A group of friends streams their gaming on Wednesday nights. But not all the action is on the dining room table.

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Chapter 14 - Forfeit

*Bzzzzzzzzt*

I released the buzzer and waited, hoping the third time was the charm. I was about to hit it again when I heard a click, and the speaker next to the panel of buttons came to crackly life.

"Door's open, come on up," said a low-quality version of Maria's voice, as I heard the chunky clonking of the electric lock on the main door release. I didn't hesitate to push the door open and head up the flight of stairs to her landing, knowing that if I wasn't quick the door was prone to locking itself again. Once there, it was a short jog to her apartment and in the door, locking it behind me.

"Gimme another half an hour, would ya?" Maria asked from her kitchenette, accompanied by the smell of brewing coffee.

"I can give you a whole one," I agreed, making my way toward the smell to find her leaning on the counter with her eyes closed. "If you promise not to fall back asleep."

"No can do," she said, but gave me a sleepy grin. "But I'll try. Not every day you ask me to go shopping with you."

"Yeah, well," I frowned and sat down at her counter, pulling a mug off the little copper mug tree she kept there as much to keep my hands busy as in anticipation of coffee. "I don't wanna make this shopping trip alone, and I wasn't gonna invite Brian along," I said, a little more heated than I'd intended to.

"Oh?" Maria said, perking up. She turned her attention back to the coffee pot just long enough to slide the pot out and replace it with her mug in one smooth, well-practiced move. "You didn't tell me what we were shopping for last night, but it sounds like you're still pissed about whatever it is."

"I'm not pissed!" I said, pissily, then sighed. "I'm *not.* Just... it's stupid."

"Can't be any more stupid than the half hour I spent arguing with Craig yesterday about whether I could use a monster based on the Balrog without having to get the Tolkien trust's permission," she scowled, bringing the pot over to fill my cup too. Craig was the name of the Knights' lawyer, and Maria's nemesis. "So, what is it?"

I blew on my coffee, both to cool it down a bit and delay having to say anything. "I need to buy underwear," I finally said, fighting through the blush.

Maria chuckled. "Okay, and why does this require my help?"

"Not underwear underwear," I managed, feeling like my face was ready to pop from the heat. "I... women's underwear."

Maria's chuckles turned into full-on giggles. "Aunt Cici finally break you down, huh? No?" She tilted her head as she thought. "It doesn't sound like you want to do this."

I sighed. "It's... it's Brian's fault!"

"How is it his fault?"

"He beat me at go karts and now I have to buy panties," I mumbled, torn between indignance and shame.

"Waitasec, what?" Maria shook her head, still giggling like mad. "What happened?"

I took a sip of my coffee with shaking hands. "It's... Brian challenged me that if he beat me at go karts, I'd have to do something he asked me to, and he won, and told me he wants me to buy... panties... to wear under my costumes for the weekend."

"Sounds like you made a stupid bet," Maria said, sipping her own coffee.

"Well, I didn't think he was gonna ask me to buy freaking panties!"

"What did you think he was gonna ask for then?" She asked me, her grin widening as I felt my blush somehow escalate to a new level of strength. "Oooooooh. Do I need to tell Sydney her ship has arrived?"

"What do you--no! It's not, argh!" I pushed my cup away and thonked my head on the counter, hoping it'd knock some sense into place. "I was caught up in the day, okay?"

"So, it was a good day at the park then?"

"It was... yeah. It was great," I agreed, lifting my head enough to cross my arms beneath it and turn to face Maria's way again. "Still about half-finished, but we had a good time, and."

"And?"

"And... okay, so I may have gotten the impression that Brian might want to... but I was wrong. He just wanted to tease me."

"That's what guys do when they like you," Maria said, shrugging. "Like when Devon used to tug on your shirt tail whenever you'd stand up."

"That was fourth grade, and Devon was a twerp."

"A twerp with a crush."

I shook my head. "Whatever." I raised back up and grabbed my cup. "It doesn't matter anyway."

Maria slid her stool over and gave me a quick squeeze. "Sure, it does. You wanted a kiss and didn't get one. It's perfectly fair to feel disappointed."

I opened my mouth to argue but closed it again as I thought about what she'd said.

Was that really what I was angry about? Not the whole underwear thing, but the kiss thing?

