Gary had decided to take a break for the day from following the Aimes. He needed to relax, plus he had to prove that he was a nerd so that the others would let him into their group. That basically meant going to the arcade with some of the nerds and Oscar. It would be refreshing to relax for once and go back to the arcade. He used to spend weekends in this town since his aunt worked in a cafe near the arcade. He had been sent so that he still had a maternal figure in his life. However, she mostly worked over the weekend, but she did let him go to the arcade regularly. So he had managed to get some seriously high scores from playing all the games all the time.
"You ready to go?" Oscar asked, pulling Gary out of his daydream. He quickly realised that he'd already arrived at the front door to the school, where everyone was waiting for him. As he scanned the students' faces he started to ask himself wether he really wanted to associate himself with the nerds. Most of the group were guys but there was two girls, who mainly ignored the rest of the group. Compared to the popular guys, Barry and Bradley, he felt a lot more confident as he was clearly the only one in the group that worked out.
"Yeah." Gary answered hesitantly, he decided to put his judgements aside and meet them, maybe this could be the start of some more friendships... The group started to leave and Gary suddenly got an urge to turn around. When he did, there was nothing out of the norm and he couldn't understand why he'd been urged to turn around. He followed the others to the big arcade that was a decent walk from the school. From what he knew, there was also a nightclub in the centre of town, which might be interesting. Of course since his last encounter with alcohol, he had sort of lost interest in it after having woken up in Ruby's house without his shirt.
"Hey you okay dude?" Oscar asked, dropping back from the rest of the group to talk to him. Gary sighed and smiled. He quite liked Oscar, even though he only came up to him to apologise because he'd been voted the group's speaker. Since then, they had become quite good friends.
"Yeah... Just nervous I guess..." He answered, running a hand through his hair and messing it all up. Oscar cracked a smile.
"You're nervous? The 'great' Gary Sheffield, is nervous?! You're always meeting super rich people and yet you're nervous about meeting some loser nerds?" Oscar joked, elbowing Gary in the arm. Gary sighed. Oscar knew who he was... Of course he did. He was only the Mayor's son of the county... Why had he expected to be treated like a normal kid? - Especially with the Aimes around...
"Well... I'm obviously nervous when I meet them too, but I sort of just wanted to be like a normal kid when I came here." Gary responded, making Oscar frown in disappointment. His rich friend was trying to be a 'normal' kid...
* * *
When they arrived at the arcade, Gary was surprised to see how different it looked. Apparently they had done some renovations in the four years since he had last been there. The nerds instantly ran to the older, retro games but Gary headed towards the two person shooter game. He'd always played it single player anyway. He sat down in the sofa-like seat and was surprised to see Oscar sit in the other side.
"What? We're here to prove your gaming skills aren't we? You really expect to not have anyone watch you play?" Oscar questioned, picking up the controller and grinning like a madman. It made Gary smile, and pick up his own controller.
"Ready?" Gary asked holding up his credit card, about to swipe it and start the game. Oscar nodded energetically and Gary paid for the both of them to play. The game started up and the sofa started to shake, the boys grinned at each other excitedly. At least he wouldn't be competing against Oscar just yet... Gary thought.
Flying bat-dinosaur creatures started to attack their first person characters and Gary and Oscar started to shoot. Even though it was the first level, it quickly increased in difficulty. Causing both of them to call out commands at each other hurriedly, trying to protect themselves from the multitude of things attacking them: dinosaurs, boulders, sea-monsters, flying bat-dinosaurs...
"WELL DONE!" The game boomed in a deep voice, going on to congratulate them on their victory. They had still had to be revived once or twice though, but that was the nature of arcade games. They slumped against the sofa and fist bumped.
"And that is why Dinosaurous Blitz: Rise from the Ocean, is the best game of the series!" Oscar laughed, crawling out of the game, completely worn out from the adrenaline rush he'd gotten. Gary grinned, the name of the game was actually really stupid, but he wasn't going to comment in case he offended Oscar.
"What do you want to play next?" Gary asked, stepping out of the game and walking over to Oscar, who was still exhausted. This was definitely the most fun that Gary had had in a long time. Playing games with friends was so much better than playing them alone.