Page 46 of Lethal in Pink

Because Apex Legends doesn't support split-screen, I spent forty minutes hauling my 55-inch OLED TV and secondary console out of my bedroom, dragging a small side table over, and placing it side-by-side with my main living room setup. Two monitors, two consoles, two controllers, two Ethernet cables running parallel along the baseboard.

Amiyah drops onto the couch like it owes her money.

She lands directly on the left cushion, legs folding underneath her, and starts unpacking her tote bag with the efficiency of someone executing a well-rehearsed ritual. Out comes a family-sized bag of salt and vinegar chips, a party-size container of Oreos, a six-pack of sparkling water, and a glass Tupperware container of homemade popcorn, seasoned with something that smells aggressively of garlic and chili.

She arranges everything on the coffee table with the precision of a bomb technician.

“I brought snacks,” she says, which is like announcing that the ocean contains water.

I’m still standing by the door with my hand on the doorknob. My brain is catching up in fragments. Pink slippers. Garlic popcorn. The way she’s already claimed my throw pillow and positioned it behind her lower back without looking at it, like the pillow received telepathic instructions and complied.

“You really came prepared,” I say, walking over.

She looks up at me, one eyebrow arched. “You said gaming. Gaming requires fuel. This is fuel.” She pats the chip bag. “Also, I don’t trust your snack judgment. No offense.”

“None taken. I was planning to order pizza.”

“That’s acceptable as a secondary measure.”

I grab the second Wireless Controller from the charging dock hooked up to the secondary rig and hand it to her. Our fingers brush during the transfer, and the contact sends a small, inconvenient jolt up my forearm that I pretend not to notice. She doesn’t react, just takes the controller and examines it with the focused scrutiny of someone checking a weapon for defects.

“Stick drift?” she asks.

“No. It's practically fresh out of the box.”

“Good. I hate stick drift. It’s disrespectful.”

The lobby menu loads on both screens, glowing blue against the dark glass of the windows behind us. I take my seat on the right side of the couch, leaving what feels like a respectful distance between us. Amiyah immediately closes half of it by leaning forward, elbows on knees, controller balanced between her palms.

Character select pops up.

She locks in Horizon instantly. Since Apex locks out duplicate Legends on the same squad, I hover for a second and pick Octane to keep up with her hyper-aggressive playstyle.

I side-eye her. She doesn’t side-eye back. She’s already scanning the drop zone on her display with the calm focus of someone about to commit several digital murders.

We drop. The map—World's Edge—rushes up to meet us, all red rock and industrial sprawl. My thumbs find the joysticks, settling into the grooves they’ve worn over years of play. Beside me, Amiyah’s thumbs move with the same practiced ease, but there’s something different about it—a precision in the pressure, an economy of movement that makes my own button-mashing feel vaguely amateur.

The first firefight happens at a supply bin near the edge of Fragment West. I get the first shot off. She gets the first kill.

“Nice,” I say, genuinely.

“Thanks,” she says. Before I’ve even finished looting the bin I just opened, she slides down a ruined slope, throws Horizon's gravity lift directly at her feet, and shoots straight up into the air, landing cleanly on a third-story rooftop.

Ten minutes in, the squad tracker at the top right of the HUD tells a story I’m not prepared for. My kill count: two. Hers: seven.

The disparity grows with each engagement. She moves through the map like she built it herself, anticipating rotations, positioning with a sense of spatial awareness that makes my own gameplay feel like I’m driving with the parking brake on.

“You play like someone’s dad,” she says, not looking away from her screen.

Her voice is sweet, conversational, the same tone someone might use to compliment a homecooked meal.

I miss a shot with my Wingman. Entirely. The heavy bullet goes wide by approximately the width of a small continent.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Very responsible positioning. Very methodical. Very…” She pauses, sliding under an enemy’s line of fire and headshotting them with a Sentinel sniper rifle from a distance that shouldn’t be physically possible. “…dad-like.”

My face goes rigid, the heat of competitive indignation spreading from my sternum to the back of my neck.