Immediately my mind went to thinking about Brian, holding my hand tightly as I screamed in joy on the coaster, and the anticipation I'd felt about....

I shook my head. "I'd as soon kiss Jonah," I argued, remembering just as clearly the look of delight on Brian's face when he'd explained the terms of his victory.

That got Maria giggling again. "He'd probably like that, actually!" She said, punching me lightly in the shoulder. "Lunea, breaker of all the men’s hearts."

"I'm a man too," I pointed out, rather weakly, getting an eye roll from Maria in response.

"Well, now I know what we're shopping for, I've got Ideas," she said, sliding away a bit to give her elbows more room on the counter. "But first things first: are you sure you're okay with this?"

"I guess I agreed to it."

"Nuh uh," Maria said, shaking her head vehemently. "No guessing, no putting it on anyone else. I'm not gonna drag you from store to store while you mope about and act like some kind of martyr."

"Maria..."

"Aaaaht!" She said, cutting me off. "My aunt didn't make you do this, and Brian can't either. Either you're doing this because you're willing to, or you're not. So, what is it?"

I tried to glare at her, but my heart just wasn't in it.

I sipped my coffee again and thought.

And thought some more.

Maria, for her part, went back to her own coffee and let me be. When her first cup was empty, she filled it again, but this time left me in the kitchenette and headed for her room.

Feeling a bit restless, I stood up and walked around Maria's apartment while I waited on her.

Maria's place was smaller than mine and Brian's, a little one-bedroom affair with her computer shoved into one corner of the living area, piles of paperwork scattered around it and her sketch table set up to the side. As a kid she'd always had a sketchbook in hand, and I knew that it had been her dream when we'd headed off to college to be a big-name illustrator one day.

Now, instead, I saw the drawing table plastered with print outs of other people's art, with names and contact information. Artists the company wanted her to consider for the source book they were producing for the world she ran our game in. Next to their art were a few half-finished sketches of her own, done in the snippets of time I knew she struggled to find between working on everything she took care of for the Knights.

How many of us had sacrificed any semblance of the lives we'd expected in the name of the game?

Sydney worked our socials full-time, and Deidre I knew had a meeting today with a new supplier who wanted to try and buy out our clothing contract. Jonah used to spend a lot of time organizing our tech upgrades and editing, but as our staffing needs had grown, had sort of organized himself out of a job, and I had no idea what he did in his downtime now.

Brian still put his mechanical engineering degree to work now and then, in between side projects and helping the rest of us manage our parts of the business, and I... well, I had my own streaming to deal with, and the bills, and making sure everyone got paid, and....

I'd gone to college so I could teach, and I paid the yearly fees and took the yearly tests to keep my certifications up to date. I'd always planned on getting a job at a little elementary school somewhere, spending my days helping eight-year-olds figure out their multiplication tables and all of that.

Instead, the only math or history I taught anyone was whatever applied to my character sheet.

It seemed like the only one of us actually using their degree for much was Aaron, but I knew that he was struggling to find the time to keep up with the social work he did with the local kids in between the extra shows he was trying to do for the company too, all in service to the all-powerful metrics.

I sighed and sat down on the edge of the hide-a-bed, already unfolded and made up for Aunt Cici's arrival in the afternoon. Sometimes she'd make the drive down and back when she helped us with our costuming, but more often than not she'd stay the night in Maria's apartment, since the drive back home was long and lonely.

Still looking around, my eyes landed on Maria's bookshelf. Unlike mine, hers were almost floor-to-ceiling, stuffed with books on mythology, fantasy, and entire collections from multiple game systems, a few I'd never even heard of, all for research into what was once a hobby for us and now a full-time job.

Standing out from the books, however, was a single framed photo that made me smile. It was me and Maria, standing side by side and hugging each other, grinning like crazy and holding the golden streaming icon we'd received when Wednesday Knights had reached a million followers a couple of years ago. Brian had snapped the photo for us before we'd all headed out and gotten horrifyingly drunk in celebration, all of us waking up the next morning sprawled across the hide-a-bed I now sat on or Maria's floor, including Jonah.

