New Game, Start Read online

  “Hey, give me a second. I’m going to get on a lower-level character to match you.”

  “Sorry—” I began, but he cut me short.

  “Don’t apologize. You’re busy translating epic poetry while I’m sitting on my ass all day, battling trolls for a pair of leather chaps that add plus two to my defense.”

  I laughed. “If you don’t mind….”

  “Not at all. Back in a few seconds.”

  After Walter’s character left, I minimized the game to catch a glimpse of him on camera. Not in a creepy way or anything.

  Mostly not creepy.

  And it did look like he had two monitors. Walter was staring to the left, the webcam providing a beautiful profile as he spent a moment hemming and hawing over a character list. Then, almost like he could sense being stared at, he glanced at the screen with the camera. His gaze lingered a beat too long, and I felt a rush go through my entire body. When was the last time a guy had looked at me like that?

  Never, maybe.

  Not like I was both a prime rib to be devoured and a fine scotch to be savored.

  It was heady.

  Exhilarating.

  And so very confusing… because this was Walter “I’m super famous and companies sponsor me to play video games all day” Chase, and none of what was happening made any sense. I wasn’t worth a minute of his time, and yet here we were.

  “What’s your favorite drink?” I blurted out.

  Walter blinked and looked away from the webcam feed, going back to his character list. “We definitely won’t be compatible with this one,” Walter warned.

  “At least we’ll always have big spoon and little spoon.”

  He laughed. “All right, I’m back in. Hold on and I’ll meet you at the tavern again.”

  “Sure.” I brought up my character’s inventory and idly scrolled through the meager number of items. I hoped I’d have something my warrior could use that’d be impressive, but I never played the game long enough to find rare items.

  “On three,” Walter said. “Say your favorite drink. One, two, three—Old Fashioned.”

  “Old Fashioned,” I echoed. “Jinx!”

  “Jinx? No jinx,” Walter protested.

  “You’re breaking the rules of jinx,” I replied. I minimized the game again to see Walter essentially sulking at his computer. “But it’s hard to play without you talking. Remember you owe me a Coke.”

  Walter’s smile grew. “I will.”

  I’D LOST an entire day of translating to Sky Quest and Walter. The game was entertaining—more so having someone to play with—but Walter… he was incredible. As hilarious in person as his videos, and unlike others I’d watched online, he was all about having fun and never taking himself too seriously. He taught me some cool tricks in Sky Quest, helped level up my warrior, and we ended our playtime after raiding a farmer’s pumpkin patch and using a military catapult to launch the pumpkins at highway robbers. I never laughed so hard in my life. If that incident had been recorded as one of Walter’s typical videos, he’d have a few million views in just an hour or two.

  But he hadn’t recorded it.

  He hadn’t used any of our day for his usual promotion.

  It was just him and just me and… I don’t know… by evening it felt like we were almost friendly.

  “My guilty pleasure games are those Japanese dating simulators,” Walter said.

  It was well past dinnertime for me, but I hadn’t been able to pull away from Skype at all. It wasn’t quite as late for Walter, who lived in Los Angeles, but still. It was like neither of us wanted to be the first to hang up.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I fucking love them,” he said, laughing. “I was thinking about doing a few Let’s Play videos of them.”

  “They make those for the computer?” I asked, knowing Walter almost exclusively played on a PC.

  “Sure. Some of them can be a bit risqué, but I never claimed my channel was family-friendly.”

  “Any gay ones?” I asked.

  “Hmm… a few. They’re not well-marketed in the US, so a lot never get translated.” Walter smiled. “But it’s okay. I don’t mind playing the innocent new girl at school, having to choose between the five hottest boys in class.”

  “Who would mind that?”

  “Exactly!” Walter looked off to the side and then down at his watch. “Oh shit. It’s nearly eight there, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I should let you go.”

  Anything but that.

  “Sure,” I weakly agreed.

  “Hey.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for today,” Walter said.

