Chapter 4: == Mike: Be Awesome at DDR
You just finished your pizza and downed the rest of your Mountain Dew, so you decide it's time for you to throw down some DDR. You get it all set up on one of the faster paced songs, but not too fast, on the harder difficulty, and with that done you jump on the start button, and proceed to own that DDR mat so hard it couldn't even rage quit. You used to play a lot of DDR in the past, but you had stopped a couple summers ago. Recently you just got back into it and you think you've gotten pretty good. You don't often lose in versus matches against your friends, but not many of them even play on the same skill level as you anyway. Your taste in music is usually lost on most of the guys and girls in your group, or at least the techno portion of it is.
You finish the song with a round of applause from the spectating crowd, even though half of the guys are busy playing Call of Duty on one of the other TVs, so it's mostly the girls that are watching you. You are 100% sure that that is just fine with you, though. You step off the mat, motioning for someone else to take a turn on it, and Jade decides to step up to the task. She doesn't back down from a challenge, it seems. She picks a fast-paced song and doesn't even change the difficulty. She proceeds to own that mat just the same way you owned it, except maybe with less of your laid back sauntering over the mat and more female grace. You think that she probably looks a lot better playing this game than you do, but you aren't sure if maybe the way you play it looks really good to the girls watching you, just like Jade looks fantastic to you as she moves. You shake your head, thinking that you really shouldn't be following that line of thought.
You look over and have to shake your head at the boys crowded around Call of Duty. No matter your love for shooter games, that was not one of your favorites. No, honestly, you just hate it. Yeah, okay, it's the popular one, but you preferred Battlefield for your console shooter. Halo was just about tied for your favorite console shooter, but your favorite of all time is still Counter-Strike on the PC. You did bring your PC in preparation for you and some of the guys to play Minecraft later tonight, but that will come when the others decide to go sleep. You think about hooking it up early and throw down some Counter-Strike, but decide that you shouldn't, since this is technically your party too. Jade was about finished with her song, and the guys were about finished with that round of Call of Duty, so you call a vote for a Halo tournament. The consensus is a near-unanimous yes. The only ones who don't are a couple of the girls and Rob, who wasn't too good at Halo, and really didn't like doing competition in it. Of course, you know that a couple only came to hang out with everyone and of course for a couple of the guys. All in all, you count about ten people up for playing, including yourself.
"So, we could do five teams of two and set it up all tourney style," you offer, writing everyone's names down on sheets of paper. Since no one objects, you decide that's how it's done and shuffle them around in a bowl. You draw out the names to set up teams: You and JR end up on a team, which you think solves one possible dilemma, which would be JR and JT on the same team. You then draw out the rest of the names: Jade with your cousin Jake, JT with Meg, Emily with Micah, and Tyler with Levi. "That settles it, then. First match, JR and I versus Jade and Jake!" you exclaim, grabbing your controller.
== Jade: Show your awesome FPS skills!
You are about to show those boys how good of a shooter you can be. True, shooting things in a video game is a bit different than hunting in real life, but the main idea is the same. You always aim for the head, and you quickly learn that Mike's strategy is very similar. But next to you on the couch you can see him- no, you can even feel him tense up- every time he runs into you on the rather small arena they are playing on. You hear a slight snicker from him once or twice, though, which starts worrying you, and you turn a corner straight into his shotgun. He bursts into laughter then, and almost falls off the couch because of it, and you laugh too as you smack him on the arm, which accomplishes nothing but make him laugh harder. He soon regains his composure and begins his hunt again, searching for you or your teammate. You realize that your teams are actually tied for the lead, and that must mean that your teammates must be fairly even in skill as well. You grin as you start to get into the fight, and both teams creep toward the winning score. The whole room literally goes quiet when you both reach 49, one kill to win, and you know that Mike still has that dratted shotgun, and your only hope is to hit him from a distance with a grenade to weaken him, and then shoot him in the head with your pistol.
You tense up as you see him round the corner in front of you, and he lobs a grenade at you and retreats behind the corner. You ready your sticky grenades, waiting for him to pop back out, and all of a sudden Jake yells that there's someone behind you, just in time for James to hit you in the back. Shocked, you realize that they had been doing that the whole time, one of them distracting you so the other one could go in for the kill. You realize that since the two of them had been friends for their whole lives, they could probably communicate without much physical speaking. You and Rose were a lot like that sometimes, speaking to each other just by looking each other in the eye.
You congratulate the two of them on their win as the four of you hand off your controllers to the next players. "Hey, you guys put up a heck of a fight, I don't know if I could've done it if my bro wasn't watchin' my back," he says, grinning, "It was all luck. Well, there was some skill. Well, maybe a bit of both." You can't help but giggle a little bit about his indecision and his elongated well's. You can't help but wonder if that's what James was talking about when he told you about Mike's references he always makes. You don't have long to wonder, though, because you aren't paying attention, and as you start walking towards a seat, you accidentally trip and start falling.
