Chapter 60: My First Date With Holly
The arcade was louder than David remembered.
Not bad loud. Just — alive. The kind of noise that hit you the moment the doors swung open and didn’t apologize for it. Machines blaring, buttons mashing, the synthetic crack of virtual gunshots layering over chiptune music that hadn’t been cool since 2009 and somehow still slapped. And ofcourse, the various chatter of the customers.
Holly stepped in beside him and just — looked around. Slow. Taking it in before she spoke.
"God," she said. "It’s been ages."
"Yeah?"
"Like — actual ages. I used to come here with my cousin when we were kids." She was already moving, drifting toward the nearest row of cabinets without fully committing to any direction.
"I forgot how much I actually like this."
David watched her for a second. Hands in his jacket pocket, eyes tracking the way she walked — not nervous, not trying to look casual. Just comfortable. Like she belonged in the noise.
He caught up.
They wandered for a bit, passing the crane games stuffed with plushies nobody actually wanted, the racing sims with the cracked seat cushions, the rhythm games cycling through their attract loops.
Holly paused at a cabinet near the back wall — a classic shoot-’em-up, the kind with a fixed gun peripheral bolted to the front and a screen full of enemies moving in that old mechanical pattern that looked random until it wasn’t.
"This one," she said.
"You sure?"
She gave him a look. "You have a problem with this one?"
"No problem," David said. "Just didn’t peg you for the shoot-’em-up type."
"What type did you peg me for?"
He kept his face straight. "Honestly? I thought you were more of a... crane game girl. Spend forty tokens trying to win a stuffed bear you could buy for two pounds at Poundland."
Holly stared at him.
"Excuse me?"
"I’m just saying—"
"Were you about to call me a Barbie girl?"
David opened his mouth. Closed it.
"No," he said.
"You were."
"I wasn’t."
"You absolutely were." She turned back to the cabinet, already feeding her card into the reader. "Unbelievable. Come on. You’re playing."
"I was going to play anyway."
"Good." She grabbed the left gun and held the right one out to him without looking. "Loser pays for the next game."
David took it. Checked the weight of it in his hand — light, plastic, that satisfying trigger click. "And if I win?"
"You won’t."
"Okay, but hypothetically."
"Hypothetically, same deal." She glanced at him sideways. "Unless you’re scared."
"I’m not scared of a shoot-’em-up, Holly."
"Then stop talking."
The screen counted down. Three. Two. One.
She beat him by four hundred points.
It wasn’t even close. She played like she’d done it recently — smooth trigger discipline, barely moving, just tracking and firing with this flat, almost bored efficiency while David kept overcorrecting and dumping shots at the edges of the screen. By the midpoint he already knew. The final score just confirmed it.
"Winner...Holly Houston." The attendant muttered.
"Hm," Holly said.
David set the gun down. "Lucky."
She turned. "Sorry?"
"You heard me. Lucky shot placement. The spawn pattern was in your favour."
"The spawn pattern." She repeated it back to him slowly. Like she was deciding whether to be offused or entertained, and entertainment was winning. "David. I beat you by four hundred points."
"Spawn pattern."
Holly laughed — short, bright, slightly incredulous. Then she straightened up. Set her gun down. Folded her arms.
"Best of three," she said. "Right now. And when I win again, you have to say it out loud."
"Say what out loud?"
"That I’m better than you."
David looked at her. At the cabinet. Back at her.
"Fine," he said. "Best of three."
She won the second game by six hundred.
He blamed the left gun trigger lag. She did not dignify that with a response.
The third game, David actually focused. Stopped messing around, tracked the patterns properly, kept his shots controlled. He felt good going into the final wave. He felt, briefly, like this was recoverable.
She beat him by nine hundred.
Holly threw both arms up. Not performance — just pure, immediate, uncomplicated joy. She did a small spin on the spot and then pointed at him, still grinning.
"Say it."
"You’re better than me," David said flatly.
"Louder."
"Holly."
"Say it louder, David."
"You’re better than me at a shoot-’em-up in an arcade on a Thursday night, yes, congratulations, you’ve peaked."
She beamed at him. Completely unbothered by the sarcasm. "Thank you. I accept."
He laughed despite himself — quiet, through his nose, shaking his head at the floor. Something about her just made it hard to stay deadpan.
Not because she was annoying about it. More because she was so genuinely happy about a thing most people wouldn’t even register as a win, and it landed differently than it should have.
"Okay," she said, already turning toward the next row of cabinets. "Come on. There’s a racing one down here I want to try."
"I thought you were paying?" he called after her.
"I am paying. That’s why I said come on." She glanced back. "Unless you’re too bruised to play?"
"My ego is fine."
"Didn’t ask about your ego."
He followed her down the row to the racing cabinet — two seats, side by side, the kind of rig with a proper steering wheel and gear shift and a seat that vibrated when you hit a wall. Holly sat down, fed both their cards in before David had even settled into the seat.
He looked at the screen. Then at her.
She hadn’t asked. Hadn’t made a point of it. Just — paid. Like it was nothing. Like it didn’t occur to her not to.
David sat back in the seat.
’Right,’ he thought. Something shifted in his chest, quiet and unannounced. Not butterflies. Not whatever that was in films. Just this very calm, unexpected recognition — the kind you couldn’t talk yourself out of because it wasn’t built on anything dramatic.
She just paid for his game. Without thinking. Without making it a moment. Maybe to some, it was normal. But to him, far from it.
He’d known girls who wouldn’t split a bill without a spreadsheet. And here Holly was, sliding two cards into a racing cabinet at nine in the evening because she felt like it.
’Hmm... there it is again. She’s paying for me. Is this her own way of professing her feelings...’ he thought. ’...Or is this so kind of weird sign that she’s friend zoning me?’
"You ready?" she said, snapping David back to reality.
"Yeah," David said. "Let’s go."
She beat him at the racing game too. And the basketball shooter. And the air hockey table they found on the way back from the toilets. And the rhythm game she claimed she’d never played before, which he did not believe for a single second.
By the end of it, David had not won one game.
Not one.
Holly tallied the final score like a professor marking an exam, counting on her fingers. "Six-nil," she said. "That’s a clean sheet, David. A proper shutout."
"I know what six-nil means."
"Just making sure."
He leaned against the cabinet behind him. Looked at her — flushed from the rhythm game, eyes bright, still smiling the way she had been since the first win. Like tonight had given her something she hadn’t expected and she wasn’t ready to put it down yet.
"I let you win," David said.
Holly turned to look at him.
"All six?" she said.
"Tactical losses. I was studying your technique."
"Right." She nodded slowly. "And what did you learn?"
"That you’re annoyingly good at everything."
She laughed. Genuine — the kind that creased the corner of her eyes.
"Finally," she said. "An honest answer... you get a kiss."