  I blinked. “Are you kidding? I should be thanking you.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “I mean it. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to simply play a game and enjoy someone else’s company without having to be on—you know? Not having to be Waldere and always keeping in the back of my mind that I’m being recorded. I know it might sound silly, but I’m really happy you replied to my message.”

  “I’m glad you trusted me,” I answered. “Hanging out with you was a dream come true.”

  Neither of us said anything for a minute.

  “Will you—” he began.

  “Are we—” I started.

  Walter laughed. “You first.”

  “No, no. You.”

  “Will you have any free time between now and GamerOn? I’d like to play Sky Quest with you again.”

  “Yeah!” I said, which was a lie, but so what? For once, I had an awesome guy bending over backward to pay attention to me. I knew it wasn’t good for me emotionally. Boy, did I know that. But I hadn’t had this much fun in a long time, and even if it only made my crush more complicated…. I just wasn’t very good talking with people, and Walter was the first guy who didn’t seem to mind that. “Give me a ring on Skype. Whenever.”

  Walter’s smile lit up his entire face. “Sounds great. What were you going to say?”

  “Huh? Oh, before.” I looked down, realizing I had twisted my fingers together and the knuckles were white. I consciously relaxed my hands. When I glanced back up, Walter was staring intently. “Earlier today,” I started, “were we… flirting?”

  “Yup.”

  “Okay.” OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod.

  “Is that an ‘okay, Walter, keep flirting,’ or an ‘okay, Walter, please stop’?” he asked.

  “Former,” I said around my heart in my throat. “I mean, because, you know… holy shit, I sound so stupid, don’t I?” I shook my head.

  “No,” Walter answered. “You’re adorable. It’s a welcome change from the guys trying to sneak into my hotel room at cons or emailing me dick pics.”

  “You get sent dick pics?”

  “Honey, you have no idea.” Walter leaned back in his computer chair. “I can’t handle aggressive guys looking for a quick fuck.”

  I cracked a smile. “I haven’t heard anyone describe my intense awkwardness as adorable. But thanks.”

  “If you’re okay with the flirting and jokes and hanging out, I want to keep doing that. You’re a cute guy, Ed, and I really enjoyed your company today.”

  “I agree,” I whispered. “Not me being cute—I mean, you being cute and enjoying your company!” I rolled my eyes. “I’m better with the written word, I swear.”

  Walter chuckled. “I’ll see you around.”

  “Have a good night,” I murmured.

  “You too.”

  I REALIZED later that night, as I lay on the couch in my briefs with a takeout container of sushi balanced on my chest, eating one-handed, and holding my iPad with the other so I could watch how-to coding videos, that I had been alone for far too long. My job, by its very nature, was solitary. I was my own boss too, so I didn’t even leave the house to go to an office. And because of that, I didn’t really leave the house… ever. So, in a sense, it was a good thing I sent Walter that dumb tweet. More than anything I needed t
o have real, human companionship with someone. Saying ‘thank you’ to my delivery guys didn’t count.

  The central heat kicked on and brought me out of the hyperfocused zone I’d been in. I looked at the clock on the wall. Christ, I’d been lying there for nearly an hour, freezing now that I acknowledged the hot air blowing into the room. I grabbed the throw blanket and pulled it over myself. The living room glowed in the dark with the twinkly Christmas lights on my miniature fake tree in the corner. I could make out falling snow in the glow of a streetlamp outside my window.

  What Walter said about loving dating sim games got me thinking all night. Were they difficult to make? I’d watched a few examples of some online, and it wasn’t like there was much action involved. It was mostly dialogue and choice-making. Really, it seemed like the most complex part was the statistics involved for whether a potential date was wooed correctly. And the coding wasn’t above my understanding. In fact, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on how it worked in game engines. It helped that I’d taken courses in school to satisfy technology credits. Perhaps it wasn’t Germanic or Latin in its roots, but all languages had a natural beat and rhythm and construction to them. They all had rules and regulations. Only this time it was a matter of memorizing symbols and sequences instead of tenses and vocabulary.

