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It’s the summer between their sophomore and junior years of college, as they approach their second year of all living together in an apartment in Allston. They don't even go to the same schools (Regina’s at Harvard for business and pre-law, Cady at MIT for mathematics, Gretchen’s at the business school at Boston University, and Karen’s pursuing a dance degree at Emerson), but they've been living together since the moment their freshman year was up.
Their two bedroom, two bathroom apartment is in a luxury building, the benefit of three of the four of them coming from super wealthy families. It also helps that they're dating. Not all together, no, but they've been paired off pretty much since high school ended.
Karen and Cady got together first, towards the very end of senior year. Cady had gotten the courage to ask Karen to senior prom, and to her delight, Karen had said yes.
Regina and Gretchen on the other hand, well, they'd been dancing a will-they-won’t-they line for years. It actually came as quite the shock when they announced to their friends that they were newly dating the summer between high school and college. Not because they were surprised they'd gotten together, no, but because they'd all thought the pair had been secretly dating ever since the bus incident.
After all, Gretchen hardly ever left Regina’s side since her days in the hospital. Their friends all just sort of assumed they weren't ready to talk about it yet.
It's been a few years since then, and they've gotten very comfortable in their dynamics together. Living together, they all hang out on a regular basis, but they rarely go out with the specific intention of it being a double date.
So when Karen threw out the idea of it last week, they’d all been on board. It seemed like an exciting idea. Karen and Cady insisted that the other pair come along to their standing Saturday date, which Regina was only semi-aware of the contents of.
She knew they went to a mall on the outskirts of Boston every weekend. She didn't know a significant amount of time in the mall was spent in a goddamn Dave & Buster’s.
Gretchen’s delighted when they get there, as she hasn't been to an arcade like this since they were pretty young. Seeing Gretchen so happy and excited, almost like a little puppy dog, thaws Regina’s attitude about the whole thing. In fact, it leads to her filling up game cards for all of them with the maximum amount of points that can be purchased at once, around $100 per person. If they're gonna be at an arcade for their whole Saturday afternoon, they might as well go hard.
Cady’s jaw drops when she sees how many points Regina is loading onto the cards she and Karen handed over to her. “Reggie! That’s so much!”
Regina waves her hand. “It’ll be fine. We’re here to have fun, are we not?”
Karen gives Cady a wide grin. “We’re so getting to the end today!”
“The End?” Gretchen asks. “Like in Minecraft?”
“No, no,” Cady shakes her head. “We’ve been working towards a final goal of each other big prizes at the prize counter for months now. We both have our eyes on something for the other person.”
“But it’s a surprise!” Karen exclaims. “Cady doesn’t know what I’m getting her, and I don’t know what she’s getting me!”
Gretchen smiles. “That’s adorable.” She turns to Regina, the biggest puppy dog eyes on her face. “Can we do that too? Pick something out as a gift for the other with our tickets? Please, Gi?”
“Sure, babe,” Regina replies with a smile of her own. She drapes an arm around Gretchen’s shoulders, holding out a card to her. “But let’s just do it with whatever tickets we get today. It’s okay if it’s not a big prize.”
Gretchen leans up on her tiptoes, pressing a kiss to Regina’s cheek as she takes the card. “Yay! You’re the best.”
Regina lets the warmth settle over her chest as she squeezes Gretchen’s shoulders. She looks at Karen and Cady with a raised eyebrow. “So, you two are the experts. Where do we start?”
Karen and Cady insist they wander the place all together, and play any games that catch their eye, especially since they have so many points to spend. They’ll head to their best games eventually, and help Regina and Gretchen find games they’re good at to grind as many tickets as possible.
Turns out, there’s a much wider variety of games at this Dave & Buster’s than Regina expected. There’s some classic games, things she’s not surprised to see here, like two cabinets of the “World’s Largest” Pacman and Space Invaders. There’s, of course, ski ball. Luckily, there’s four cabinets, so they’re able to all play a few rounds together. It’s fun, but it’s not what they want to keep doing, so they move on.
