Chapter 8

AFTER ANOTHER EPISODE OF KAT the Puppet Master, where I spoke into Olivia’s phone so she could impress Tyler with her (my) knowledge of all the things she (I) was into, I’d had about enough of Project Ty-Livia. In fact I was kind of tired of Olivia altogether, but we’d made plans for her to sleep over at my place that Friday because my aunt and uncle were going away for the night for their anniversary. So, after she rushed home after school to get her stuff, she showed up at my door.

I let her in and led her into the kitchen for a snack, since there was no telling when Dad would get home for us to eat. But as we were rooting through the fridge, Mom came in and took pity on us.

“Why don’t we just order pizza tonight?” she asked.

“Really?” Mom almost never let us order pizza, even though it was my favorite.

“Sure,” she said, nodding. “That okay with you, Livvy?”

“That would be great. Thanks, Aunt Judy,” she said.

I grabbed the pizza-place menu out of the cupboard and brought it over to the island, opening it up so we could decide what to get. After some minor arguing (I wanted pineapple; Olivia declared pineapple was a crime against pizza), we left Mom to order and went to the den to wait for it to be delivered.

“So, I brought my makeup. Want to do makeovers?” Olivia asked as she dropped down onto the couch.

Olivia had never been into makeup before, but suddenly, now that we were in seventh grade, she was all about her appearance. As far as I was concerned, makeup was only good for making fairy dust for a scavenger hunt. It sure couldn’t change a warthog into a gazelle.

I shook my head. “I was thinking I could show you Zombie Slashers and teach you how to play.”

“Gaming?” She made a face. “Really? Can’t we just find something on Netflix like we usually do?”

I ignored the face and went over to grab the two controllers, handing her one as I sat down beside her. “No. And yes, really. This is Tyler’s favorite game.”

“Okay. So it’s about . . .” She looked at me and raised her eyebrows, waiting.

Seriously? “Slashing Zombies.” I mean, it’s right there in the name.

She sighed. “What do I do?”

“Let’s start by making your character,” I said.

Thirty minutes later we’d only just put the finishing touches on her pink-armored, blond, but very kick-butt character, when the doorbell rang: pizza.

“We’ll come back after dinner,” I said, putting down my controller and getting up.

“That was fun!” Olivia said, a big smile on her face.

“All we did was make your character.”

“I know! I love that I got to choose what she looks like and wears and everything. It’s so cool that you can make your character just like you, you know? I’m going to really like Zombie Slashers!”

I wasn’t so sure, but at least she got the name right this time.

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“I HATE Zombie Slashers!” Olivia announced only five minutes into the game. I had her on the easiest level, and she still couldn’t seem to get the hang of even just moving her person around the training arena, let alone getting to where she could start fighting. Maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea. I was just about to turn it off when a tall knight with a giant broadsword came up beside us.

Uh-oh.

“Who is that?” Olivia asked. “He doesn’t look like a zombie. Or is it a trick?”

Shaking my head, I paused the game and reached for a headset, flipping the switch to turn it on and sliding it into place, adjusting it over my ear. “Hi, Ty,” I said into the mic as I looked at Olivia and watched as she clued in, her eyes going wide.

She pointed at my mic and then at the screen, a question on her face as though she had said out loud, Is that really him?

I nodded.

“You ready to get your butt kicked?” Tyler asked through the headset, and I could tell from his voice that he was smiling.

I couldn’t help but smile back. “As if that’s going to happen,” I taunted, eager to show him my new moves. I’d been avoiding playing with him since he’d returned from camp, but playing with him this way—from different locations, so I didn’t have to be all nervous sitting next to him—felt really good. Maybe I could do this. Maybe I could get over my nerves and get back to how we had been.

“Uh, Kat?” Olivia whispered, suddenly reminding me she was there. I passed her my sister’s headset, knowing Laura wouldn’t mind since she almost never played games anymore, and turned it on.

“Right. Yeah. So Olivia’s here, too.”

“Oh,” Tyler said. “Hi, Olivia.”

“Hi, Tyler,” she said back in her sweet voice. “This is so fun!”

“So you play Zombie Slashers a lot?” he asked, sounding doubtful.

Not hardly, I didn’t say out loud.

“All the time!” Olivia said.

What? “All the time”? I stared at her, and she smiled back at me like it was no big deal.

“Especially this past summer,” she said. “I’ve been playing a lot in between dance-team practices.”

“Hold on, Ty,” I said. “My mom needs something.”

I muted my headset and then reached over and did the same to Olivia’s before I said, “What are you doing?”

She shrugged. “You said we should have more in common and that I should know about stuff he likes.”

“Knowing about,” I said, “is not the same as playing all the time. You haven’t even played once!”

She put her controller in my hands. “Then you’re going to have to play for me.”

I looked down at the controller and then back up at her. “What?”

“Pretend you’re me and play with him.”

“I don’t think so.”

“And be good. I want him to be really impressed,” she said like she hadn’t heard me. Or had chosen not to.

“Livvy . . .”