  Basically, I wanted to write a mini dating game for Walter. Except he’d get to play a gay man, not a schoolgirl. And maybe, if I worked really hard at it, I could present it to him while he was in the city for GamerOn. A thank-you present of sorts. A Christmas present, even.

  “Oh shit!” GamerOn! I needed to buy a ticket—now!

  I sat up and spilled the remaining California rolls. I snatched the sushi and stuffed the pieces into my mouth while typing one-handed on the iPad to bring up GamerOn’s site. Then I was hit with a devastating popup.

  Sold Out!

  “Aahre you fuffing kipping meh?” I said around a mouthful of rice, crab, and avocado.

  They weren’t sold out when I checked that morning. What the hell?

  I held the tablet closer and read the fine print.

  For the first time in GamerOn’s history, we have sold out of the maximum allotment of tickets for our venue space.

  Blah, blah, blah, it sucked to be Edgar Royal.

  Sucked really, really hard.

  I huffed and accidentally spit rice.

  God. Okay. I was turning into a disgusting mess.

  I stood up. “Am going to bef!”

  I SAT at the table in the kitchen the next morning, hunched over my laptop. The book I was supposed to be translating sat to one side, ignored. An empty coffee cup was beside it, as well as a pile of mediocre character sketches for my dating sim.

  “Hold on, what variable goes here? Oh, I get it.”

  I’d been fussing with an engine I purchased for the purpose of building video games and simulators. It was like learning to ride a bike with training wheels. Slowly and painfully, but learning nonetheless. And while I might have been doing okay coding-wise, I was most certainly not an expert in gaming. So making the dating sim even vaguely interesting or cute sort of worried me, but dammit, I couldn’t give up. I was sick and tired of convincing myself that every guy I liked was out of my league.

  Walter had looks, fame, and fortune, yes—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t allowed to at least try with him. And yeah, we lived on opposite sides of the country. Whatever. That wasn’t the point.

  Since I was about fourteen, my self-confidence had been about as dense as a shadow. Now I was nearly thirty, and still, every single time I met a guy I had the remotest interest in, I somehow managed to convince myself I wasn’t worthy of him telling me the time of day. I was sick of it. I was sick of home being an empty apartment. I wanted to find the same safety in someone’s arms that I found in books.

  Walter was so sure of himself when we talked. Casual and unerring in his flirting, regardless of whether I would have returned the interest. I wanted to be like that, even just a little. And on top of it all, Walter was honest-to-God one of the sweetest men I’d ever met.

  I guess… I’d decided during my sleepless night that this was more than a Christmas present. It had a purpose.

  It wouldn’t be perfect.

  Hell, it wouldn’t even be good.

  But I finally had a small flame of courage burning in my heart, and I didn’t want to smother it. I wanted to nourish that warmth as long as Walter kept smiling at me the way he did yesterday. And since I wasn’t really good at saying these kinds of things to guys, this gift was the perfect vehicle to do it for me.

  Skype started playing its little incoming call tune. I freaked out so fast I nearly closed the program without saving my progress.

  I accepted the video call. “Hey,” I said. “It’s still really early over there!”

  Walter was in the middle of yawning. “Yeah, I know, but I couldn’t sleep. I saw you were active on Skype. I thought if I caught you during work you wouldn’t pick up.”

  As if.

  “I, uh—couldn’t sleep last night either,” I answered.

  Walter put his glasses on and smirked. “Don’t you look cute with those curls.”

  Damn it….

  I started finger-combing. “Why couldn’t you sleep?” I asked, diverting the topic.

  Walter rested his head back on the computer chair and spun idly, side to side. “Kept thinking about you.”

  I stopped finger-combing. “R-really?”

  “Really. You?”

  “Er… it was… cold. Last night.”

  Walter raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I suppose it would be. Since it’s December.”

  Courage! Confidence! You’re banned from Cocky Boy porn forever if you don’t flirt with this twelve-out-of-ten hunk!

