Balls to This, Balls to You [Invite]

[Myk]

A crack, like thunder, and the white ball was sent rocketing toward its red counterpart. The cherry orb was struck just off its right side, sending the ball hurtling left before it sank down into the abyss of the top-left pocket. Perfection. There had been nothing to stop it and the remaining balls were scattered across the emerald bed as if someone had sprinkled them like solid balls of plastic confetti. The game had only just begun, with several shots having been taken and with only a handful of those being successful.

False green eyes smiled from the victory before the male straightened his back, ready to reposition himself for the next shot. White hair was tied back into an elegant braid, so it didn’t fall over the table bed like snow on a field as he arched over again. His eyes were focused down the length of the cue, where the white ball was distanced from his next shot. He was no geometer, and as a matter of fact, this study of angles and mathematics was totally outside his comfort zones. Still, this was a game and the white-haired Vampire loved games, puzzles, and prizes. And he most certainly couldn’t pass up the opportunity to play with some raven-haired hunk just because he was ill-experienced in this particular game.

Pool, or Pocket billiards as it is sometimes known, is a cue sport and game played on a pool table having six receptacles called pockets along the rails, into which balls are deposited as the main goal of play. In the US, the most commonly played game is “eight-ball”, and it seemed that the owners of this particular establishment were happy to accommodate their American clientele by setting up the two tables to the right of the Irish-themed bar.

The goal of eight-ball, which is played with a full rack of fifteen balls and the cue ball, is to claim a suit, pocket all of them, then legally pocket the eight ball, while denying one's opponent opportunities to do the same and without sinking the eight ball early by accident. In the UK, the game is commonly played in pubs with solid colour balls – red, yellow, and black. On both sides of the Atlantic, it’s common that after sinking a ball of their suit, the player is allowed to continue shooting the cue ball until they perform a foul: they miss, fail to sink a ball of their suit, or mistakenly sink the eight/black ball. With the many different coloured balls of the American version of the game on the table, however, Myk was having a hard time distinguishing the rules between Snooker, Pool, and eight-ball.

The Telepath’s next shot wasn’t as victorious as his last.

Where the white ball was hugging the skirt of the playing field, getting the strike at the right angle was going to be a challenge. Myk had a choice of hitting the ball off the side to send it – hopefully – to his next ball, or awkwardly get the cue in between the skirt and the white ball, trusting he would be able to get the ball to roll rather than bounce across the green.

Despite his grandparents owning a Snooker table in their house in England, Myk had barely had enough practice to make him a decent player. Besides that, Myk had been only seven years old when he had last visited his grandparents, so twenty-plus years of separation had certainly done enough to cloud the Telepath’s memory of the game. In the end, Myk decided that it would be far less embarrassing to opt for a ricocheting shot, but again, he was not a geometer. The white ball hit the edge of the table at a forty-five degree angle, sending it whizzing past the ball Myk had been aiming for, before it crawled to a stop near the centre of the bed. The Telepath straightened his back with a sigh and then looked over at his rather smug opponent.

“I hope you know I missed on purpose,” Myk bluffed, holding onto a salacious grin. “Better I lose the ball than the chance to watch you bend over a table…”

The raven, much to Myk’s surprise, actually laughed at the comment. After shaking his head, the young man moved to line up his shot – apparently indifferent to whether Myk would actually be leering over him like a hungry cat or not. Of course Myk watched eagerly, comparing his opponent to a young Christian Slater – not that the comparison made Myk a young Brad Pitt, regardless of the Vampire courting Human scenario in both the movie and the reality.

The mortal’s grizzled jaw tensed as he concentrated, his blue eyes narrowing, and he held his breath, exhaling on the shot like he’d fired a gun instead of the cue. The results were, however, just as painful. Myk watched with a mixture of frustration and admiration as the white ball hit its target perfectly. The striped, purple ball moved like it was pulled by a wire, straight into the centre-left pocket. The raven looked over with a grin, encouraging the Vampire to childishly reply with a glare, before the next round started.