20 Sam Tortures Her Cousin

"An arcade? Seriously?"

Justin looked at the flashing lights and bright colors in trepidation. He hadn't been to one of these since elementary school to celebrate the robotics club taking second place in a state competition.

"Aren't you supposed to be good at video games? We aren't leaving here until you've won enough tickets to get me an awesome prize," Sam said while beaming, clearly proud of her idea.

"Sam, those things cost THOUSANDS of tickets. It would be easier for me to just buy the thing for you at a regular store."

"But this way we get to have fun and spend more time together! Pleeeeease?" She tossed her long blonde hair and turned on the doe eyes.

"Fine," Justin groaned. "I hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make for you."

She hugged him and squealed excitedly. "You're the best!"

Not being the most coordinated person, Sam wiped the floor with him in Skee Ball and air hockey but he redeemed himself by getting the second highest score ever on the PacMan machine. Their pockets bulged with tickets but Sam wasn't anywhere near her goal.

"We need to play games that have big jackpots," she argued. "We'll never get enough tickets if we don't hit a few of them."

After trying for over twenty minutes at a jumping game Sam won the second place jackpot and decided to show off by draping her long rows of tickets over her neck. Justin tried to one up her but ended up wasting about ten dollars at a ball dropping game and his best win was only fifty tickets. At least the low amounts from his many tries added up.

"How many tickets do we have?" Justin groaned. The arcade staff had given them a plastic bag because they had run out of places to put them.

"Not enough," Sam said simply. "Come on, let's play that zombie game!"

Justin wasn't too bad at first person shooter games but Sam was even better. He got turned into a zombie pretty early on but she was able to complete another few levels without him, contributing to their overall ticket total.

After a while even the bag got stuffed so they went to the ticket counter machine just to see where they were at.

"7,652?!"

"Aww, the lava lamp is 10,000," Sam grumbled.

Justin was exhausted. "We've already been here most of the day. Can't I just buy you a lava lamp? You could get a bunch of other stuff with those tickets."

Despite his attempts at persuasion, she stood firm. "No! We're SO close and it's the principle of the thing. Haven't you ever wanted the bragging rights about saying you won something?"

"No."

She rolled her eyes. "I forgot who I was talking to. Come on, I'll try the jackpot games and you can go play something you actually like."

Justin could accept this compromise. Sam went over to the ball drop game and he headed over to Galaga. Thirty minutes later Sam rushed over to him, her fists stuffed with tickets.

He was only on his fourth game and his ticket pile kept growing. They decided to check the ticket counter again. 1403.

"Saaaaaaaam."

"We're so close! I refuse to give up until that lava lamp is mine. You can go sit over there. I'm going to keep playing!"

Rubbing his forehead anxiously, Justin did just that. He was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed when he heard a bell indicating more customers.

As the day dragged on, less and less people had come to the arcade. There were maybe ten people in the whole building at this point. He instinctively opened his eyes at the noise and nearly had a heart attack.

Emily, hand in hand with her boyfriend, walked through the door with an excited smile on her face. Oh no.

Justin rushed over to where Sam was still trying to hit another jackpot and pulled her closer.

"Hey, I was almost—"

"Look who's here," he hissed in her ear.

Eyes wide, Sam noticed the problem. "What are they doing here?"

"Who cares what they're doing here? I can't let them see me!"

Too late. Despite his best efforts to disappear behind his much-shorter cousin, Emily had spotted him.

"Justin?"