indeed the mall. It was packed, but we weren’t in a hurry. If anything, Rachel seemed more interested in window shopping.
“Rach,” I asked as we wound through one of the candle stores. The place reeked, but Rachel paused periodically to sniff different ones. How the hell she could tell them apart, I had no idea. All I could smell was everything, and it made my eyes water. “What are you planning to do for the holidays?”
“Eh,” she said with a shrug. “Probably go to my aunt’s house where I have to deal with the cousins and the extended family, including my great-grandfather who is probably the coolest one who will be there. He’s like a hundred and fifteen years old and spry as fuck.” The quirky grin she wore promised me she was only half-kidding. “It’s in Ohio. So there will be snow. And a lot of boring shit and football.”
She made a gagging noise.
“There will also be Mack Morgan to deal with, but Mack and I are like this.” She crossed her fingers. “He’ll happily play my beard for the more conservative half of the family while the other half rolls their eyes at us, and depending on my mood, I might let him get lucky.”
Her beard. That sucked.
Wait…what? I snapped my head around to stare at her, and her shit-eating grin made me glare. “Just checking to see if you were paying attention. Trust me, even if I decided I wanted to check out a dick, it would not be his. He doesn’t like vag. But he grew up there, and gay is a four-letter word. I do know that college has been very good for him.”
All of a sudden, her face turned thoughtful. “What?” ‘Cause that was a dangerous look.
“I don’t know, but I think he’s the only person I know who gets as much dick as you do. Maybe a little more.” The sly smile and twinkle had me groaning.
“Ugh, you suck.”
“Nope,” she said. “That’s the whole point.”
I was still groaning when she dragged me out of the store after buying two candles.
“What are you doing?” Rachel asked as we headed into the game store. It was crowded as hell, so I just shrugged.
“Nothing big. Probably working and hanging out with the guys.”
She hummed and just got in line rather than browsed. I scanned the walls and then looked at the rack of new games.
“I’m gonna go see what they have.” Maybe there was something the guys didn’t have. Good fucking luck with that. Archie had everything, and what few he didn’t have, Jake, Coop, or Ian had surely picked up.
Rachel gave me a nod. “Just stay where I can see you.”
I cut a look over my shoulder at her. Was she for real?
“You heard me.”
Ugh. As much as I wanted to complain about the protective note, it warmed me that she cared enough to snap at me. I studied all the new titles. Three-quarters of which were already loaded on the game system the guys had brought to the apartment. Yeah, I couldn’t buy one of these, not even as a present, because chances were they already had it.
But what about…?
I checked where Rachel was, she still had two more people in front of her, so I headed over to the other wall where they had accessories for game systems. They had the drums and guitar pieces. All the stuff for playing musical band games. I used to think Ian hated them, but I figured out why he didn’t play them. Because he actually knew how to finger a guitar, so it made just mashing buttons a little different.
They had some of the fancier accessories though, including an actual guitar with strings. Would that be better or worse to play on? I squatted down to ease the box out and flip it over so I could read the back. It took a little balancing, because the crowd had thickened in the store. These places were always so tiny. The accessory had a couple of different settings—and apparently, it had also been designed for players who could actually play.
Oh hell yes.
I grimaced at the price. It was a lot. But Ian would love it, and the guys would get a kick out of playing a different set of games. I could get them the regular gaming guitars. The mental math was a kick in the crotch to my wallet. On the other hand, if I got them a couple of games to go with it, we