"Boys, we'll go to the game room after we eat, okay?" Shirley told her children as the group got out of their cars and made their way to the restaurant. This outing had been her idea. She had promised she'd take Elijah and Jordan to Dave & Busters after they had asked if they could go for the millionth time. And since Abed and Britta were still bummed over Troy moving away, she's suggested the group accompany her for decent food and fun games.
"Do they have whack-a-mole here?" Britta asked. "That's probably my favorite game."
"I bet PETA would love to hear that," Jeff said. Annie overheard him and giggled, even though he was walking ahead of her.
As they entered the building Abed looked over at Jeff and Annie as Britta and the Bennetts went to the hostess stand. "Something's up with you two."
"What do you mean?" Annie quickly asked, causing Jeff to almost roll his eyes in exasperation.
"This is the fourth time you've made a point to not walk someplace together. During each of our last four outings I've noticed that Jeff always walks at least six paces ahead of you."
"I'm not…I just have long legs and like to get places quickly," Jeff said. "I'm not trying to avoid anyone."
Abed didn't say anything more. He simply gave the two of them a look before walking in the rest of the group as they were led to a table. Once his back was to them Jeff and Annie shared a look, wondering how much Abed might know if he had picked up on their plan to purposely not walk anywhere together.
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"Can I have some money to put on my game card?" Elijah asked his mom.
"Me too!" Jordan asked.
"Alright, hold on," Shirley sighed as she dug her wallet out of her purse and gave her kids 12 dollars. "That's for both of you to share. And that's all you're getting for the day so don't immediately run to play the most expensive games."
"We won't! Come on Abed, let's play Fruit Ninja. With you we can get a lot of tickets."
"Okay," he said as he followed the kids into the game room.
"See, I told you it was a good idea for all of us to go to Dave & Buster's," Shirley happily stated. "My favorite game is the Super Trivia game. Anyone want to go play that?"
"Yeah sure, I'll do it," Britta said.
"Great." The two women headed in that direction, leaving Jeff and Annie by themselves.
"So…do you want to play something?" Jeff asked.
"We can try ski ball. That looks like fun."
"Great," he said uncertainly.
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"Damn it," Jeff muttered as the ball missed the ten slot.
"You've got to roll it more gently. You'll have a better chance at getting it in."
"How would you know? You haven't gotten any points either."
Annie scoffed as she threw her ball with more force than she intended. The ball hit the back of the board and ricocheted towards her. She and Jeff were just able to duck out of the way and avoid getting hit.
"What the hell Annie?"
"I didn't mean to do that!"
"You could have hit us."
"I know," she hissed through gritted teeth. "Cause the world would end if Jeff Winger's face was in anyway bruised."
"Did you ever stop to think it's not my face I was worried about?"
Her anger disappeared as she realized what he was saying. She smiled, wishing their friends weren't around so she could kiss Jeff at that moment. "I guess we suck at Ski Ball."
"You think? How about we try one of the video games instead."
"Okay."
As they went towards the video games neither one of them saw Abed watching them walk by. He took in how Jeff's hand was on Annie's back by the base of her spine. While Jeff wasn't touching her butt, his hand was definitely below the just friends designated zone. He nodded his head, knowing his suspicions were now confirmed.
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"Shoot the zombie on your left. No your other left!"
"I know what left is! Get the one by the door! It's coming at you!"
They both franticly shot at the hoard of zombies running towards them. Annie was hitting more zombies then Jeff, but overall they were both pretty bad. Their health bars were rapidly lowering by the second.
"I thought you were supposed to be a badass with a gun."
"That was paintball! Video games are-." She yelped as a zombie swiped at her and a splash of blood appeared on the screen.
Jeff groaned and dropped his gun as his health bar completely disappeared and a swirling rotting hand appeared on his end of the screen, asking if he wanted to continue playing. He watched Annie as she franticly shot at the zombies before her own health bar disappeared. "I hate this game! I suck."
