tank top showed off some decent curves up top. Not huge, but plenty big enough for her small frame.
“Just me!” She said with a smile. A shadow crossed her face as if she was just realizing the two of them were alone in this remote place. “Um… I have bear spray, in case you’ve got any funny ideas. I’m prepared for both options.”
Bobby took a step back, raising his palms and giving a smile he hoped was disarming. “No funny business here. I was just—wait, both options?”
“You know, ‘I choose the bear?’”
Bobby’s confusion must have shown on his face because the girl’s eyes lit up, and she let out a soft chuckle. “You seriously don’t know that meme? It was all over social media like a few months ago.”
He shrugged. “No idea, sorry.”
“Basically, someone asked whether, if a woman was alone in the woods, she would rather run into a bear or a random man. Most women chose the bear, and then, of course, a bunch of guys got butthurt about it.”
Bobby thought about this for a moment. His ego wanted to be offended at the idea that this girl would rather run into a bear out here than him. But he pushed the thought away. “I mean, that sort of makes sense. You can prepare for a bear encounter, but people are more random.”
“See, you get it.” She held out a hand. “I’m Cathy.”
He shook Cathy’s hand. “Bobby. Nice to meet you.”
“Have you been here before?”
“First time,” he said, “It’s quite a view.”
Cathy hummed in agreement and looked out over the valley. “I don’t get out as often as I’d like, but it’s hard to catch the window of nice weather before it gets too hot or too cold.”
They sat on the rocks and talked for a while. Cathy graduated high school a year after Bobby but was taking a gap year. Bobby was about to start his second semester of pre-med. She was a self-proclaimed nerd, into comics, anime, and games of nearly every variety. He was a high school athlete, third string on the college team. Before he knew it, a full hour had passed, so they started the long trek back to the trailhead together.
Despite their differences, Bobby found Cathy very easy to talk to. He enjoyed her sense of humor, and he’d been curious about nerdy stuff lately after his roommate showed him some Marvel movies. His roommate also tried to teach him Magic the Gathering, but he was quickly overwhelmed by all the rules and mechanics.
As they reached the parking area, Cathy said, “If you’re interested in card games, you might like a deck builder.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like a TCG (trading card game), but you don’t have to build your deck ahead of time. Everyone starts with the same cards, and you add to them as part of the game. There’s a Marvel-themed one that’s pretty popular, and it’s co-op.”
“Co… operative?”
“Mmhmm, everyone works together to fight off the villain, so it can be a little more laid-back than a dueling game like Magic.”
“That sounds cool.”
“I work at The Board Room, just off the square?”
“Oh, I think I know the place. Next to the comic shop?”
“Yeah. You should stop in sometime. We have a library of games to try; I bet you’ll find something you like.”
“I’ll have to check it out.”
Cathy said, “I work ten to six every day except Sunday and Monday.”
“It’s a date.”
Cold panic washed over Bobby as the words slipped out of his mouth, but Cathy’s face held a pleased smile.
***
True to his word, Bobby visited the game store after work and before going to the gym. The shelves packed with board games were a little overwhelming, but Cathy gave him a full tour, describing the various genres and game types.
“These bigger boxes are mostly ‘eurogames,’ but there’s a few ‘ameritrash,’ of course. They’re all different weights; some are co-op, and these, on the end, are legacy games.”
Bobby’s head spun with Cathy’s stream of unfamiliar terms. It was almost as bad as being in class. But her eyes shone with excitement as she explained. She was so passionate. He felt he could listen to her talk about games all day. Bobby wondered if he should have tried to date a nerdy girl a long time ago rather than the vapid cheerleader types that made up his list of exes. Sure, half of what Cathy said was going right over his head, but he was slowly picking up the terms of art. It was far more interesting and engaging than listening to his past girlfriends’ boring gossip.
“Is legacy the same as campaign?” He asked.
Cathy put a finger over her lips, and the motion of her arm brushing against her boobs briefly drew his eye. “Sort of. You play both kinds over multiple sessions, but campaign games are closer to something like D&D.”
“Okay…”
“So, this one is Pandemic Legacy. There’s an original Pandemic, which is a co-op game where you’re trying to find the cures for diseases before they spread too much. In the legacy version, each game is one month of the year, and depending on what happens in each game, the board changes. Like a city might get overrun with a disease, and it’ll be weaker from that point on.”
“Makes sense.”
“And this one is The Crew. It’s a trick-taking game… do you know Euchre?”
“I think my grandparents played that.”
