Game of Hearts

by Jerry Cole

  He needed to talk to him.

  He needed to talk to him and clear the air. The last thing he wanted was for there to be some sort of uncomfortable, tense cloud hanging over the tournament. It was Allegiance’s first and Mickey hadn’t intended to make him feel uncomfortable.

  Mickey looked around, trying to find Allegiance anywhere in the crowd, when someone touched him on the arm. “Hey,” Syn said into his ear. “Are you doing all right?”

  Mickey nodded. “Have you seen Allegiance?”

  “Come on,” Syn replied, not answering his question and tugging at him. “Let’s get out of here. Do you want to see the qualifiers?”

  Mickey shook his head. “I want to go upstairs, honestly.”

  “Too bad,” Syn said, still holding onto him. “You’re going to see them. We need your pretty face there.”

  Mickey groaned, but he was starting to feel a little better now that he was getting further and further away from the crowd. “I would ask why, but I don’t want to know.”

  “Come on,” Syn replied. “The last thing I want to do is deal with Sweet and Prophet without you there. You’re the glue that holds it all together. We’d fall apart without you.”

  “Okay, well, for the record,” Mickey replied, “I hate you.”

  “You hate me? You’re the one who dragged me into this,” Syn said, shaking his head and smiling. “So I mostly blame you. In fact, this is probably almost completely your fault.”

  “Ugh,” Mickey replied, smiling back at him. Syn let go of his wrist as they walked outside. It was a cold, windy day, colder than either one of them had expected. Not cold enough that Mickey wished he could go back inside and get a scarf, though. The autumn in America, at least as far as Mickey had experienced, wasn’t as bad as the winter where he had grown up. He actually found it rather pleasant, something he couldn’t say for the weather in England. He turned back to Syn. “So what did you do last night? Were you at the party?”

  “Aye,” Syn said. “It was okay. Standard. Few booth babes, though.”

  “Did you pull?”

  “Aye,” Syn replied, flashing him a grin. “But it was kind of boring. She was fit, but she wasn’t very fun. Anyway, lesson learned. Don’t go for the super-hot ones.”

  “You never do,” Mickey said, snickering and shaking his head.

  “Hey, don’t be a dick,” Syn replied. “I just take what I can get. I’m an equal opportunity lay. Unlike you.”

  Mickey shook his head, looking around. “Where is it?”

  “The stadium right in front of us,” Syn said. “Honestly, what would you do without me?”

  Mickey looked up, following Syn’s gaze to the white stadium with the World of Heroes electronic banner on the big screen. “Oh, right.”

  “Are you okay? You’re like, more out of it than usual,” Syn said. “And you’re usually really out of it when it comes to tournaments.”

  “Yes,” Mickey said. “Okay, maybe no. Did you see who I left the party with last night?”

  “No. I told you, I was busy with a booth babe,” Syn replied. “Why? Did you pull too? Well, no, you normally pull. Something happened, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Mickey replied, chewing the inside of his mouth. “Well, no. I don’t know how to explain it. My gaydar failed.”

  “Oh, ouch,” Syn said, laughing. “That never happens anymore.”

  “Right?” Mickey said. “That’s what I thought, anyway. But I was wrong. And I pretty much ended up making a fool out of myself, because this guy, he was like, super sweet and—”

  “Oh, no,” Syn replied. “This is going to be a thing, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is going to be like, when you fell for that lad from Venezuela, isn’t it?”

  “What? No!” Mickey shook his head, his face turning pale at the memory. “No, it’s nothing like that. That was…”

  “A really horrible few months,” Syn said, shaking his head. “You’re over him now, right?”

  “Yes,” Mickey replied, too quickly. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t serious.”