"Yeah, you kind of do."
She looked over at Jeff in annoyance at that remark. "At least I lasted longer than you did."
"Only by about five seconds. Big accomplishment."
"That's still better then you."
He glared at her, almost challenging her to another round just to try and outlast her. But as he looked at her, his competitive nature was outmatched by his affection for the woman in front of him. "Fine, I suck too. Happy?"
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"Okay, so we're terrible at Ski Ball and shooter games. What else do you want to see that we can't do?"
Annie looked around before smiling and taking Jeff by his hand. "Come on."
"What now?"
"I want us to take a picture," she said as she led Jeff to a photo booth.
"Really? That seems kind of coupley."
"You're point being?" she asked.
"I just thought we were trying to keep a low profile from the group. Won't it look suspicious if we take a bunch of pictures in a photo booth?"
"No one's around Jeff. And besides, friends can take pictures together in a photo booth. And aren't we friends?" she asked with false innocence.
"Of course we're friends. Just not just friends," he finished in a low voice. "Fine, let's do this." He put a few quarters in the coin slot before making his way into the booth, with Annie following behind him. "So, where do we look?"
"There's a lens over there on the wall. The light next to it will blink just before it takes a picture." Annie sat down next to Jeff, seeing the light begin to blink. "Ready?"
"Yup."
He tried to look suave cool and cool as the camera flashed, but laughed instead as Annie made a funny face. "Hey, you messed up my look."
"OOOO, what a shame."
Jeff chuckled as the light blinked a second time. Before he could react Annie threw her arms around Jeff, pulling herself into him as the camera flashed. "Can you stop it already?"
"Or what?"
"Or I'll just do this." He began tickling her arms and stomach, causing her to laugh hysterically as the camera went off again. He laughed right along with her, feeling overcome with love and affection for the woman in his arms. Seeing the light blink out of the corner of his eye, Jeff leaned down and gently kissed Annie just as the last picture was taken.
They made out for several moments until a pleasant robotic voice announced that they could now pick up their pictures in the outside slot. "We should probably go," Annie softly said.
"Fine." Jeff checked to see that his hair still looked great before they both exited the booth. "Maybe we'll have better luck with the racing games. All we have to do is-hey where are the photos?"
They both turned around as they heard someone loudly clear their throat. Their faces paled as they saw Shirley, Elijah, Jordan, Abed and Britta standing right there, with Britta holding the sheet of pictures in her hand. "Looking for these?"
"Britta!" Annie practically shrieked. "Those, we were just…"
"Oh give it up already. We know you two are together."
"What, what?" Jeff asked. "You do?"
"It's not that surprising," Shirley said. "You two have been making googily eyes at each other for years now. Though I wish you hadn't hidden it from us for so long-."
"It just started a couple of weeks ago," Annie interjected.
"Back when we went to the movies and saw Ice Storm Killer 3," Abed stated.
"Yeah," she said in surprise. "How'd you know?"
"That's when you two started making a point not to walk together whenever we would go places. I knew it meant something, but I wasn't exactly sure what until I saw you two today and Jeff's hand was on your back. Then we saw the pictures and that clinched it."
"And you guys are okay with it?" Jeff asked tentatively.
"Hey, as long as you two don't become one of those sickeningly cutesy couples that makes others want to retch, then I'm fine with it," Britta stated.
"Shirley?" Annie asked her.
"Yeah, I'm okay with it. But if you even think of hurting her Jeffrey…" she said as she gave Jeff one hell of a stare down.
"I won't."
"Good." She smiled when she suddenly noticed her kids weren't there anymore. "Boys!" She spotted them by the giant Connect Four game and went off after them.
"So now we know we suck at Ski Ball, killing zombies, and being discreet," Jeff stated. "Yeah, this was a productive day. Hey, watch it," he yelled as Annie slapped his arm while Britta rolled her eyes.