“I don’t know how you got me to come to this,” I muttered as I scanned the lounge area that the LGBTQ Alliance had claimed for a game night. A few people had set up a projector against one of the walls and were already in the middle of some brightly-colored fighting game. Other tables hosted piles of board games and decks of cards.

“As I recall,” Avery said, “I asked you to help me with this and you said yes. Remember? You were in your room and you were—”

I blushed furiously. “Okay, shut up.” It was hardly fair. He was supposed to be the nice innocent one. I was certain he didn’t know what I had been doing, but he was still apparently willing to weaponize my embarrassment enough to get me to follow through with my hasty promise. So here I was, actually coming to a stupid game night, supposedly to serve as ‘moral support’ for Avery’s real goals tonight.

At our side, Jenn looked up from scrolling through her phone. She shot me a puzzled glance and I glared back.

This night was off to a wonderful start.

“Okay, I’ve been thinking about the plan,” Avery said. “We’ll hang out a bit, you know, like it’s not a big deal, and wait for the perfect opportunity. That seems safest. Stick close to me and—”

I didn’t hear the rest, because I walked off towards a table with a bowl of potato chips. I was munching on some when I realized that I knew the person standing next to me. 

Oh hey, what a perfect opportunity.

“Hey, Mark,” I said through a mouthful of crunching.

He turned and saw me, and his eyes lit up. “Hey, Grickett! Good to see you. I thought this wasn’t your thing?”

I shrugged. “Avery said anyone was welcome.”

“Oh yeah, absolutely. Allies definitely welcome!” He rested one hand on my shoulder and then raised a glass of Sprite like he was toasting the world.

“Right.” I frowned, shaking the hand away. “There was something I needed to ask you, too.”

“What’s up?”

So here’s where I knew what I was going to say, the reason I needed to talk with him – and the reason Avery was lurking in the background where Mark couldn’t see, frantically shaking his head ‘no.’ But another thought also popped to mind, and got tangled up, and so when I opened my mouth instead I wound up saying something entirely different: 

“Is your friend going to be here tonight?”

Mark’s brow furrowed. “I’ve got lots of friends here tonight.”

“No, I mean, um, Bex. From Anime Club. They—”

“He,” Mark said.

“…He seemed nice, and I wanted to ask more about that anime.”

“Mm-hmm.” Mark took a sip of his Sprite, eyes narrowed as he evaluated me. “Well, Bex’s family is kind of… uptight. So he doesn’t get to come to these things much.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Buuuut, lucky for you, he loves games. He was planning on coming, but might be running late.”

“Cool,” I said coolly. I took another chip. “You know. Whatever.” Crunch.

I was caught off guard as Mark prodded me in the chest, hard. I only barely kept from coughing potato chip crumbs in his face.

“Remember what I mentioned earlier,” he said. “No hurting his feelings.”

“Right.”

And then just like a switch had been flicked, Mark was all smiles again. “What about your friend? Is he coming?”

“Oh. Right.” My whole purpose for talking with Mark abruptly returned to me. “Avery wanted to talk with you.”

Mark paused, looking briefly concerned. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, he wanted to set a date to come over and watch anime. He’s free on Tuesdays and Thursday evenings, or probably any time Saturday.”

Mark looked thoughtful for a sec. “Tuesday’s no good, but I can do Thursday, absolutely.”

“Alright. You should tell that to him, then. He’s standing right behind you.”

Mark’s face lit up, and he spun around. Avery had approximately half a second before Mark had closed the distance and drawn him into an enthusiastic hug.

There, mission accomplished. Debt repaid. Or at least blackmail escaped.

“Dorks,” Jenn said, drifting over to my side as she watched the two. “But cute ones at least.”

“You think Avery’s cute?” I said, surprised. I mean, it was helpful to have someone else confirm the accuracy of my wholly speculative assumptions about what factors people were attracted to in guys, but—

She let out a snort. “Not like that. He’s really not my type, if you know what I mean. It’s more like… he’s cute in the way a lil puppy that gets a sock stuck on its head is cute.”

“Ah.”

