My Best Friend Is Straight

The Date?

Loud music, sweaty bodies and many people. At any other time I would hate this, but in the arcade? Never. It had so many elements that one might connect to a sloppy, teenage party, but the atmosphere was completely different. Oh, and children was allowed in here too.

"DIE YOU STUPID MOTHERF- GODDAMMIT!" I smiled slightly when I heard Eric's voice from the other side of the game.

*-VICTORY-*

I grinned widely at the screen as angry stomps made their way towards me. Turning around, still grinning, I came eye to eye with Eric.

"How can you be so damn good on this game?" he spat jokingly. "Have you been here with someone other than me? Are you cheating on me?" his voice was light, teasing, but I could almost bet that I heard some actual worry in it.

"Aww, someone is jealous," I teased and made my way towards another game. He let out a loud laughter.

"No way, dude!" Ouch. "Seriously though, how come you're this good?" he asked, the tone of his voice still light. I spun around, a mischievous smile on my lips.

"You're good at sports, I am good at games. Get over it," he laughed again. Then a glint of something appeared in his eyes.

"Let me chose the next game."

Apparently the game he had in thought involved exercising. We stood by a booth, holes in front of us, one basketball each and several girls drooling from the sidelines. I glared at Eric. He knew I sucked at basketball. Why was there even a basketball game here? Shouldn't the arcade focus on computer games or such? My focus drifted to the prizes, landing on one specific plush.

"You better win me that bumblebee," I muttered, making Eric laugh again.

His ball obviously got into the hole without fail. 100 points. The girls giggled, pushing their breasts so much that I actually became worried they would pop. Ok, now I'm lying. Their breasts could explode for all I cared.

I glared angrily at them, but their focus was entirely on Eric. To say the least, I was ignored. Their flirty giggles were taunting and I bit my lip in frustration as I finally threw the ball. It didn't even land close to the holes. In fact, it almost hit the poor guy that stood a couple of feet beside it. I smiled sheepishly at him, he glared back.

The girls giggled again, but this time it wasn't flirty, it was spiteful. My face heated up, and I looked down. It felt so dumb. Ironic. Both the girls and I were attr- wanting to have fu- damn this is hard! Wanted to be on Eric's good side. The sad part of it all was that they held a better chance than me.

Suddenly a loud bell rang, startling me out of my melancholy thoughts. It wasn't the kind of bell that you heard in schools, more like a victory bell. I looked up.

"Congratulations! You won the grand prize!" I stared blankly at the guy, then I realised that he was talking to Eric. I turned around and saw Eric grinning like a maniac. He looked at me and blinked. I felt myself blush again and diverted my eyes to my toes.

It wasn't until a large, fluffy bumblebee was stuffed in my arms that I looked up. I stared in wonder at the fluffy insect. It was the size of my torso. Glancing at Eric I realised that he was grinning at me. He patted me on my shoulder, which made me blush again.

"Come on! Let's go to Millies, I'm craving some caffeine right now," he proclaimed, dragging me out of the arcade.

Millies was a cafe down the street, owned by a small, middle-aged lady called Mildred. When Eric and I found it, we had been running from the arcade to find shelter from bad weather. It was a lot like a romcom at the time -although I was probably the only one who thought so- as the rain was pouring down and the was closed for maintenance. The street we had been running on didn't have a lot of stores, but by the end of it we found Millies. It had been open, although it hadn't been a lot of customers due to the rain. The small cafe had an almost overwhelming scent of pastries and coffee, but that's what we grew to love about it.

Mildred had greeted us with a warm smile, and lead us to a small booth in the far corner of the shop. The booth was isolated from the rest of the cafe as it had walls in stained glass surrounding it. Next to it was the door to the kitchen, making the surroundings smell amazing, and warm.

We had sat down, and Mildred brought us towels and a small menu. When we had said that we couldn't pay for anything -we were young, only 11 or so- she had smiled and disappeared back into the kitchen. After only a minute or two, she came back with two large, steaming cups of belgian hot chocolate, towels and one newly baked pastry each.

With large eyes, we had stared at her in disbelief, drool almost escaping our mouths. She had laughed, and said it was on the house.

Eric and I agreed on coming to the cafe a couple of times a week to help her out. She didn't complain, but she aso wouldn't allow us to work for free, so in return she gave us free food.

The rest is history.

"Hi, boys!" Millie greeted us as we walked into the cafe. She had made it clear early that any other name, but Millie, was prohibited. "Mildred" made her feel old. "Wanna have a taste of my newest experiment?"

We both nodded and she disappeared into the kitchen. The cafe wasn't very active today, but there was still a small murmur of voices, making the atmosphere homey. Taking a seat in our usual corner, we immediately started chatting. I felt relieved all of a sudden. It was as if the weekend never happened. Obviously, I was happy that the weekend would be forgotten. Obviously. Eric started to elaborate how his team had "destroyed" some other school's team during the Sunday-practice. I smiled slightly, nodding even though I wasn't fully listening.

Suddenly I had a steaming cup of hot tea in front of me, Eric had coffee. A large plate with a hot-pink cake was placed in front of us. I looked up and was met with the grinning face of Millie.

"Enjoy," she said with a wink, running off to tend to other customers. I glanced at Eric, he was still gesturing wildly and blabbing mindlessly. If I didn't know better I would have thought that he hadn't heard nor seen Millie give us the warm drinks and the cake.

I sipped on my tea, noticing it was vanilla. Staring into the steaming water, I laid my eyes on my reflexion. Just like the last couple of days, I was dressed in a large hoodie, and a scarf. There was no way in hell nor heaven that I would let Eric remember the events that I so desperately tried to hide. This morning my hickeys had looked worse than yesterday, being green and purple. My wrist was still bruised, although it wasn't swollen anymore, it didn't hurt as much either. Maybe I hadn't sprained it, maybe it was just a small overreaction from my side.

"-cas! Earth to Lucas! Dude, why are you spacing out for?" My head snapped up to meet with Eric's worried eyes. He was staring intensely at me, so I blushed and looked down to the tea again.

"Just tired," I mumbled. He didn't look convinced, but dropped it. The cake was still untouched on the table, so I picked up my fork to take a bite. Before my fork even touched the pastry, Eric had grabbed my hand. Firmly, not hard. I was startled, and even let out a small yelp, but he wasted no time pulling my sleeve up to my elbow. Oh...

"What happened to your arm?" he asked, worry and anger clear in his voice. It looked like he would kill whomever it was did this to me. For a second or two I felt paralysed by the question. Then, I began giggling. The giggling soon turned into full on laughter.

"What's so funny? You're hurt! That is not funny!" he exclaimed, which only made me laugh even more.

"Y-you... y-you r-rea-lly do not re-remember?" I managed to ask between fits of laughter. His face turned red, I wasn't sure why, but it made me guffaw. "You idiot! You were so damn drunk this weekend that you fell on me. My wrist took the fall so that's why I have it bandaged." Shit. I brought it up.

"Dude... I am so sorry!" Eric looked completely devastated that he was the cause of my bandaging. I smiled slightly at his concern, at least he felt bad for this. I pulled my arm back to my side and gave him a large grin in an attempt of comfort. He didn't seem convinced by it, - damn I really need to find another way of comforting people - so I stuck to words.

"Don't worry, Eric. It doesn't even hurt anymore. Now, let's taste this damn cake!"

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See you on Saturday, hopefully.