  Syn rolled his eyes. “Maybe not to him, mate, but it was definitely serious to you. Remember that time I gave you a lift to the pub, and you wouldn’t stop crying in the car?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t bring that up,” Mickey said, tutting. “If you were really my friend—”

  “Oh, please, you were so pissed,” Syn said. “You were drinking tin after tin, and don’t get me wrong, like, it was totally fine. You’re allowed to do stuff like that, so long as I’m allowed to take the piss out of you forever.”

  “Aye, well, I’m clearly terrible at making decisions,” Mickey said, rolling his eyes. “As evidenced by that. It wasn’t about him, though.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t? What was it about then? I probably missed the memo.”

  “I don’t know,” Mickey replied, shrugging as they approached the VIP entrance. “Probably about me. I’m not sure it was about him. I didn’t really know him, did I?”

  “Did you, fuck,” Syn said. “All you knew about him was that he was fit as fuck.”

  “And that he loved sucking cock,” Mickey said.

  Syn laughed as he got in the queue, behind a bunch of people that they both knew but were both trying their best to ignore. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “I can’t let something like that happen again,” Mickey said, shaking his head. He took the lanyard that was hanging around his neck and handed it to the security guard next to the metal detectors, flashing him a quick smile. “Especially not while I’m here. So many things are riding on this, y’know.”

  “Pun not intended,” Syn replied.

  Mickey rolled his eyes. “Pun most definitely not intended.”

  He went through the metal detector first, waiting for Syn to join him for a moment before they walked in together. Syn looked him up and down. “But you still haven’t told me what happened last night.”

  “Yeah, mostly because now’t actually happened,” Mickey said. “Like, I wanted it to, right? I’m talking to this lad and he’s so cute. Cute as a button, yeah?”

  “Aye,” Syn replied, nodding. Mickey sighed as they approached the entrance of the arena. The minute they walked through the door, there would be a huge crowd and there would be cameras on him. These brief few minutes, where he got to hang out with his best friend as he walked from the hotel to the arena, were the best time of the tournament for Mickey.

  “But he wasn’t into me,” Mickey said, biting the inside of his mouth. “And that’s fine, it is, because—”

  “You’re a literal supermodel and it doesn’t matter,” Syn finished for him.

  Mickey laughed. “I’m not a literal supermodel. Anyway, yeah, it doesn’t matter. But I liked him a lot and I felt like a bit of an idiot afterward. I wanted to find him and apologize, but, ugh. I was ambushed outside in the lobby and then I couldn’t find him after that.”

  “Who was he? Just some random?” Syn asked. He looked down at his phone for a second then pointed toward the row of front seats. “A2 and A3.”

  “VIP perks,” Mickey said loudly. “Watching boring shit.”

  “Getting paid to watch boring shit, though,” Syn said. “Imagine having to work in a shop or something. Can you think of anything worse?”

  “No,” Mickey replied, shuddering. “I really can’t.”

  “Anyway,” Syn said, taking his seat. “Don’t scare off the talent, yeah?”

  “You think I’m scaring him off?”

  “In an intimidating way, like,” Syn replied, rolling his eyes. “Not ‘cause you’re hideous or anything. Though, for the record, I know what you’re like deep inside.”

  “Thanks,” Mickey said, laughing and sitting next to him. “Knob. Do you know when Sweet and Prophet are getting here?”

  “Nah, I don’t know shit,” Syn said. “All I know is that we get unlimited drinks. For free! Did you know that?”

  Mickey nudged hi
m with his shoulder, but he was smiling.

  Chapter Five

  Bjorn’s heart was beating fast and hard. He was surrounded by people who knew what they were doing, people who had spent months, even years, training to get to where he was. He walked across the stage and waved shyly at a crowd of spectators who didn’t seem to know him. His team was the second on the roster, facing a team that had gotten as far as semi-finals last year. That was the only reason people had shown up to that time slot in the first place. The passes usually allowed for spectators to come and go as they pleased, and Bjorn hadn’t expected that any of them would show up to AlphaChew’s first game. It had been a stupid team name and he regretted registering as that, but it was done and they couldn’t get the fifty dollars back. They had breezed through the pre-qualifiers too, and AC wasn’t too bad an acronym. Bjorn had to remind himself that it could have been a lot worse. It would have been a lot worse, if he had listened to his teammates. All of their name ideas were a lot more offensive than his own, so it was a good thing that they almost always listened to Bjorn. Except when it came to how much he wanted to go to parties. They never listened to him then.