There’s some other games Regina remembers from the few times she went to Chuck E. Cheese’s as a kid, like Coin Dozer style games, a Wheel of Fortune themed jackpot game, and two cabinets of Big Buck Hunter, which allow for some competition. Neither of them want to shoot even virtual animals, so both Regina and Gretchen quickly pass that one. Cady can’t even look at the machine, which is so very Cady of her. Karen wraps an arm around her and redirects her to a different Pacman machine. Instead of the giant vertical screen of the “World’s Largest” Pacman game, this one is a tabletop style cabinet that holds up to six players.
“Pacman Battle Royale?” Karen suggests to the group.
Regina and Gretchen exchange a look. “Sure,” Regina shrugs. “I’m not very good at Pacman.”
“Me neither!” Karen replies with a bright smile.
Gretchen giggles, taking a seat at the machine. They all file into their spots, Regina sitting next to Gretchen, and Karen next to Cady. It takes them a minute to figure out how to actually start the game, but it ends up being an intense battle. Regina is the first to lose, so she starts cheering on Gretchen. Cady gets knocked out next, and she starts cheerleading for Karen. The two friends are neck in neck, until suddenly, Karen makes a wrong turn and gets eaten by a ghost. Regina jumps out of her seat, arms in the air.
“WOO!” she exclaims. “That’s my girl!”
Gretchen blushes, grinning from ear to ear. “Gi…”
Regina pulls Gretchen up from her seat, giving her a big kiss. Gretchen blushes deeper, acutely aware of the families staring, even the handful glaring. But Regina doesn’t seem to care, and hey, there was a time where Regina wouldn’t even hold her hand in public, so she’ll certainly take it.
After the Pacman Battle Royale, they continue checking out the other machines. Regina is surprised to see a lot of games that are actually based on mobile apps. There’s a Candy Crush cabinet tucked away in a sad corner by the bathrooms, two different Angry Birds cabinets, a fake version of that old game Flappy Bird that got taken off the app store by its creator, a Fruit Ninja machine (that Cady actually quite likes, and becomes really dramatic on), and a Temple Run cabinet. There’s another one that Regina thinks might be an app, but one she’s not super familiar with. It’s called Emoji Frenzy, and she can’t quite grasp what the point of the game is from watching the two children playing it. They move on, opting to not play any of the glorified mobile apps.
There’s a few more competitive style cabinets. The only one that actually has four spots are the MarioKart cabinets, which they do play a few times. Regina reigns as the MarioKart queen, even in a giant arcade cabinet. (She only rubs it in a little bit, until Gretchen lightly smacks her arm, gives her a look, and Regina relents. She knows better than to test Gretchen’s patience with her gloating.)
There’s another shooting game, but instead of hunting, it’s zombies. They pass by that one, still uninterested. Karen has her eyes on a Luigi’s Mansion arcade cabinet that has two seats. Regina’s unfamiliar with the game, but Karen quickly explains that the basic premise is vacuuming up ghosts. The controllers look weird, but she agrees to play a round with Karen.
Well, she tries to play a round anyways. The second player seat doesn’t work, and when she scans her card, it just gives a second life to Karen. She tries a few times, and only stops after Karen has four lives. She’s frustrated as hell, and wants to storm off and yell at an employee about the machine eating her points.
Gretchen talks her down, pointing out that the points did get used for a game. Karen offers to let Regina use her card for a couple of games to make up for it, and Regina realizes she’s being a little ridiculous. She calms down (even if she does glare at the stupid cabinet every time they pass it for the rest of the day), and just watches with the others while Karen plays through the first life. Since they have four lives now, they each take one turn, playing until the life’s run out. It’s not the most fun game in the world, and even if it’s broken, at least they all got a chance to play.
They pass by a few more branded cabinets, like a Halo one a few teenagers are playing, as well as a few superhero machines with vague premises. There appears to be a match-three style Spiderman game and a Justice League game titled Injustice Arcade. There’s a number of racing games, aside from the MarioKart one. There’s a Hot Wheels one, another called Cruis'n' Blast, and one they do actually play called Super Bikes 3. Karen gets really excited about that one, as apparently, as it’s advertised on the cabinet, there’s an option to ride a unicorn. They play three rounds, each of them racing her once.
Karen wins all three games.
She’s overjoyed, of course. Cady celebrates with a big kiss, dubbing Karen the “Unicorn Queen”.
Karen promptly changes her name in their group chat, extremely excited about her new title.
