Twisted Destiny

“Is everyone ready to go to our place?” Sam’s father asks the group. 

“I just need your address, I’ll come with my motorbike. Is there a place to park nearby?” Hilda asks.

“We have a subterranean parking spot, I’ll show you where it is once we arrive as well because the tram might take a bit longer.” Carlos then proceeds to tell Hilda their address.

“Thank you.” Hilda smiles and takes out her phone, filling in the address on her GPS and putting in some headphones so she can follow the directions while driving. “I’ll see you guys there then?” 

“Yes!” I give Hilda a big hug before she takes her helmet and walks off to her bike.

“Say, Amicia really does like your friend a lot, doesn’t she?” Sam’s mom asks my sister. 

“Hilda? Yeah, she’s pretty much a mother figure to her.” 

 

I hadn’t really thought about that but it’s not an untrue statement. 

 

“I clicked with her the moment I met her.” I smile and hang myself of my girlfriend’s arm. “Just like I did with Sam.” 

“Awwwhhh.” Both my sister, Nikki and Sam’s mom awhed at my last comment. 

“Hehe, I loved you from the first moment as well sweetie.” Sam gives me a kiss. “We probably shouldn’t linger too long so we don’t make Hilda wait in front of our house.” 

“Not a bad idea.” Carlos agrees. “Let’s go then, we also still have some world renowned paella to make!” He starts walking before Sam calls him back. 

“Dad, that’s the wrong way.” 

“Ah, right.” He rubs the back of his head and then wisely decides to follow Sam instead. 

“I told you we were bad with directions.” Sam’s mom laughs and the group follows her example in doing so. 

 

Once we are on the tram and seated for the trip to Sam’s place my sister brings me aside for a moment while Sam has a talk with her parents and Nikki.

“So, what did you do little sis?” She smiles as she sits down next to me in the back of the tram.

“What did I do when?” 

“Y’know. What you and Hilda were so giggly about earlier.” 

“Ah! Nothing much.” I smirk.

“Heyhey, don’t play me like that.” She pokes me in the side with a smile on her face. 

“Eheh, I just used a bit of healing to make the game a bit fairer, that’s all.” 

“You managed to cast heals without the spell effects?” 

“Yeah, me and Hilda practiced a bit during the break. I got the hang of it pretty fast.” 

“Hmmm, well of course Hilda would know about that as one of the game’s experts. You might want to check your new tablet later on to see if you’ve gotten a new skill for that.” She pets me. 

“Do you think it’s a new skill?” 

“Not entirely but it doesn’t hurt to check, right?” 

“That’s true.” I lean in and rest against my sister's arm. Resting my head on her shoulder. 

She starts giggling. “Sis, your invisible ear is tickling my cheek.”

“Hehe.”

 

Sadly I couldn’t rest against my sister’s shoulder for too long as the tram reached our stop just a couple of minutes later. I already recognized the neighbourhood when we got off.

“Hmm, we might as well could’ve walked.” Élise looks around and takes in the neighbourhood's architecture for a while.

“That’s how me and Sam went to her apartment the first time, but we were carrying a box of Chinese food.”

“You still remember that?” Sam takes me hand in hers for the rest of the walk to her place. 

“Of course, that was like last week.” 

“Wow, has it only been a week? I feel like we’ve been together for months already.” 

“That’s love at first sight for you.” Nikki smiles and takes her girlfriend’s hand as well. 

“And the time dilation of Turn of Destiny helps quite a bit too.” Lise adds. 

“Well, I don’t mind, gives me even more time to be together with the cutest girlfriend the world has ever seen and will ever see.” 

“You romantic.” I pull Sam in for a kiss.

“I know.” She kisses me back.

 

This time Sam’s parents do lead the way, I guess they were confident enough not to get lost in their own neighbourhood. When we turn the last corner we can already see Hilda standing a bit further away with her motorbike. Although I don’t know anything about bikes I could tell it was a pretty vintage model.

“Wow, that’s a nice bike, Hilda!” Sam runs over, dragging me along with her and she crouches down beside it to inspect the closer details. 

“Thank you. I didn’t know you were interested in bikes, Sam.”

Sam looks up at Hilda. “I’d never ride one but they do look very cool.”