“Yeah, it’s a regular card game. Anyway, this one is a co-op, too, but it’s just a series of fifty missions. You go through them all, repeating any you fail, then score based on how many attempts it took to beat them all.”
“So, Pandemic is a legacy, and The Crew is a campaign?”
“Pretty much, yeah. It’s kinda fuzzy, though.”
Bobby pondered that a moment. “Like, more of a spectrum than a binary?”
Cathy grinned. “Exactly.”
They continued the tour. Bobby asked more clarifying questions, partly out of genuine curiosity and partly just to spend more time with this cute, fascinating girl. The games were more expensive than he’d anticipated, and eventually, he couldn’t justify hanging out at the store hanging out with Cathy when she was supposed to be working. Before he left, however, they exchanged numbers, and she invited him to a monthly game night at a restaurant a few blocks away.
***
Bobby split up the cards in his hand, playing them down in front of him. “I have three recruit points and eight attack points.”
“Spendy and stabby,” another guy at the table said. Bobby thought his name was Chris or maybe Mike.
“Right.”
“We just say that because every game uses different terms, but almost all have a ‘buying’ currency and a ‘fighting’ currency.”
“Got it. Anyway, that’s enough to attack Loki, right?”
“Mmhmm.”
“And we win!” The woman beside Chris said. “Nice work, new guy.”
“Heh, thanks. Do we score now?”
“It has scoring,” Cathy said, “But we don’t usually bother with it.”
“Yeah,” Mike added, “It’s more fun to just win or lose together.”
Bobby recalled the drama he’d dealt with in high school because guys got too focused on who scored more or spent less time on the bench. They cared more about one-upping their teammates than whether or not they won as a team. “That makes sense,” He said, still wondering who got the most points.
As game night was wrapping up and people packed their many-colored boxes into large bags to haul to their cars, Cathy stayed near him. Her games fit into a fairly large backpack, which sat in the booth where they’d played Legendary.
“Did you drive?” He asked.
Cathy shook her head. “I live just over near Samuels Park.”
“Can I walk you home?” He asked. “You know… in case you run into any bears?”
Cathy grinned with a huff of laughter. “Sure!”
***
Bobby offered to carry Cathy’s backpack of games, which she allowed with a smile. “Lord knows my back gets enough of a workout as it is.”
They walked together back to her place, discussing and analyzing the games they played and the people he met. As many of them as Cathy knew, that is. Bobby felt like he learned something new every time he talked with Cathy.
When they got to her place, an old house that had been divided into four apartments, he started to sling her bag off his shoulders, but she put a hand on his chest. Heat tingled through his body, and he met her eyes. Her glasses made them seem even bigger than they already were, deep blue orbs reflecting the sodium streetlights overhead.
“Do… you want to come in?”
Bobby had gotten such offers several times over the years, though never from a woman as clever as Cathy. Usually, it was the ditzy cheerleaders or female athletes with muscles for brains. In truth, a part of him wanted to get his hands on Cathy the day they met, but he didn’t think she was a one-night-stand kind of girl. “Are you sure?”
Cathy’s sable eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “Call this our third date…”
He didn’t think showing up at her work counted as a date—or running into her in the woods, for that matter—but he’d be an idiot to say so. Still staring into her knowing eyes, he gently laid his hand over hers. “I’d like that.”
***
Afterward, Cathy snuggled into him, pressing her slim backside against his chest. Bobby wrapped an arm around her, accidentally grabbing a handful of boob before dropping his hand to the mattress.
“I don’t mind if you leave it there,” She said.
Bobby put his hand back on her breast, gently kneading. They were large enough to fill his hands with a little left over, and he’d spent a good part of their evening together worshipping them. Cathy chuckled softly in his arms, her body shaking against his.
“What?”
“I’m glad you like them,” She whispered. “The last guy I was with thought they were too big.”
“What a moron.”
She laughed again, the round lobe in his hand trying to jiggle out of his grip. After a moment, Cathy’s mirth subsided, and she said, “You can stay if you want, but I’m guessing you need to get back.”
“I should, yeah,” Bobby said, regretting every word, “I have work in the morning.”
“I figured. We’ll have to plan better next time.”
“Next time?” He asked, silently cursing his stupidity.
Cathy rolled over to face him. Without her glasses, her bare face glowed in the darkened apartment. “Of course, next time. What kind of girl do you think I am?”
Bobby had no response to that.
Her flat stare shifted into a wide grin. “Besides, I want a rematch on Dice Throne. You had beginner’s luck.”
Bobby laughed, using a finger to brush a few strands of hair behind Cathy’s ear. “You got it.”