Gretchen convinces them to move on from the racing games, her eye catching one particular cabinet she knows they’ll all have fun with. It’s called Sink It, and it’s essentially just beer pong, but without the alcohol.
They take turns, two back-to-back rounds each, in a greater competition against one another. They’re used to going up against each other in beer pong, but in teams, and with a lot more alcohol. Gretchen tries to suggest they combine scores for teams again, but Regina wants to find out who the best beer pong champion is amongst all of them.
Karen flops, which is a bit surprising at first. She’s usually one of the best of the four of them. She just shrugs, a smile still on her face.
“I guess it’s the alcohol that makes me so good!”
None of them can really argue with that. There’s alcohol here, sure, but they aren’t allowed to take it out into the games area. Plus, they’re going to a party later tonight, so they all agreed to not drink here and save the fun for later.
Cady’s second worst. This isn’t super shocking to any of them. She tends to be the worst at drinking games among them, usually only balanced out in the teams by Karen’s prowess. They balance each other out when they’re drunk, making for a half-decent team put together.
But sober Cady is somehow even worse. She’s too busy trying to calculate the exact angle to throw the ball to notice that the timer is running down quickly. She only gets one actual point in the first round, and a whopping three in the second.
Karen pats her on the shoulder. “You did your best, baby.”
“I hate beer pong,” Cady grumbles.
Karen wraps her arms around Cady from behind, pulling her in close for a hug. She rests her chin on top of Cady’s head, holding her close while they watch Gretchen and Regina take their turns.
It’s no surprise to anyone that they’re both very good at this game, and ridiculously competitive with each other. Whoever’s up, the other person is trash talking the entire time. It’s a bit of a shift from their normal beer pong games, as those two are usually hyping each other up the whole time. Then again, they’re usually both on the same team.
Gretchen goes first, and scores a perfect game twice in a row, all ten cups sunk. Regina goes next, doing the exact same, scoring two perfect games in a row. Karen tries to declare them both winners, but that simply won’t do.
They take turns, each going another round at a time, scoring perfect game after perfect game. They’ve somehow amassed a small crowd of exhausted adults, tired of chasing their snot-nosed children around and enjoying the display of beer pong excellency. They’re in sudden death, meaning whoever scores less than a perfect game first loses.
On the fourth sudden death round, Gretchen scores her sixth perfect game in a row. Regina, on the other hand, gets a spasm in her hand and throws a ball incorrectly, hitting the backboard of the cabinet instead of any of the cups on her final throw. For the first time in over thirty minutes, the screen flashes with a score with actual numbers, not just PERFECT!!! The small crowd cheers at the end of the epic battle, before dissipating back to wherever their sugared-up kids have run off to.
Regina accepts her defeat with only a little soreness, which washes away when Gretchen leans up and presses a kiss to her cheek, whispering “Good game, Gi,” in her ear.
“I’ll make you pay for that later,” Regina teases in a voice too low for anyone else to hear.
Gretchen smirks at her. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Gretchen and Regina decide to take a break from the games for a little bit, content to watch Karen and Cady play for a while. Cady sets her eyes on a Dance Dance Revolution machine, which she is stunningly good at. Regina and Gretchen watch with dropped jaws as she wipes the floor with Karen, who is an actual dancer.
Then again, none of them count DDR as actual dance. It’s definitely a workout for both of them, who are panting and sweating by the time their three-song run is over.
“Why don’t we get some food and sit for a bit?” Gretchen suggests, seeing how exhausted her friends look. “I think we could all use a little break. We can do more games after!”
There’s a collective nodding among the group, so Gretchen leads them over to the host stand. They get sat right away, the restaurant portion of the establishment rather empty. They order waters and other soft drinks as soon as the waiter swings by, and after a little while, their food.
Given how empty it is, their food comes out pretty quickly. Karen and Cady are itching to play some of their favorite games, so they don’t hang around in the restaurant area for long. Once Karen pays the bill (insisting that she pay for everyone, since Regina bought them all cards), they head back onto the gaming floor, ready to keep going.
They aren’t quite ready to buckle down for their big grinds yet. They play a few more group games, like a giant Connect Four and a very absurd game of Hungry Hungry Hippos where they all have to sit on plastic hippos and control them with giant levers to try and snatch up the balls.
(Cady wins that one. Karen says it’s because Cady’s actually seen hippos in real life. No one can really argue with that logic.)
