Best Two-out-of-Three, Part 3
Posted on Thu Jul 31st, 2025 @ 1:26pm by Lieutenant JG Jacqueline Holder & Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil
1,445 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Character Backstories
Location: Nova Nexus Arcade, San Francisco, Earth
Timeline: October 11, 2381, 1900 Hours (after Part 2)
Jacqueline had won their first round of skeeball with grace, all taunting aside and turning to the second game with laser focus. Around them the arcade buzzed and thundered with activity. Children zipped past high on sugar, an antique claw machine pulsated angrily in the corner, metal jaws clamping down on a stuffed whale, then retreating empty. Lights blinked off and on in primary colours, strobing back and forth like an attention-seeking kid.
The place smelled faintly of carpet cleaner and fried food. Jean-Baptiste watched Jacqueline line up her next shot, her long, delicate fingers poised like she was ready to thread a needle–not launch a ball toward a hundred-point ring.
Jacqueline shook her head and rolled her shoulders as if the action somehow had the effect of shaking her free from JB’s watchful eyes and the pressure of the next roll. She played safe, aiming for the fifty-point ring, not wanting to risk a big loss if she missed.
Good call. The ball bounced off the rim of the fifty and dropped into the next hole for 40 points. Close enough.
“Alright, Mister. Your turn. Time for you to start catching up.” Jacqueline grinned as she crossed her arms across her chest and watched him take his stance with interest.
Jean-Baptiste nodded, rolling his own shoulders, loosening up the stiffness left from the earlier sprint. He picked up the ball, feeling its smooth weight settle in his palm. From across the room, he could hear the music of another classic game.
He glanced at Jacqueline, noting her sharp and steady eyes, the way her fingers barely flexed as she prepared to throw again. There was something purposeful in her silence, as though she had the ability to slow down moments before letting them pass.
JB stepped up and released the ball with a quick flick. It spun, arching slightly, and landed cleanly in the fifty-point ring. He smiled at his success. "Not bad," he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt."
“Okay, okay. I got you. Do I go for broke and risk the one-hundred, or play it safe again?” Jacqueline made a dramatic show of thinking out loud through her options. “I do still have an extra game to potentially win, even if you beat me at this one. But, do I want to give you that extra practice?” She gave him a teasing smile before she turned back to her machine.
Rather than overthink it, she just squared up and threw, finding the fifty this time. When she saw the ball go in she hopped in excitement and spun around.
“Last two throws, anyone’s game.” She looked up at him as she spoke, forgetting herself for a moment, forgetting her insecurities, letting her eyes linger on his for a moment longer than necessary before shyly looking away.
He caught the look from her–just enough to register something warm and unsure stirring behind her eyes.
He turned back to the lane and picked up the next ball. This one felt different. Maybe it was the weight of her gaze still clinging to him. Or maybe it was the way she’d spun around so unselfconsciously, laughing like no had ever made her feel ashamed of joy.
JB lined up, exhaled through his nose. Then he threw.
The ball sailed clean, clipping the edge of the fifty ring–and tipped right into the thirty. He winced. “Damn,” he muttered, giving his hand a shake like it had betrayed him personally.
Jacqueline didn't say anything, she just tried to remember her exact moves from her last throw and repeat them exactly. She let the ball go easily, watching as the ball hit the ramp and popped up into the air. She held her breath in anticipation, concentrating on the ball as if she could will it to hit its target with her mind. When the ball landed in the fifty point ring she let out the breath she was holding in relief, an excited smile naturally finding its way back to her face.
“Better make it count,” she warned as turned back toward JB. “Last shot.”
He stood with the last ball in his hand, shifting his weight heel to toe. Forty to tie it. Anything higher and he’d win outright. The cacophony of the arcade blended into the background static–bells, whistles, the high-pitched cackle of a child somewhere to his far left. He felt Jacqueline’s eyes on him and sensed her grin.
JB exhaled slowly. The ball sat heavy in his palm, smooth and pocked from ten thousand games before. He wasn’t aiming for the hundred. No, he wasn’t that foolish. But maybe–just maybe–the fifty. A clean arc. No spin. He bent his knees a touch, squared his shoulders as much he could, and let it go. The ball rolled up the ramp like it was late for pressing engagement, kissed the rim of the fifty with low clunk, and teetered for a fraction of a heartbeat. Then rolled off and into the thirty.
“Great game. Jacqueline leaned into him a little, nudging him with her upper arm. “Did you want to play something else?” She asked. For all of the trash-talking in the beginning, now that she’d won, she didn’t brag.
He didn’t answer immediately. The ball had clunked into the thirty and sealed his fate, sure–but the heavy knot in his chest wasn’t disappointment. It was the silent pulse of something else. She leaned into him, light as a wingtip, and felt it like an electric charge.
He gave a low laugh and looked at her sidelong. “I think you hustled me.”
“How could I have hustled you? That doesn’t make any sense,” Jacqueline narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together in mock scrutiny. “Aren’t hustlers supposed to pretend they’re secretly bad at something? Isn’t trash talk like the opposite of that?”
Jean-Baptiste scratched lightly at the edge of his jaw, glancing down to the scoreboard as though it might offer a way out.
“Maybe it’s just elite-level trash talk,” he said. “Weaponized misdirection.”
“You still aren’t making sense,” Jacqueline replied, now grinning. “It’s okay, if you don’t want to pay up, I understand,” she added as she lifted her palms in a sign of submission. “I won’t make you. We just met, and it was a silly bet. How about you get me some cotton candy instead?”
He looked at her for two seconds longer than he’d meant to.
She caught his glance and looked away, a sudden pang in her heart bringing her back to reality. She needed to be careful with him. Careful with his emotions. She didn't want to hurt him, and she knew herself too well. She was bound to, somewhere in the crossroads of guarding her own heart and focusing on her career, she'd let him down if they got too close. He seemed like one of the nice ones. Genuine. He could do better. He deserved better.
The arcade lights blinked overhead in a random series of reds, yellows, and blues. He could still hear the muffled thud of the ball hitting the thirty ring. And the aftershock of her arm brushing his. Jacqueline’s smile was winning but not sharp.
He could’ve deflected from the comment about paying-up. Said something breezy about ghosts or bad luck or one of those ridiculous philosophical lines about second chances. But the way she looked at him now–that easy, hopeful expression–he didn’t want to waste it.
JB nodded slowly. “Alright,” he said, with a wink. “I’ll pay up. Just not here.”
And that was the truth. She’d get her truth. But he didn’t want to hand it over under fluorescent lights with neon buzzers and whack-a-moles going off behind them. It deserved more than that. She did, too.
He stepped back from the lane and looked at her–the glow of the skeeball machine haloing her figure and making her smile more prominent. “Cotton candy, it is,” he said simply.
And with that, he headed off, weaving past the kids and the blinking game consoles, in search of a prize for the undisputed skeeball champion. The champion of his heart.
Cadet 1st Class Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil
Cadet
Starfleet Academy
Cadet 1st Class Jacqueline Holder
Cadet
Starfleet Academy
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