#leithly

“Only two are up for grabs?” Papaver asked.

“Every point matters,” Coffea returned, his grin widening. “Feel free to go when you’re ready.”

Papaver, with a shrug, was the first to walk across. At the end he was thankful for the bucket of cool water that Coffea had kindly put there. Cydon tried to keep his cool but, halfway across, ended up breaking into a hobbling run. With a face he, too, dipped his feet into the water. Mer made it across, looked at the water, and then at Coffea.

“Every point matters, huh?” he asked, going back for another round.

Coffea shielded his eyes from the low sun. Today was finally at a heat he enjoyed, though he didn’t doubt that by the time the sun had reached its zenith, he would be sweating buckets. Unfortunately for him, the competition they had planned around this time required him to do some moving.

The group of them – plus Rhody and Urtica, who Coffea had coaxed along – took up a large table in the centre of the room. The quiz wouldn’t start for another half hour yet, but they wanted time to get settled and grab drinks. Coffea had insisted that no one give him presents since he was now officially old (in Dau’s words) and had plenty of luggage to fit on the plane already, but was pleasantly surprised to learn that they had all chipped in for good quality coffee in different flavours, and some accompanying alcohol to have with it. That was right up his street – and he let them know that after a round of hugs and thank yous.

“Of course,” Merremia said, sitting up also. He placed his hand on Coffea’s arm, warming the chilled skin. “I hope I haven’t overstepped, or anything?”

“No, no. Not at all.” Coffea nudged his friend. “Sometimes you need to be told things even if you don’t want to hear it.” He yawned, surprising himself at how tired he felt. “I think that’s my cue to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Mer smiled. “We should do this again. I know a few other constellations.”

Coffea squeezed his eyes shut. Truthfully, he didn’t want to go down this route. Cocos didn’t deserve his forgiveness and he’d never tried to convince Coffea any differently. “This is different,” he protested, trying his best to keep the petulance from his voice.

“True, it is.” There was a long silence. Just as Coffea was about to assume the conversation was over, Mer softly added, “but it’s similar in some ways too.”

They went inside after the time was up, dodging the drizzle that had begun. 

“Cydon let in two goals, scored one. That gives you nine points in total. Mer was the same, leaving you with nine as well. Papaver – you pulled it back, buddy,” Coffea said. “You scored a whopping four goals, and only let in two. This and darts, eh? Your secret talent. Anyway, that means you end on a score of ten, and get the date.”

Since the scoring hadn’t been a secret, Papaver had already calculated the result. He rewarded Coffea with a small, secret smile for the benefit of the cameras.

The good mood quickly deflated – or for Coffea, at least – as soon as he saw Cydon and Mer’s faces. “Right,” he cleared his throat. “The elimination. Um –“

Coffea shrugged. “From the little I’ve seen of those matches, the rules might be involving beer drinking. But since it’s only just passed noon I think we might skip that one.”

“Giving the Scots a bad name,” Papaver said with mock regret. Coffea stuck his tongue out in reply. Since he was already in position he went first, attempting to get the feel for the darts before quickly realising there was a reason everyone played the game drunk in bars. Somehow it seemed so much easier or – more likely – the drunk player didn’t give a damn if they put a hole in the wall.

“Oops,” Coffea muttered. His friends’ laughter filled the room. His second dart wasn’t much better. “Okay, that one was because you guys are being too loud. You’re distracting me!”

“Oh right, of course. So sorry about that,” Mer said, wiping at his eyes. His chest was still shaking but, by some miracle, they both managed to keep it down.

By another miracle, his next dart landed almost perfectly in the centre. Coffea gave a whoop. “See? I know what I’m doing.”