They do a few more music themed games, including a giant Piano Notes rhythm game, and a shitty Guitar Hero game. It looks like a regular Guitar Hero game, with the plastic guitars tethered to the machine, but it was pretty broken. They aren’t sure if it's the controllers that are busted or the game itself, but the inputs all went in pretty delayed, which is a big problem for Guitar Hero, of all games.
They don’t even finish playing out the game they swiped for.
Cady’s itching to play her favorite game, so they agree it’s time to grind. Her and Karen take the other two around to a corner they’ve mostly left untouched so far, except for the ski ball they played earlier.
“Everything in this corner can be played with enough skill for a ton of tickets,” Cady explains. “Give them all a try, see what speaks to you.”
“Except for our games,” Karen adds very seriously. “We’re taking those games.”
Regina glances at the cabinets around them. “Which ones are your games?”
Cady points to a machine with spinning cups called Quik Drop. “That one’s mine. I have it down to a science. ”
“How does it work?” Gretchen asks.
Cady grins, stepping up to the machine and swiping her card. “I have to get fifty balls into the cups in the time limit. I press the button to drop one ball at a time. If I drop four balls per cup, I get to 48 within the time limit, so I only need to get one extra ball in twice!”
Regina blinks as Cady explains the game without missing a beat, dropping four balls per cup perfectly. She gets the double fifth balls in as soon as she’s done talking, continuing until she nails all fifty and gets the jackpot. She glances up to the top of the machine, noticing the number for the first time.
“Oh, nice! Huge jackpot!” Cady grins.
Gretchen looks up at the blinking Jackpot - 1500! “How much is it usually?”
“It starts at 600, and adds one every time someone plays and fails.” Cady grins, pulling out her card and swiping it again. “I won’t get another big one like that today, but it’s a damn good start.”
“My game is this one!” Karen exclaims, directing them over to a carnival style Break The Plate game. “Break The Plate! It’s similar to Clown Knock Down, but way better!”
Regina eyes the clown machine next to the plate game. She does not like clowns, even ones shaped like bowling pins. “Why’s it better?”
“You have to throw the balls at the clown with enough force to actually knock them down,” Karen explains. “Break The Plate uses screens, since, well, they aren’t going to have real plates. I just have to throw the ball hard enough to hit the screen, not actually knock anything over.”
Gretchen nods. “Makes sense. How many balls do you get?”
Karen grins. “Well, I’m only supposed to have ten, but…” she leans over, swiping her card on the clown game. Ten balls fall into the small tray for the player to pick up and throw at the clowns, but instead, Karen moves them over to the plate game.
“Isn’t that cheating?” Gretchen asks.
“Eh. I always put them back when I’m done, so it’s fine!” Karen swipes her card on the plate game, and the rest of the balls drop into the tray. Karen picks up two balls, one in each hand, and begins chucking them rapidly at the wall. She throws with both hands, and even though her aim isn’t as good with her left, the rapid fire smacks plates on the screens quickly enough that the aim isn’t super important. She’s very quickly racking up very high scores, if the exciting graphics around the score on the screen is anything to go by.
Gretchen and Regina exchange a look. It seems that their friends have locked in on their regular games, so they’re left to check out the others on their own.
Regina zeroes in on a basketball game. She used to play basketball when she was much younger, and is admittedly a little curious to see if she still has the free throw skills she once had.
Gretchen watches as Regina plays her first round, and manages to get most of the shots. “I could probably work with this,” Regina says, rolling her shoulders. “I can probably get really consistent after a couple of rounds.”
Gretchen looks around at the other machines. There’s an Axe Throwing game directly next to the basketball cabinet. Of course, the axes are made of foam, but Gretchen steps up to it, eyeing it carefully.
“I have always wanted to try axe throwing…” Gretchen mumbles to herself, considering the machine. She decides to give it a shot, swiping the card.The foam axes fall into the tray. She picks one up, and finds it heavier than she expected. There’s definitely some magnets in the “blade”. She takes a closer look at the wall. It seems to be made of rubber, with a thousand little rubber tassels sticking out of the wall. She gives it a shot, lining up her throw and chucking the foam axe at the target. It lodges itself in the rubber, the magnet attaching it to the wall as it sticks out of the little rubber tassels that presumably hide the rest of the magnets.