== Mike: Be the hero, catch the girl.
You see Jade start to fall in front of you, and you quickly reach out to catch her, and you almost start falling yourself. You never really ever had good balance, so catching someone is not your forte. You manage to keep on your feet, though, and you were able to keep Jade from falling. She stands back up quickly, some hair falling into her face, and she apologizes, blushing. You tell her it's cool, but you for some reason feel blood rushing to your face for no reason, really. You think that you really need some more caffeine, so you head to the kitchen
For some reason, you can't get that blushing face out of your head, because it's really cute, and you can't help but think about how you could've brushed her hair out of her face, and how it would've felt to reach down and kiss her right then, and you stop yourself there. You can't do this. Not right now, at least. She's just been hurt, she's vulnerable, and you want to take advantage of that. You don't even know if she would like you that way.
You shake your head to finish clearing your thoughts, grab another Mountain Dew, and head back to the party just in time to see JT's eyes widen in a little bit of shock, as Emily and Micah just beat him and Meg by a landslide. You laugh at his slight misfortune and add jokingly, "Look on the bright side, now you don't have to worry about this deal interrupting any cuddle time with a special guy." You top it off with a wink, and he shakes his head at you and you both laugh. You look around and notice Jade's missing, and Emily just went missing too, which isn't good because she is supposed to be playing against you next. You decide that there must be some girl time going on, and the consensus is there'll be some non-tournament matches while everyone awaits the return of the girls.
== Jade: Have some girl time with Emily.
You just got pulled into the bedroom where you put your stuff by Emily, who sat down on the bed and motioned to a spot next to her. You sit down and she begins, "Okay, what do you think about Mike?"
"Wh-what? What do you mean what do I think about Mike?" You say, confused beyond belief, even though you feel blood rushing to your face again, and you aren't sure why.
"I mean, you clearly bumped into him there on purpose, didn't you? You like him, don't you?" she continued, oblivious to the fact that you have no idea what she's talking about.
"No, I- That was a complete accident! Honestly! I didn't mean to knock into him!" You say, starting to get a little flustered, which makes you a little irritated because you aren't sure why that's happening.
"I see the way you look at him, Jade, it's not hard to see it. You have a thing for Mike, and now all you need to do is figure out how to get him to like you back! He's a chivalrous guy, so the normal damsel in distress act won't cut it. Being the hero is just the norm for him. Trust me, I've tried it quite a few times… it doesn't work." You look at her, confused. This girl has a thing for Mike, and she's trying to set YOU up with him? Why would she do that?
"Look, if you have a thing for Mike, shouldn't you be going after him? Isn't that a thing you should be doing, not like, y'know, trying to help me?" you say, trying to stop her from asking all these personal questions.
"Look, I've liked Mike for a while, but I screwed it up. He had a thing for me a long time ago, and I kind of put him down really hard, and although he's a really great friend now, he'd never go beyond that with me," she explained, "But if I can help him be happy, then that's good enough for me!" She looks like her normal cheerful self when she says it, but you are pretty sure it's at least partly forced.
"I don't think you quite get it, Emily… Look, I don't have a thing for Mike. Honestly, right now, I don't want to. I just got through a bad break-up of sorts…" tears begin welling up in your eyes as the thought comes to you again, and she looks at you, shocked.
"Oh my gosh, Jade, I'm so sorry, I had no idea!" she exclaims, putting an arm around you, "I had no idea you were going through that, I thought…" she trailed off, not sure what to say and you shook your head, partly to get rid of the tears welling up.
"No, I don't have the hots for Mike or anything. I think for now being single is the way to go for me," you say, emphasizing every part of that statement which shows you did NOT have a thing for Mike; which were all the parts. All of them.
"Could I ask what happened, though? Like, girl to girl? I know from experience that the more you talk about it, the better it can get. Mike's good for that too," she offers, and you decide to take it. You tell her about what had happened that afternoon, what you walked in on, and how you met Mike. You tell her how Mike comforted you and then invited you here and she nodded with approval.
"Mike did the right thing. If there's any group of people that can help you get over a bad break-up, it's these guys and girls here. We're always here for each other, and you're definitely one of us now. Welcome to the group, dear," she smiles at you and stands up, offering you a hand up off the bed. You take it and the two of you walk back out towards the party, and you sit down next to Mike on the couch.
End Chapter 4.
I'm honestly not too sure how happy I am with how this chapter closes, but oh well. I don't think I've mentioned it directly before now, but I think it's fairly obvious by this point that Mike is in fact pretty much myself. Well, he really is just me, which makes him so darned easy to write.