“I can understand that, it’s not the safest mode of transportation, although it got a lot better in the last couple of decades.”

“And where can you hang the sidecar?” I ask so I don’t stand there just gazing at her bike. 

“It’s pretty easy, you just need to spend some time attaching it with wrenches and stuff. I’ll show you when you come over.” 

“So Ami already got promised a side-car ride I see?” My sister joins in the conversation. 

“Of course.” Hilda pets me on the head. “Can’t say no to her, it’s practically impossible.” 

“That’s definitely true.” My sis nods. 

“Hilda, do you want me to show you our parking spot?” Carlos proposes. 

“Definitely.” 

Sam steps aside so Hilda can take her bike in her hands and walk it down to the garage. 

“See you in a bit.” 

“And you can follow me upstairs to our apartment.” Lucy then proceeds to guide us upstairs.

“Hey Ami.” My girlfriend gives me a little poke in my side. 

“Mhmm?” 

“Try not to do a cartwheel this time, okay?” 

“It’s not like I did it intentionally!” I pout.

 

Lucy brings us into their apartment and then leads us to the living room. “Please make yourself comfortable, I’ll start preparing the rest of the paella now. Sam, can you offer them some drinks?” 

“Of course. What do you want to drink?” 

“What do you have?” My sister and Nikki sit down in one of the sofas. 

“Uh... Good question, give me a second.” My girlfriend runs over to their fridge and opens it. “We have lemonade, both orange and lemon flavour, cola, water… uhm, I think this is some kind of Spanish beer and wine.”

“Cola is fine.” Nikki smiles.

“For me too.” Élise nods.

“And for you, Ami?”

“Lemon lemonade!” 

“Alright.” Sam takes out a couple of bottles and starts filling glasses for us and then hands them over, taking a glass of lemonade for herself too. 

Just when Sam sits down Hilda and Carlos enter the apartment as well and they join us in the living room. Sam offers to give Hilda a drink too, but her dad insists on getting her a drink instead, she opts for a glass of water. 

“Nothing goes above water when you’re thirsty.”

“That’s very true.” Carlos hands the glass of water over and then takes a sip from his own glass.

“I got to say Carlos, this apartment is really nice.” My sister looks around. 

“Thank you, we renovated it ourselves a couple of years back.”

“Including those details near the ceiling?” 

“Yes, that was mostly my wife’s doing.”

“Oh wow, great job.”

“Thank you!” Lucy calls out from the kitchen. “It was a lot of work but it was definitely worth it.”

“And now that you are all here, I would like to thank you for taking care of our daughter.” Carlos continues. 

“You don’t have to. She’s practically part of the family already.”

Carlos smiles and then puts his attention on me. “And thank you as well, Amicia. Sam’s been so happy since she met you, I’ve not even seen her sad once, she’s basically beaming all the time.” 

“Dad…” 

“It is true though. You were almost skipping through the hallway last time you were here.”

Carlos’ comment made Sam blush quite a bit. 

“But Sam has been very good to me too, I couldn’t wish for a better girlfriend than her.”

“I am very happy to hear that.” 

“Sweetie, could you come and give me a hand?” Lucy calls out from the kitchen to her husband. 

“Yes, I’ll be right there.” He then looks back at us. “I’m going to help my wife with the rest of the paella. Feel free to ask Sam if you need anything.” With that Carlos leaves the living room to help with dinner.
“Hmm, since you all like to play games, would you want to play some Skribbler?” Sam walks over to the tv closet and takes out a tablet. 

“What’s that?” Hilda asks. 

“Ah, it’s a bit like pictionary.” Sam replies and sits back down on the sofa, turning on the tv and the tablet. “One person has the tablet and gets three words to choose from, you have to select the word you want to draw and the rest need to try to guess what the word is.”

“Oh, it’s that game.” Hilda nods. “I’ve heard about it from some friends, it’s a pretty great party game.” 

“So is everyone okay with that?”

“But isn’t Amicia going to be the only one who can actually draw something?” 

Sam shakes her head. “It’s actually way funnier if it’s people drawing who don’t know how to draw and even if you do it’s sometimes still quite hard.” 

“Alright then, sounds good to me.” My sister smiles and gets ready for round one and so does Nikki.

 

Time to show off some drawing skills!