Seems simple enough.
It takes Gretchen a few more tries, but she gets the hang of it, consistently getting bullseyes. She even starts to be able to throw on the lower parts first, and then move up, giving her more room for more axes. It’s not as high scoring as a game as the basketball game, and nowhere near the scores she keeps seeing on Cady and Karen’s games, but it’ll do. It’ll do.
It’s a solid hour and a half before they start to run out of points. Karen runs out first, and runs over to the machine near the prize counter to check the tickets on her card. When she sees she has enough for the prize she’s been eyeing for weeks, she grins from ear to ear, heading into the prize counter area with a chip on her shoulder. She beelines straight for the desk, since the “high value” prize is locked away behind some glass. Once she’s exchanged her tickets for the item, she asks for a bag. She explains the gift exchange to the poor, underpaid employee, who really just wants Karen to take the bag and go so he can get to the next customer, but Karen explains the whole thing before stuffing the prize in the bag and heading back out towards her friends and girlfriend.
Cady runs out of points next, just as Karen approaches her cabinet. “Oh, you’re done too!” Cady exclaims.
Karen nods, excitedly holding up the bag. “I am! And I got your prize!”
Cady smiles at her. “Well, I’ll have to check and make sure I can get yours, and then I’ll come meet you by Reggie and Gretch!”
“Sounds good!”
Karen skips off towards her friends, who are still intensely locked in their games. Regina’s the next to finish, visibly sweating when the machine prompts her with Insufficient Funds when she tries to swipe her game card.
“Oh thank God, ” Regina sighs, wiping the sweat away with the back of her hand. “Jesus, that was intense.”
“You’re telling me,” Gretchen huffs, rolling out her shoulder. “Axe throwing is taxing. ”
“Cady went to go get my prize,” Karen tells them both, still holding the bag in her hand. “Go check how many points you have, pick something out, and get it in a bag so we can all exchange at the same time!”
“I still have more on my card,” Gretchen says. “The axe throwing game lasts longer than the basketball one.”
Regina waves her hand. “I’ll go now, so you can’t cheat and see what I’m getting you.” She pauses at Gretchen’s machine, giving her a quick kiss before heading over to the prize counter.
She finds Cady leaving the area with a much larger bag than the one Karen has. The prize is sticking out the top a bit, and Cady is desperately trying to shove it down.
“Here,” Regina says, pulling off her jacket and handing it to Cady. “Use this to hide it.”
Cady looks up at her and smiles. “Thanks, Reg. You’re a lifesaver.”
Regina just waves her hand. “I was too hot to be wearing that anyways. The basketball game had me working up a sweat.”
Regina heads into the prize area, checking her ticket balance before browsing the available items. She’s got a decent amount of tickets, definitely not anything near the high value items, but she’s still got a lot of options. It takes her a little bit, but she finds the perfect little gift for Gretchen. When she checks out, she doesn’t ask for a bag, given how small it is. She just slips it into her pocket, heading back over to her friends.
Gretchen’s already out of points now, but is waiting dutifully with Karen and Cady, mostly because Karen insisted she let Regina surprise her.
“Where’s your bag?” Cady asks.
“My options were more limited,” Regina admits. “It was small enough to fit in my pocket. Plus, I think the employee was going to strangle me if I asked for a plastic bag for just one thing.”
“Fair enough,” Gretchen shrugs. “I didn’t think we were going to get anything like that, ” she points to the bag in Cady’s hands, which still has Karen’s gift, “today anyways.”
“Definitely not,” Regina laughs.
Gretchen heads off, taking her time like Regina did. She eventually finds an item she likes, which is also small enough to fit in her pocket after she checks out. She meets back up with her friends near the exit.
They’re about to do the gift exchange right there, when a large group of children come barraging through the front doors. Gretchen nearly gets knocked over by one of the kids, but Regina grabs her and holds her steady.
“Jesus,” Regina grumbles. “Maybe we should do this by the car?”
The other three respond with nods, so they wait until they’ve made it out to the parking lot. They don’t get in the car just yet, standing around behind it so they can exchange their gifts.
Cady nods her head towards Regina and Gretchen. “You two go first!”
Regina shrugs. “Sure.” She reaches her hand into her pocket, pulling out a cheap necklace with a sparkling crescent moon on it. “It isn’t much, but, you know.” She smiles softly at Gretchen. “To the moon and back.”