  He swallowed and unscrewed the lid on the water bottle that he had next to him as he walked into the computer booth. The computers were provided by the company that put out the game, but each of the gamers provided his own keyboard and mouse. Of course, his keyboard was beat up and his mouse was a piece of shit, but as long as he was able to use them, he didn’t mind that much. He really needed to upgrade everything, but there was only so much that his sponsorship paid. Eventually, he would receive those items for free—when he was at the top of the queue, instead of there, his name somewhere on a spreadsheet in the cloud. Some intern would have to look at it and then click on a check box by Bjorn’s name and address. The truth was, by the time that happened everyone would have moved on to a newer graphic card, better ram, a better-designed PC tower. His computer wouldn’t be as good as everyone else’s and that would hamper his performance, but only somewhat. He was a solid player—he’d already been approached by a couple of managers from other, bigger teams.

  Not that he would ever join them. He had his pride, and he loved his friends. If they won, if they lost, it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t abandon them. The team had been through enough already without Bjorn dumping them as if they were nothing. They were everything. They were the most important thing. He looked up at them, sitting on their own seats in the glass cubicle that fit them all.

  “You guys ready?” Carl said.

  They all nodded. Pink was sitting next to Bjorn, his black hair up in a man bun. He looked at Bjorn and cocked his head. “Hey, dude. You doing all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Bjorn said, swallowing. “A little nervous. Aren’t you?”

  “Nah,” Pink replied. “We’re going to crush this. Remember, make this game your bitch, okay? You know how to. You just gotta believe in yourself. Got it?”

  Bjorn nodded, trying to ignore the cold sweat on his face. “Got it.”

  “You got this,” Pink said, giving him a high five. Then they put their headsets on. The jingle of World of Heroes played as they started up the client.

  ***

  The game lasted an hour and a half, far longer than it normally would. It was incredibly difficult, and by the time that they were done, Bjorn was exhausted. It had been a very narrow win, so much so his face was covered with sweat. When he took his headphones off, he was sure that they were soaked. As his teammates celebrated around him, Pink hugging Carl and Carpenter, Bjorn looked outside at the crowd. The glass made it kind of hard to see them, and he focused on their reflections, seeing himself first. He looked wide-eyed and scared, his blond hair sticking to his forehead. Then he looked behind his reflection and he saw the crowd, all on their feet, all cheering. He couldn’t hear them that well from inside the glass cubicle—it was more like an oversized container—but he could tell that they were excited. And that was enough to put a huge smile on his face, as the rest of the boys finally enveloped him in a group hug.

  Bjorn looked around, hugging them back, trying to take it all in. As they walked out of the glass enclosure, held hands and bowed to thunderous applause, Bjorn Falk knew that he arrived on the scene. And that he was here to stay.

  Chapter Six

  Syn had a sip of his margarita and stretched. It wasn’t really pool-weather, but he and Mickey had gone out there anyway. Both of them had grown up swimming in the North Sea during the autumn and sometimes during the winter, depending on how brave they were feeling. They liked having the pool to themselves, and in general, only smokers would go out there later at night. Mickey sat up and looked at the pool, moving his sunglasses up a bit. He was trying to decide whether he was going to go in when Syn nudged him on the arm.

  “Hey,” he said, looking towards the hotel entrance. “Is that who you were after earlier?”

  Mickey cocked his head as he looked at Allegiance making his way into the hotel. He was wearing a black hoodie, probably with his team’s logo on the chest, and his hands were in his pockets. He was looking ahead, which meant that he would miss Mickey if he waved at him.