  “I mean, you,” I said in a rush. “Mostly. Not the cold.”

  That made Walter smile. “I was in your dreams?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Sort of.”

  “God, you’re so fucking cute, Ed,” he said with another laugh. “You know, if I were there right now, I’d probably have to kiss you. Fair warning.”

  “Okay.” My heart was beating in my throat again.

  “It’ll be a save-the-date,” Walter continued. “Be it known that on December the eighteenth, Mr. Walter Chase will be presenting one kiss to Mr. Edgar Royal at Retro, New York City.”

  “At Retro? Won’t other fans be there?”

  Walter shrugged. “Maybe a few. I doubt too many will show up on a Thursday night for a few cheap drinks.”

  Kissing him in front of his fans seemed like… I don’t know, potential trouble. And I didn’t want to do that to Walter. It wasn’t that his fanbase had issues with him kissing a guy—more like it’d be an issue because he wasn’t kissing… one of them.

  “Maybe not at Retro,” I murmured.

  Walter raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Okay. Somewhere—just the two of us. Afterward, or something. I owe you one kiss. Write it down.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  THAT’S HOW the rest of the week flew by. Every day Walter and I were skyping. Sometimes only for a few minutes, because he had videos to make and a trip to get ready for. Other days, for hours and hours before one of us realized we needed to eat or piss or sleep. My translating work fell to the wayside between spending so much time with Walter and staying up late to finish the dating sim game before his arrival.

  And the flirting between us? Totally out of control.

  I had never been so excited and so nervous to meet another person. I had a raw, desperate need to be with Walter. I daydreamed about touching him, kissing him—I was hopelessly head over heels mad for the guy, and those feelings weren’t going anywhere. Walter only made the day-of wait exponentially worse by texting me constantly and posting goofy photos on his social media as he flew out of LA. Once he was 35,000 feet in the air, I thought it would be smart to finally get some work done. I was really behind and the bills didn’t pay themselves, but more import
antly, it’d sidetrack me for a few solid hours.

  Unfortunately I ended up translating the same paragraph three times before realizing why it sounded so familiar.

  “Screw it.” I left the computer and went to get dressed.

  I had gone shopping the other day for a nice outfit to wear when meeting Walter, but I just couldn’t pull off anything more casual than my stuffy button-downs. And I tried. I spent most of the afternoon among crazy holiday shoppers, and trekking through the cold and slushy streets of Midtown. Even my stop at Macy’s hadn’t helped—I just ended up perusing the same boring style I already owned.

  A nice gentleman who worked in apparels ended up giving me a hand, which went to show how hopeless I must have looked.

  “It’s for a job interview?”

  “A date,” I corrected. At least I guessed it could be considered a date.

  He gave me a critical look. “Blind date?”

  “No. I know him.”

  “Well, you look like you’re going to a funeral. Can I make a suggestion?”

  “Please.”

  “Lose the suit coat. Don’t wear trousers. Get some nice skinny jeans in a dark color.”

  “Skinny jeans and a button-down?” I was wary.

  “With a nice pullover sweater and a tie. You’ll look great.”

  “I don’t think I’m chic enough for that.”

  “I’m not so certain you’ll get a second date if you go like how you are.”

  The clerk did his job scaring me, and I bought a handful of clothes worth more than everything currently in my closet. And now that I had the outfit on at home, I was staring at myself in the mirror, and turning this way and that, I actually felt pretty good.

  Attractive.

  Ready to take on the world.

  Well… one step at a time, Edgar.

  I’M AT Retro! Where are you?

  God, I was running late. Of course I was!

  I’d gotten dressed hours early because I couldn’t concentrate on anything more serious than breathing, but eventually got sucked into the finishing touches of my dating sim. I lost track of time until Walter’s text brought me back to reality. I shoved my laptop into a shoulder bag, threw on my winter coat and scarf, and was out the door. I half ran to the subway a block from my apartment, snowflakes speckling my phone’s screen as I frantically mistyped a message.