AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cutter walks away from the game and pauses near me. “Slice of pizza?”
“Okay,” I say and nod without thinking.
I don’t like Saxon being out of sight.
But this place is home to me. This town. This pizza place. Everything here is home. It’s safe. It’s quiet.
And, yes, Saxon has been in the arcade alone many times before.
Cutter pulls out a chair for me at his table.
There’s an untouched pizza waiting.
“Eat up,” he says.
“I’m good, thanks.”
“That could have been bad,” Cutter says. “If I hit my shoulder and hurt myself? Playing a video game?”
“Can I ask you a serious question?”
“Sure.”
“Is it okay to laugh now?” I ask as I start to laugh.
Cutter’s jaw flexes with annoyance.
Oh well… I can’t help it. I just watched some rough and tough baseball player playing a zombie virtual reality game think the zombies were actually attacking him and he ran into a wall and fell down to his butt.
“Imagine that call,” Cutter says. “Having to call my agent or some of the guys and tell them I’m hurt again.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Speaking of which… we should talk about something quick.”
“Oh? We have something to talk about?”
“Do I still have a handprint on my cheek?” Cutter asks.
I roll my eyes. “Don’t act like you didn’t have it coming.”
“I want you to know I had nothing to do with that. I’m sorry they did that. It’s a thing we do. It’s stupid, I know.”
“You text random people that there’s an emergency?”
Cutter takes a deep breath. “Not exactly. Not random people.”
“What does that mean?”
“Trey, PJ, Ranger, and I all came up through the minor leagues together,” he says. “We bounced around in the pros and now we’re on the same team. It’s a fun time. But we always had this thing… like I said, it’s stupid. Let’s say Ranger was dating someone. We’d take his phone and mess around. Same for PJ, even though he doesn’t really date anyone. Same for Trey. It’s usually Trey who starts this stuff. They were asking questions about… well, I didn’t have a vehicle, Piper.”
I gasp. “Oh.”
Cutter nods.
“So your friends thought you and I were…”
“I wouldn’t call it dating, but, you know. So Trey took my phone and sent you those texts.”