“So, job done? Are you going to ditch now?”

I arched an eyebrow. “Is that what you think of me?”

“Yes? You certainly complained constantly the whole way here.”

It wasn't a terrible idea, fleeing before someone was able to force me into (shudder) activities. But that’s when I saw Bex walk in, carrying a small stack of boxes.

“Actually,” I said. “I think I’ll stay. Maybe play some board games.”

Jenn squinted at me suspiciously. “You hate board games. You mentioned this multiple times during the aforementioned complaining.”

“I hate bad board games.” And that was true. It was also true that I simply thought every board game I had ever played was a bad one, but that was beside the point. Hope springs eternal, or whatever.

Thinking on my feet, I gathered together some snacks in a bowl and got a plastic cup of Sprite too. By the time I walked over, Bex had set the board games down, and was opening one, idly rifling through the pieces.

“Hey,” I said. “Bex, right?”

He looked up for a sec, standing stiffly. But then he relaxed and gave me a small smile. “Oh, hey.”

…Oh. Oh no. His eyes were still very… captivating? I was sweating a bit.

“I brought snacks!” I said, a little too loudly. I set the bowl down. “Well, I didn’t bring these. But I got them. From over there. There’s, uh, chips and pretzels and some pistachios, wait, oh fuck, you don’t have a nut allergy, do you? Um. Do you want some Sprite instead?”

I heard a muted laugh from next to me. When I looked over, Jenn was looking at me with the same bemused expression she had given Mark and Avery earlier. What the fuck.

“I think I’m good,” Bex said in that same soft, calming voice. “But maybe I could use a couple of players for a game?”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely!”

Bex smiled at me, and I grinned back in a way that I really hoped came across as self-assured and not just dopey.

“What are we playing?” Jenn said, stepping up beside me.

Purely out of reflex, I scowled in her direction. Then realized that Bex was watching, and plastered forced cheerfulness back on my face.

“Great,” I said, through gritted teeth. “The more the merrier.”

Bex looked between the two of us, obviously puzzled. “Oookay. Well, with three we could play— oh, hold on.”

Bex glanced over my shoulder, and I turned to see Mark clambering on a chair. I grimaced as he clapped his hands together, causing a quiet to fall over the room.

“Welcome, everyone!” Mark said, throwing his arms wide. “We’re so glad you could join us here tonight. We’ve got a few new faces and that’s wonderful! Before we get started in earnest I just wanted to quickly go around and do some introductions…”

My grimace deepened.

“So I’ll start, and then we’ll go roughly clockwise, and I’ll just ask you to say your name and pronouns. Sound good?”

Okay, now my grimace was so deep that my face was starting to hurt.

I zoned out through the majority of the self-intros, hyper-fixating just on the fact that the person speaking was growing closer and closer. Before I knew it, it was Bex’s turn.

“I’m Bex. And any pronouns are fine.”

My eyes darted back towards Mark, whose eyes went round with surprise for a moment. When I looked back at Bex, they looked completely chill, aside from a dusting of red spread across their cheeks. 

Huh. Did Mark know his friend less well than he thought? Or was this a relatively new development? I looked back at Mark again, but the surprise had dropped away, and now he was beaming at his friend. 

I was still working out some mental math when Jenn elbowed me in the ribs, hard. “It’s your turn,” she hissed.

“Oh, um.” I looked up, all eyes on me. 

Okay, fuck it. 

“I’m Grickett. No pronouns.”

Jenn sighed loudly. “Dumbass. Pronouns as in, like—”

“No, I know. I mean no pronouns because please do not talk about me in any context whatsoever, thanks.”

A scatter of laughs spread throughout the room. It wasn’t like I was joking, but whatever, everyone seemed to accept that and move on. After Jenn made a big deal of rolling her eyes and sighing, she continued with her own introduction. “Jenn, and I use she/her.”

As the introductions made their way around the rest of the room, I had a moment of brief panic as I realized that Bex might have interpreted my answer as a jab at their own, but when I looked over, they were still smiling at me, in this way that made my stomach flutter. I grinned back.

Okay, this night might be salvageable after all.