Gretchen gives her a big smile. “You won’t believe what I got you.” She pulls a very similar necklace out of her pocket, but this one has a sun on it. “I saw it right next to the moon one. I almost grabbed that one, but…” She holds it out to Regina. “You light up my life.”
“Aww!” Karen squeals. Cady holds a hand over her heart, touched by how sweet this is.
Regina gives them a look and rolls her eyes with a smile. “Oh, hush.” She turns back to Gretchen. “Here, baby, turn around, and I’ll put it on you.”
Gretchen turns and lifts up her hair, pulling it to the side so Regina can clip the necklace around her neck. She holds the little moon between her fingers once it’s on, smiling from ear to ear. “Here, let me do yours.”
“Are you sure you can reach?” Regina teases.
“Hey!”
Regina laughs, turning around and lifting up her hair. She crouches a little, so Gretchen can actually reach better. It’s smaller than her classic R necklace, but the little sun rests nicely against her chest. She turns back around and stands up straight, wrapping her arms around Gretchen’s waist and pulling her in for a kiss.
“I love you,” Regina says softly.
“I love you too,” Gretchen replies with a smile.
“ Adorable, ” Cady sighs, drawing their attention away from each other.
“Oh, right! Sorry! It’s your turn!”
Regina squeezes Gretchen. “Relax, babe. It’s fine.”
Gretchen melts into Regina’s arms as they watch Cady and Karen exchange their gifts.
They hand each other their bags at the same time. Cady pulls hers out first, a very large five-by-five Rubik’s Cube. Her face lights up, grinning widely.
“Awe, Kare! I’ve been wanting one of these forever! ”
Karen smiles and laughs. “I know! Now you can stop getting frustrated with the four-by-four and get frustrated with this one instead!”
Cady laughs, tucking it back into the bag. “Okay, yeah. That’s exactly what’s going to happen. Now open yours!”
Karen looks down at the bag. “A jacket?”
“No, that’s Regina’s jacket. She let me borrow it to hide your gift.”
“Oh!” Karen grabs the jacket, holding it out to Regina, who takes it back and drapes it over Gretchen’s shoulders. Karen looks back down into the bag, squealing when she sees what’s inside.
She pulls out a huge stuffed Care Bear, which had been ungracefully shoved into the large bag.
“It’s Friendship Bear!” Karen exclaims. “She’s orange, like you!” Karen touches Cady’s hair, grinning from ear to ear.
Cady laughs. “I suppose she is. I just wanted to get a Care Bear for my Kare Bear.”
“That is disgustingly sweet,” Regina comments, earning her a little smack on the arm from Gretchen. “What? I’m right! It’s sickeningly adorable!”
Cady laughs and ignores Regina’s comments. Karen’s hugging the bear, happy as can be.
This was absolutely worth pressing the button on that damn Quik Drop machine thousands of times.
“You’re the best,” Karen says, giving Cady a big kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Kare Bear.”
Gretchen looks up at Regina. “I’d say this was a pretty successful double date. What about you?”
Regina smiles down at her, running her fingers over the moon on Gretchen’s necklace. “I think so too. But next time, we’re picking the venue.”
Gretchen’s eyes light up. “Oh, oh, do you think we could do bowling next?”
“Whatever you want, baby.” Regina leans in close, whispering so only Gretchen can hear her. “But let’s do one with laser tag too, so we can kick their asses.”
Gretchen laughs, grinning. “Oh, absolutely. ”
“What are you two planning over there?” Cady asks, eyeing them suspiciously.
“Oh, nothing,” Gretchen replies with a sweet smile. “Just our next double date.”
“Can we do this every weekend?” Karen asks. “Pretty please?”
Regina shrugs. “We’ll see, but, tentatively, sure.”
“Yay!” Karen squeals.
Cady fumbles with the cube in the plastic casing. “Can we go home? I wanna get started on this.”
“Nerd,” Regina teases, pulling out her key to unlock the car. Even as she climbs inside, she finds herself thinking about some of the other things on that prize counter that would have been perfect for Gretchen. If only Regina had more tickets.
Maybe regular trips to Dave & Buster’s isn’t the worst idea Karen and Cady have ever had.