“Kat. Please! Dancing is what I’m good at, not video games. I really like him a lot and I want him to like me, too. Please won’t you help me with this? It’s just a video game; it’s not like you’re cheating on a test or something.”

I thought about that. She was right. But it still sort of felt like cheating. “Fine,” I said.

She picked up my controller. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m going to play as you.”

I laughed at that. “Sorry, Livvy, but he won’t believe I’ve gotten that bad over the summer. No offense.”

She frowned but then nodded. “I guess you’re right. What am I supposed to do, then?”

“Just watch and learn,” I said, and then unmuted my headset.

She nodded and leaned toward me so I could unmute hers, too.

“Sorry, Ty,” I said. “You there?”

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing. Mom just came to get the plates from our pizza.”

“Pineapple and mushroom?” he asked.

“Of course!” I said, glancing over at Olivia. “At least on my half.”

“That’s the best,” Tyler said.

Olivia made a face, making me laugh. I stuck my tongue out at her and then unpaused the game and moved her character over beside Tyler’s.

“Let’s play!” Tyler said. “Come on, Kat. Catch up with us.”

“Oh, uh . . . ,” I said, looking at Olivia because I hadn’t worked out why “I” wasn’t going to be playing.

“She shut her thumb in the door,” Olivia said before I could even think of anything. “So she’s just going to watch us play.”

“Oh, but I can see you on the screen . . .”

“I was trying,” I said. “But it hurts too much. You two go ahead.”

“Okay,” Tyler said. “Let’s annihilate some zombies!”

“Yeah!” she said, clapping her hands, which I guess didn’t matter, since I was the one with hands on her controller.

After about an hour of zombie annihilating, I was thirsty and my hands were legitimately getting tired. I did a quick mute of my headset. “I need a break,” I told Olivia quietly so Tyler wouldn’t hear me through her microphone

She nodded. “Tyler, we’re going to take a break to get some snacks.”

“Why don’t you come over and play here? I’ve got cheese popcorn, and my mom just made some brownies.”

Playing with him over the past hour had finally felt just like old times—precrush times—even though I was pretending to be Olivia. Getting into our old routine of hunting down and killing (or rekilling) the zombies felt good, so the thought of going over there, sitting with him, and continuing the game sounded good to me. Not to mention, Mrs. Lot’s brownies were awesome.

But going over there was obviously impossible if we were going to keep up our story.

“Thanks, but we’re already in our pj’s,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “And, um, hey, maybe tomorrow you guys can come over?” He made it like a question. Like he really wanted us—both of us—to come over.

“That would be great!” Livvy said at the same time as I said, “We’re busy.”

I looked at her, because how could that happen? She smiled and shrugged at me.

“We’re going to the mall tomorrow,” I said, because it was the only thing I could think of.

“Right!” Olivia said. “To look at dresses for the upcoming Fall Ball.” She said the words slowly like she really wanted him to pay attention to her talking about the dance.

“Oh, right. . . . Uh . . .”

I wondered if he was thinking about asking her to the dance. She and I exchanged looks, and I could tell she was thinking the same thing. My heart sped up as we waited for him to go on.

But instead of asking her, all he said was, “I’m glad we got to play together tonight, Livvy.” It was weird hearing him use the nickname for her. He’d never used it before tonight.

“Me too,” she said.

“You’re even better at Zombie Slashers than Kat is!”

Olivia laughed at that, and I rolled my eyes. “Thanks a lot,” I said.

“Sorry, Kat!” he said quickly, obviously not meaning to insult me. It was pretty funny, since he was telling me I was better than myself. Deep down, though, it did kind of hurt that he thought Olivia was so good when it was really me. Secretly, I wanted him to know I’d gotten so much better at the game over the summer, but now all he knew was that Olivia was really good. Better than me.

“It’s okay,” I said. “So is your mom going to drive us to the shelter on Sunday?”

“Oh yeah. I’ll ask her, but I think so. Hey, Livvy, why don’t you come with us? You can volunteer too.”

Olivia looked at me. “Uh, maybe. I mean, I do love animals, obviously.”

I fought the sigh that wanted to come out of my mouth so badly because she so did not love animals.

“Don’t you have dance practice?” I asked her.

“No. You know I only have dance team on—”

“Okay, we’ll talk about it,” I said, interrupting her. “But she’d have to apply to be a volunteer. Anyway, we have to go right now. Bye!” I turned off the game then, even though Olivia had her mouth open to say something else.

“Hey!” she said to me. “We weren’t done talking.”

“Sorry,” I said to her. “I thought you were. And since when do you love animals?”

She crossed her arms. “Since your animal-loving next-door neighbor got so cute.”

I rolled my eyes. “One thing has nothing to do with the other.”

“It does if it means I get to spend Sundays with him.”

Taking the headset off, I got up off the couch and put the gaming stuff away. “Let’s go see if there are any cookies.”

Of course, what I really wanted were some of Mrs. Lot’s amazing brownies, but that obviously wasn’t happening, since I couldn’t go next door.

At this rate it felt like I’d never get to go over there again.