Rhymes With...

“Not one game,” Chloe laughs as she tallies up the score (they’ve grown too tipsy to play counting down as usual and are instead counting up, three darts per player, highest score wins) “You’re unreal.”

Maze licks her lips, “If you want to win, Chloe, you have to put in the work. Another game?”

“Sure,” Chloe shrugs, “What do I have to lose?” She looks to the other two women. “You in?”

Ella nods her assent but Linda steps back. “I’ll sit out of this one.”

In her slightly fuzzy mind, however, a plan is brewing. 

She has seen the way that Maze has won, how she jostles her opponents, drops heavy objects at just the wrong moment, talks loudly.  It’s somewhere between cheating and bad sportsmanship, entirely unnecessary given her sheer skill. 

Someone ought to show her, Linda feels in the most righteous corner of her drunk mind, what it feels like to be distracted. 

As Maze approaches the line for her first toss, Linda sidles up to her. 

“Hey,” she says, soft below the din of the bar, only audible because she’s wrapped her arms around Maze’s waist. 

Maze blinks long and slow like a cat but doesn’t dislodge her, even waves away Ella as she moves to intercept. “Hey.”

Despite Linda’s face pressed into her neck she still hits the bullseye on the first try. Though it’s not the highest scoring segment it’s always her first move, as if she’s showing off, demonstrating that she doesn’t need that extra ten points. 

Frustrated and a little bemused, Linda turns it up a notch. She moves, nuzzling, mouthing lightly at the tight muscles of Mazikeen’s shoulder and throat. 

The second dart veers a little off center but still hits the corner of the treble twenty. Chloe claps politely.

As her hand holds the third dart, poised to throw, Linda leans up and kisses Maze square on the mouth. She tastes like sulphur and cheap alcohol, like waxy lipstick and blood. To Linda’s surprise she kisses back, with a tender caution. One of her hands comes to Linda’s waist and holds her, as if worried she’ll fall (or leave). 

It is difficult to peel apart, it feels like static is holding them together. When Linda finally manages to look at Maze her face is a blank. “You could have just thrown something at me,” she says as she lets go of Linda’s beltloops. 

“I liked this way better,” Linda replies, still soft so they won’t be overheard. 

When she looks at the dartboard she sees that Maze threw a 19.