Chapter 85: Undergrowth

FieryKathy

“Are you sure you want to team up with Sam instead of playing alone, Amicia? I can play with Hailey if you want to.” Carol speaks to me. 

“No, I’m fine.” I smile. We are sitting around the coffee table after having shoved a couple of the sofas a bit closer. The board game is already set and ready to play.

“I think she just wants to be a bit of a lap cat for now.” Sam guides me down to her lap and starts petting me, stroking me with her hand from my ears all the way down to the tip of my tail. I instinctively start purring.

“Mhmm.” I nod. “I can still play by telling Sam what to do.” 

“As long as you don’t distract her too much.” Max laughs.

“Mochi and Pocky will level the playing field.” Our two cats had joined us while we were setting up the board game and were walking around the table asking for pets and cuddles.

“It’s an extra difficulty level.” Hailey gently picks up Pocky and hugs her close. “Cuteness difficulty.”

“Fair enough.” Max laughs again and rolls the first dice to see who can start the game. In the end it was Sam who manages to roll the highest. 

The game we are playing, or better said, the game my girlfriend is playing for me is a game called “Undergrowth”. It’s a game where the players each choose a faction of woodland animals which each have their own unique play styles and win conditions. Sam took the cats, because, well, me. Her goal is to occupy big portions of the map which she did pretty well until Carol and Hailey started to play together to counter the biggest threat. While they are all distracted with trying to maintain the upper hand, and the attention of three kitties, Max puts a unit on the board and throws down her cards.

“If I’m not mistaken, that would be my win condition.” 

“What!?” Sam calls out and quickly checks the cards Max threw down. “Oh my Goddess.”

“Yes?” I look up to Sam from her lap with a smirk. “Is something the matter?” 

“Shush Ami.” She laughs and gives me a kiss on my forehead. 

“Can we see the card too, Sam?” Hailey extends her arm so Sam can give the card to her. She inspects it closely with Carol looking over her shoulder. 

“We’ve been playing into your hand this whole time?” 

Max grins. “Stoking the fires of conflict from a position shrouded in darkness.”

“Damn raccoons!” Carol starts recuperating her rabbit pieces from the board.

“That was fun though, want to play another round?” Sam proposes while resuming her petting of me. 

Hailey and Carol look at each other and then they both stare at Max and then back to one another. With a nod they agree. “Let’s do it.” 

“Oh, I feel people are going to focus on me now.” Max laughs. 

“What makes you think that?” Carol grins. 

“Just a hunch, that’s all.”

Max’s hunch was right as the entire group decided it was time for some good old payback. She did try to resist and managed to beat back the combined attacks from the three other players for quite a while, but in the end, three against one was too insurmountable for her to get a victory. It was Sam who walked away with the victory when everything was said and done.

“Good job, babe.” I give her a victory kiss which I could tell she was thoroughly enjoying. 

“Thanks cutie.” She smiles. 

“Wow, I’m envious of victory kisses.” Carol pouts but that doesn’t last long because Max slid closer to her in an instant. 

“I can give you a consolation prize if you want it?” She traces her finger over Carol’s cheek who immediately breaks out in a tomato red blush. 

“I-I-I would l-like that.”

Max smiles and presses her lips on Carol’s. 

“Well, at least I have the cats.” Hailey shrugs while Pocky and Mochi rub up to her arms and legs. “Anyhow, I should probably go soon. The last tram will be heading out in 10 minutes?”

I can see Carol’s eyes go wide and she stops kissing Max, much to her regret. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, this board game took longer than expected.”

“I think you could stay over if you wanted to, I don’t think my sister would mind.”

Hailey shakes her head and smiles. “Thanks for the offer Ami but I need to go home so I can get some other clothes on and stuff like that. We will see eachother again tomorrow anyway, right?”

“I guess that’s true. What about you Carol?” 

“As much as I’d like to stay, I also need to get some things ready…” She pouts.

“And Max?” Sam asks her friend.

“If you don’t mind I’d like to take you up on the offer, I’m pretty sure my last tram has already left.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll text my sister when Hailey and Carol have left.”  My two friends had already gotten up when I said this and were grabbing their things together.