  “Aye,” Mickey replied, making no attempt to get out of his chair. Allegiance was probably still riding a high from winning a game unexpectedly and the last thing Mickey wanted to do was put a damper on it by being awkward. That is what he was telling himself, anyway, as he tried to discreetly watch Allegiance. God, he looked so beautiful like that, with the sun hitting directly behind him, his features outlined by the light. Mickey shook his head. Allegiance had already turned him down—sweetly, at that—and there were a lot of other, more feasible men for him to pursue. Not many that he wanted as much, but then again, he had only arrived a few days ago.

  Syn turned to him, cocking his head. “And you’re not going to do anything, ‘cause…”

  “Coz he’s not interested,” Mickey replied, biting the inside of his mouth. “And also, he’s just won and I don’t want to be the person that makes things weird for him, like, weirder. I would bet you twenty quid that he’s got no idea what to do with himself right now.”

  “You can show him,” Syn said, laughing. “You’re pretty much an expert, right?”

  “Ugh,” Mickey said, shaking his head but laughing along with him. “You’re such a dick.”

  “Look,” Syn said, sitting up. “You can leave him alone now, right? Get him to do his thing or whatever. Then go up and apologize. Maybe congratulate him. That was a really good game.”

  Mickey swallowed. He didn’t want to admit it, but just the idea of that was making him dizzy. “You think that I should?”

  “I think that this is going to be a thing until it isn’t, and if you don’t finally go out there, I’m going to keep hearing about this bloke all through the week,” Syn said. “And as much as I love hearing you talk shit, I’m already tired of your schoolboy crush.”

  “Oh, ouch,” Mickey said, rolling his eyes but smiling. “Well, what am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Syn replied. “I don’t know, get him out of your system, maybe? I need your head in the game. We all do.”

  “We don’t need to win, though,” Mickey said, instantly regretting it. The quick swat to the back of his head didn’t make him regret it any less.

  “Shut your damn mouth,” Syn said. “You may have enough money from all your perfume ad revenue, but the rest of us also need to live. I have mouths to feed, you know.”

  “That’s because you’ve still not learned the magic of condoms,” Mickey replied, smirking. “Seriously, how hard is it—”

  “Extremely hard,” Syn said, winking at him and leaning back on the lounge chair. “Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” Mickey said.

  “So what are you going to do?” Syn asked after finishing his margarita and licking his lips.

  “I told you,” Mickey replied. “I’m not going to do anything.”

  Syn laughed.

&n
bsp; “What?”

  “That’s just not your M.O.,” he said. “You always do something. I expect you to do something, y’know, whenever something happens.”

  “That’s the point, Syn,” Mickey replied, a little more impatiently than he intended to. “Nothing has happened, and nothing is going to happen. He’s already told me nothing is going to happen.”

  “I don’t get it, though,” Syn said. “Since when do you give up just because of a little roadblock?”

  “It’s not a little roadblock, Syn. He’s straight.”

  “Whatever. That sounds like an excuse to me,” he said. “I’m going in the pool. Are you coming?”

  “No,” Mickey replied, closing his eyes the moment that Allegiance was lost from view. “No, knock yourself out.”

  Chapter Seven

  Bjorn threw himself on the bed and watched the ceiling fan slowly turn. He wasn’t warm, but Pink had insisted that they turn it on, and Bjorn wasn’t going to stop him. Once Carl and Carpenter had left to go to the adjacent room, he wondered why they hadn’t gotten a suite. Then he shook his head and told himself to be grateful. The fact that he was there at all was a miracle, in a room, with a bed. The fact that his team had beaten one of the favored teams and may even get to go to the finals, that was something that Bjorn couldn’t take for granted. If they went back next year, then it was likely that they would get individual rooms. He knew that some of the bigger players got individual rooms. That included Atlanta.