I Fell For My Nemesis

This dance game required no more concentration than a challenging fight did. Jocelyn was rather enjoying herself. She didn't expect the applause when the song ended though. She hadn't even realized a crowd had formed around the machine. She had been too focused on what she was doing.

"That was amazing!" 

"I've never seen anyone do that well in DDR!" 

"How many years have you been practicing this? I can't even imagine how many quarters you must have used to get to that level."

Jocelyn didn't know how to say this was her first time ever doing it. She simply said thank you and turned to Keith. "Do you want to pick the next song?"

He was gaping at her too. But rather than saying anything he clamped his mouth shut and nodded before choosing something. She did just as well on the second and third songs and the crowd only got bigger by the time they finished their set. 

She was a bit overwhelmed. She didn't think she had ever been this popular. Maybe at the beginning of her hero career before her developed a reputation for being standoffish. That had been a very long time ago. 

Keith somehow seemed to sense this and protectively put an arm around her shoulders before steering her through the crowd toward the prize area. Nobody bothered her that way. He didn't give them a single opening to with how quickly he moved. She was both impressed and grateful. 

"Thank you. I wasn't expecting that kind of a reaction from total strangers," Jocelyn said. 

"Well, I can't blame them. That was one of the craziest things I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of crazy things. Are you a dancer or something?" he asked in disbelief as he removed his arm. 

"Or something."

When Jocelyn was in college one of her roommates introduced her to the school gym's recreation classes. She learned kick-boxing, weight training, dance, and more through it that helped her refine her technique as a hero. When she first started out she wasn't able to do hand-to-hand combat and simply blasted people with ice when they weren't expecting it. 

Keith shook his head in disbelief but let it go. "Let's see how many tickets we have."

They went to one of the ticket counting machines and she made sure to dig all of hers out of her purse and pockets since they were sort of overflowing. Her grand total was 2,173 tickets. 

Her friend's eyes widened but he said nothing as he put his own tickets into the machine. He had 349.

"…it's because you kept winning all of those jackpots."

Jocelyn nodded. "I know. Let's see what they have available in the prize area."

They had walked past it several times but she had never gotten a good look until now. She had enough tickets that she might actually be able to get something decent but she wouldn't know for sure until she checked. 

She scanned a wide variety of completely random items before seeing something she knew her young clients would love. A back of the door basketball hoop with a squishy ball. The problem was that she didn't have enough tickets. She frowned as she continued looking but couldn't find anything else that looked useful. 

"Found anything you want yet?" Keith asked as he approached after walking around for a while. 

Jocelyn sighed. "I'm three hundred twenty-seven tickets short." 

"Here, take mine."

"What? No! You earned those."

"I insist. I saw you eying that basketball hoop earlier. You're getting it for your kids, right?"

She raised an eyebrow. "My kids?"

"The ones you give therapy to. You mentioned before how you have a lot of games in your office," Keith explained. "Or is it for you?"

"No, it's definitely for them. But are you sure? There wasn't anything you wanted to get?"

"With this amount of tickets I can't get much more than candy or tiny toys. I can still get myself a couple of Tootsie Rolls or something with whatever's left if you get it. I come here for the games not the prizes."

"Alright. Thanks."

Jocelyn walked away hugging the basketball hoop box to her chest while Keith popped both Tootsie Rolls into his mouth at once. That had been fun. She was glad she came out with him today to experience something new. She had liked a lot of those games. 

When they made it outside he looked at her expectantly with his hands in his jacket pockets. "So. How would you rate your first ever arcade experience overall?"

"I would give it 4.5 out of 5 stars. I wasn't very good at some of the games but it was still fun. The one downside was the ticket system. It seemed inefficient to have people carry them around everywhere."

Keith laughed. "They're old school. Most places have upgraded to game cards that have points instead of quarters and keep track of how many tickets you have these days. They keep things the way they do for nostalgia purposes. 

"Before everything got computerized all arcades were set up like that. This place is a relic. The only thing that's changed since I was a kid is some of the games. Others are still here like Pac-Man and Skee Ball. It's nice to know that some things withstand the test of time."

"You must have gone to the arcade a lot. You were very good at what you played," Jocelyn told him. 

"Only the stuff that doesn't get you a lot of tickets. Though, to be fair, I was only working with ten bucks. The more money you spend on games the more tickets you earn. To win stuff that's 10,000+ tickets you probably have to spend more than a hundred dollars. You'd be better off just going to the store or getting the thing online.

"And I did go to the arcade a lot. It was where my friends and I hung out after school most of the time. I blew pretty much all of my allowance there stupidly trying to save up for things that cost a ridiculous amount of tickets," Keith said sheepishly. 

Jocelyn cracked a smile. "So you're speaking from experience."

"Yep. A hard learned lesson that took about six months' worth of wasted allowance when I was twelve. So clearly you didn't spend time in the arcade as a kid since this was your first time. What did you do instead?"

Things that would keep her mind stimulated but also keep her as quiet and unobtrusive as possible so she didn't incur her parents' wrath. When she was twelve she had primarily focused on creating Sudoku puzzles. Or was it crosswords? It might have been both that year.

"Crosswords and Sudoku puzzles. After a while I got so good at them I started making my own. I spent countless hours on it," Jocelyn said with a shrug. 

Keith let out a small laugh. "So you've always been smart then."

"I wouldn't call myself smart."

"You have a PhD and made puzzles for fun as a kid! By what definition are you not smart?"

"I only have a master's degree."

"Only," Keith scoffed. 

Jocelyn shrugged. "It's a year shorter and the requirements are different. I got a master's in marriage and family therapy rather than a PhD in clinical psychology. There's a difference."

"If you say so. I still say you're probably tied for the smartest person I know."

"With whom?"

She hadn't meant to let that slip out but she was curious. He had previously said he didn't have any other friends so she wasn't sure who there was for her to be tied with. A family member, maybe? 

"Uh…she's a colleague of mine. Brilliant. Quick on her feet. Gave me really great career advice the other day about playing to my strengths. Actually, I've decided to go with one of her suggestions because I think it would suit me and eventually work with the parameters you told me about." 

Jocelyn hadn't realized he had gone to multiple people about this. Suddenly, she felt less special. Which was stupid because she knew she wasn't special to him in the first place. 

She wasn't special to anyone and it didn't matter. She had known that all her life so why did hearing this have to make her chest feel tight? 

"Really? What did you decide on?"

"I'm going to try and become a firefighter. They have good benefits and once you've worked there a while the pay is good too," Keith said with a shrug. "It was the only option I looked into that seemed to fit.

"I tried looking up any old job that made money over the minimum you figured out but I wasn't feeling it, which was why I asked her what I was good at. She told me I should think about what I thought I was good at and that's how I came to the conclusion that I should be a firefighter after looking into it more."

Jocelyn's heart nearly stopped. Hang on. This seemed awfully familiar. 

Hadn't she had a conversation just like that with Delta when they kind of got into their fight? She had suggested a firefighter as one of the possibilities too because he said all he was good at was being a hero.