I'd woken up in Brian's arms, and the rest of the group had been quick to give us a hard time about it, but there wasn't much to say either: we'd all passed out fully clothed, and to this day as far as I knew it was as simple as us passing out side-by-side and slipping into that position while we slept.

I'd objected to all the teasing, of course, going red in embarrassment -- about as red as I'd been earlier in the morning talking to Maria about having to buy panties. But Brian had remained cool about it, shrugging and smiling and having a good time.

I looked at the photo again and remembered that the entire time me and Maria were standing there grinning like fools, Brian was grinning right back at me.

It wasn't a grin like he'd given me when he told me what my forfeit was for losing the go kart races. No, that was his shit-eating 'I just got you' grin.

The grin he gave me over the streaming icon was more like the one he was wearing when he was holding my hand, the one where his eyes would sparkle and the right corner of his mouth would raise just a little more than the left, showing off his dimple on that side.

The one he was wearing when I thought, just for a little while, that maybe he wanted to kiss me.

"Stupid panties," I mumbled as I stood up, feeling like I'd been calling a lot of things stupid lately and wondering unkindly if I should admit that the common denominator to all of them was me.

"You say something?" Maria called through her door.

"Just talking to myself."

"'Kay."

I walked back to the kitchen and, having nothing better to do, washed my coffee cup in Maria's sink as I thought some more about today's trip.

Brian's grin after letting me know what he wanted for his victory was short-lived, and the ride home after was almost completely silent. I was annoyed, and I was hurt, and I was one hundred percent sure of why on the former but completely unsure of the reason for the latter.

No, that's a lie. I knew the reason I felt hurt.

I'd wanted Brian to kiss me.

And I was pretty sure he wanted that, too.

When I'd left that morning, he'd given me a look that seemed like it held just as much pain as I felt, so maybe he still did?

Did I still want it, too?

I shook my head and sat back on the stool I'd taken when I'd first entered the kitchenette earlier, elbows on the counter and chin in my hands.

I didn't want to want Brian to kiss me. I didn't want to think about wanting Brian to kiss me, or to think about him kissing me, or holding me, or....

"Blurgh," I grumbled, as the thoughts came anyway.

I'd rather stay pissed off about the panties, I reminded myself, but instead found I wasn't so pissed off about them at all anymore.

Maria was right, after all. There was nothing Brian could, or would, do about it if I didn't buy them, or even if I did buy them but didn't wear them.

On top of that, he was far from the only person who'd ever tried to talk me into them. Maria had tried when we were still in high school, mostly because she'd thought it'd be funny, and Aunt Cici had been trying to talk me into changing over for years, mostly for costumes, but there'd been hints she thought they'd fit me better anyway.

I'd texted her for my sizes before leaving the house that morning, so I had all the numbers I needed if I decided to do this.

I'd have Maria by my side for moral support and, inevitably, some mild teasing about it all.

And there was nobody who was going to make me do anything I wasn't willing to do.

For a moment I considered not doing it specifically because people, especially people named Brian, wanted me to, but I quickly chided myself for how petty that was. Brian was teasing me when he announced his expectations, but I also knew that he'd be the last person to judge me for going through with it too.

I was sure that anyone watching me would see steam rising from my ears as my brain worked overtime to try and decide what the right call was.

I was still thinking it over when Maria walked out of her room, dressed to de-stress in a pair of cutoff sweatpants and a baggy tee with flip flops. "So, what's the call?" She asked me, walking over to the sink to wash her own cup.

"I think," I said, then paused, letting the last of my thoughts settle into place. "I think we start off by going somewhere and getting something cheap and basic, then head back here, and see how I feel."

"Cheap and basic what?" Maria asked, gently pushing.

I sighed and stood up from my stool. "Let's buy me some panties," I said, feeling the blush rise again but mostly keeping it in check.

Maria gave a little squeal and rushed me with a hug. "This is gonna be so fun, hon! Trust me."

"Just don't tell Aunt Cici," I asked her. "She'll never let me live it down."

"She'll find out tomorrow anyway, assuming you go through with this."

"True, but that's a problem for Future Leigh. Right now, Present Leigh is overwhelmed enough."

"Fair. Probably means a g string is out of the question then."

I whimpered in answer, which set Maria to giggling.

At least I knew one of us would be having fun with things.

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NOTES:

As always, comments and kudos appreciated.