“Thank you for the fun evening, Ami.” Hailey gives me a hug, followed by Carol. 

“Yeah, it was really fun. Let’s do it again sometime.” 

“Don’t forget to get some more cat toys by then though.” Max jokes making Carol pout a bit. 

“Idiot.” 

“I know.” She sticks out her tongue. 

When I open the door to let my friends leave I get greeted by the surprised face of my sister.

She checks the room real fast. “Ah, are you two leaving? You can stay over if you want.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Just call me Élise.” My sister gives her a pat on the head. 

“Ah yeah, sorry, Élise, we just need to get home so we can get ready for tomorrow.” 

“Need a lift?” Nikki proposes. 

“No, our tram will be here soon, but thank you for the offer.” Hailey replies. 

“Ah, alright, let us not keep you then. Have a safe trip back home.” 

“Thank you. And thank you for the dinner as well!” 

“No problem kiddos.” My sister smiles as Hailey and Carol start walking down the stairs. 

“Good timing sis.” 

“I know, right.” She laughs smugly. “So, you are staying over then?” My sis looks at Max. 

“Yes, if you don’t mind of course.” 

“Of course not.” When my sister walks past Max she puts her hand on her shoulder. “Did you girls have a fun evening?” 

“Yeah!” I reply. “What about you two, aren’t you home a bit early?”

“The power of the venue somehow turned off and they couldn’t fix it.” Nikki takes of her heels while leaning on my sisters shoulder. 

“Wait, really?” 

“Yeah, when it shut off there was so much chaos, it was quite funny. Luckily Hilda had a flashlight with her.” 

“Ah co… wait, why did she have that?” Sam sounds confused at the offhand remark of my sister. 

My sister shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe she’s a bit psychic.”

After my sister and Nikki have unwinded a bit from the trip back home they start walking around, gathering the bedding for Max to sleep on. 

“Where would you prefer to sleep?” My sister asks Max. 

“Wherever is most convenient for you all. I wouldn’t want to be a nuisance.”

“Wouldn’t my bedroom be the easiest?” I propose. Sam nods along with me. 

“If it isn’t too awkward.” Max rubs the back of her head. 

“Eh, we don’t do much besides cuddling in bed anyway.” Sam shrugs. “So if you are fine with that it’s fine with us too.”

“I think I can handle that much at least.” 

“Alright.” My sister smiles and together with Nikki they move everything into my room.

“We should probably not stay up too long if we want to have enough energy for tomorrow’s game.” Sam looks at the clock. “It’s almost midnight already.”

“Good idea.” Max nods.

At that moment Nikki and Élise walk back into the living room. “I hope the mattress won’t be too hard for you.” Nikki moves to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water.

“Max can sleep pretty much everywhere as long as it’s quiet.” 

“Oh, really?” My sister heads to the kitchen too. 

“Yeah! I have fallen asleep on the bench in the locker room once. Was completely dead from staying up the night before.” 

“Sounds a lot like my college time.” My sister laughs. “Just quite a bit less athletic.”

“She fell asleep in the classroom once before we were going out together. Noone noticed so we accidentally left her there.”

“I then woke up in the middle of some advanced theoretical physics class. It would’ve been quite awkward to leave the room in the middle of an explanation. So I pretended to follow the lesson until that class was over.”

“Pretended? You even took notes.”

“I wanted to be able to reply if the professor asked me for an answer.” My sister pouts. “I think I still have that notebook somewhere by the way.” 

“Somewhere in one of the boxes we still haven’t unpacked since moving.” 

“Yeah, pretty much.”

We all start laughing and after we are done, decide to head to our respective bedrooms.

It took Max only approximately zero point one second to be completely gone after she had put her head down on her pillow. 

“Wow, that was fast.” 

“That’s Max for you.” My girlfriend snuggles up to me and squeezes me tight. 

“I’m going to start purring, Sam.” I whisper.

“I know, but it’ll be fine, I promise. She won’t wake up from that.” She gives me a kiss and as I predicted, the purring train left the station. 

Best girlfriend everrrr.      

FieryKathy