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Wrangling a team of grown men to a laser tag arena for a bonding exercise was a lot more challenging than Jamie would care to admit. Most of the guys wanted to flake because ‘laser tag is for children.’ Only when Jamie threatened to get the coach to bag-skate everyone for the next practice did they finally agree to attend.
Jamie made Bishop and Khudobin the team captains. They bickered a little bit about who got which person, but the teams didn’t take too long to form. Khudobin was the last one of the two of them to get a win, thus he was given priority of team colours. He chose red and left blue to Bishop. Bishop’s team sequestered themselves into the left-hand side of the room. That left Khudobin’s team—which Jamie was a part of—on the right-hand side of the room.
The instructor was explaining the rules to everyone as they were getting into their gear. Jamie had tuned her out because he had played laser tag enough times when he was a kid that he could probably operate his own establishment when he retired from hockey.
A faint clap drew Jamie’s attention towards the front of the room. The instructor had stopped talking and was smiling at everyone. She curtly nodded and walked towards the door to the playing arena. Jamie finished clasping his chest piece and turned to Esa.
“Did she say we could start?” Jamie asked. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
Esa shook his head. “Not yet. She has to set up the arena first. She’s going to come back for us when it’s ready.”
Jamie nodded and sat on the bench behind him. He fiddled with the chest piece to make sure it was tight enough. When he was satisfied, he tweaked the knee pads and elbow pads so they were sitting more comfortably.
The instructor walked back in, wheeling two carts of laser guns in front of her. She guided Bishop’s team to come up to select their guns. When they were done, she guided Khudobin’s team to select their guns. She explained how the guns worked and said company policy was ‘you break it, you buy it.’
She calmly leads everyone into the playing arena. She deposited Bishop’s team close to the door everyone entered from. After explaining to Bishop to wait for a siren to start, she directed Khudobin’s team to follow her to the other end of the arena. When she deposited his team there, she explained the same thing to him that she had explained to Bishop. Khudobin nodded.
When the instructor walked away, Khudobin turned to Radulov and Gurianov and started speaking rapidly in Russian. Jamie didn’t speak much Russian, but he knew that they were discussing strategy for how to take down Bishop’s team. Oleksiak, Heiskanen, and Klingberg were conversing among the three of them; Jamie assumed it was defenceman familiarity. Everyone else was standing around, waiting for the siren to sound. When it did sound, Jamie jumped a little because he hadn’t expected it to sound like a gunshot.
As he rushed around the arena, he heard a few assorted curses in various languages. Jamie turned a corner and encountered Hintz. Hintz readied his gun and pointed it at Jamie’s chest sensor. Hintz pulled the trigger, but the gun wouldn’t fire. He tried a couple more times, but the result was the same.
“What the...?” Hintz mumbled.
“The gun doesn’t work for one minute after you’ve been shot, Roope.” Hintz turned towards the voice and noticed Kiviranta standing there gun cocked towards the ceiling. “And I shot the censor on your back.”
“Painu helvettiin!”
Kiviranta smiled. “Tiedät, että rakastat minua, kulta.”
Hintz turned six shades of scarlet as he rushed down the corridor past Jamie. Jamie blinked at Kiviranta and then stared down the corridor that Hintz had rushed down. He turned back to Kiviranta; Kiviranta had a cheerful smile on his face. Jamie titled his head in confusion.
“What did you say to him?” Jamie leaned against the wall and crossed his arms across his chest; he wanted to protect both sensors in case someone on Bishop’s team came rushing by.
“Nothing important,” Kiviranta said. Jamie thought he saw Kiviranta smirk as the two walked their separate ways.
Jamie looked up at the scoreboard. His team was leading, but barely. The person with the most points on his team was Comeau and the person on Bishop’s team with the most points was Janmark. He rounded the next corner and saw Tyler standing there. Tyler smiled and waved. Jamie found that odd, seeing as Tyler was on Bishop’s team. Nevertheless, Jamie approached Tyler.
“Are you having fun?” Jamie smiled fondly at Tyler. Tyler had been one of the guys that had wanted to come when Jamie first proposed to the idea; he knew the answer would be yes because Tyler was a child at heart.
Tyler nodded, smiling. “Of course I am. I love laser tag. I love laser tag, even more, when I get to do it with the people that mean the most to me.”
He reached out and grabbed Jamie’s free hand with his free hand. He ran his thumb along Jamie’s wrist. Jamie couldn’t suppress the warm and fuzzy feeling that spread through his body. Tyler seemed to notice because he applied more pressure. Jamie sighed and leaned towards Tyler. Tyler took that opportunity to swing their positions and pin Jamie against the wall. Jamie squeaked in surprise but didn’t protest.
Leaning in, Tyler ghosted his breath across Jamie’s ear. Jamie shivered. Tyler smirked against Jamie’s jaw and peppered it with feather-light kisses. He moved down to Jamie’s neck and carefully kissed what little skin the laser tag equipment left exposed. Jamie shivered again. Tyler smirked into the crook of Jamie’s neck and started sucking a hickey. Jamie sighed contently. Tyler moved up to Jamie’s lips and ghosted them with his breath. Jamie felt his entire body shiver. Tyler smirked, leaned in and mumbled against Jamie’s lips.
“I love you.”
Before Jamie could respond, Tyler connected their lips. The kiss was slow, sweet, and passionate. Jamie could feel every bit of the words Tyler had mumbled before they started. He kissed back with complete conviction; he wanted Tyler to know he felt the same way.
When the two pulled apart, they were panting and sweating. Jamie’s hair was stuck to his forehead. The arena was air-conditioned but the air around them felt a thousand degrees hotter. Tyler brushed Jamie’s hair aside and kissed his forehead. Jamie smiled and kissed Tyler’s wrist. Tyler blushed and ducked his head.
Jamie pushed off the wall and kissed Tyler again. It was as meaningful as the first one. Tyler melted like putty in Jamie’s arms. When they pulled apart, they were both smiling and their lips were swollen and red. Jamie was mesmerized that Tyler still made him feel this love-struck so far into their relationship. It was the greatest gift he could ever ask for.
Tyler rubbed his thumb along Jamie’s wrist briefly before he turned to walk down the corridor. When he was about a quarter of the way down the corridor, Jamie called out to him.
“Hey, Segs?”
Tyler turned around with a cocked head. Jamie smirked and pointed his gun at Tyler’s sensor. When he pulled the trigger and made the sensor on Tyler’s chest light up, he beamed.
“I love you too.”