Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Cat
The night sky is so dark that when I press my nose up against Sally’s window, I can’t see anything but my own reflection. It’s arguably the last thing I want to stare at right now, so I let my eyelids flutter shut and listen to the eerie quiet of an electric car at work. It’s almost haunting how different it sounds from the gravelly rumble of riding on the back of Andi’s motorcycle.
After Andi hightailed it out of her own apartment like she’d seen Lady Dimitrescu, the five of us cleaned up. Without exchanging a single pleasantry, we packed up leftovers, broke down beer boxes, and stashed our minis away—my Monopoly flatiron included. With Andi’s place somewhat put back in order, we went our separate ways: Saoirse with Dana in their Subaru, Ferret on his Vespa, and me in the passenger seat of Sally’s Tesla.
I’m still processing everything that happened—what Andi really meant when she said “not good” and the fact that she might like me—when Sally murmurs, “I didn’t realize you and Andi had become so close.”
I didn’t either. How did that happen? A few work sessions and a trip to Vegas? Was that all it took for Andi and me to become something like … friends? If that’s what we are? I still remember the day I laid eyes on her, how completely bowled over I felt in the presence of such a legend—and how quickly that feeling soured into dislike.
Scrunching up my nose, I tear my eyes away from the window and force myself to look straight ahead at the unfurling road.
“Was …” Sally trails off. “Was Andi in Vegas for IAX too?”
“Yeah. That’s why there wasn’t D&D last Friday.”
Sally nods. “Right. Of course. I should’ve known.”
“How much did you hear?” I venture after a beat.
“Most, although not all of it. Thanks for not spilling the beans on us.”
I swallow. “Sure thing.”
Under Sally’s watchful eye, her Tesla brings us back to my place. I’m about to get out when she waylays me with a palm to the shoulder. “Just so we’re clear: I’m still game to keep this up if you are.”
My fingers freeze around the door handle. Turning, I meet Sally’s gaze head-on. “You are?”
“We made a deal,” she says with a shrug. “You did your part—even if it didn’t quite work out the way I expected—so I’m ready to do mine. If that’s what you want.”
If that’s what you want. Why does that refrain keep popping up these days? It’s annoying how often it’s reared its persistent head, first in conversation with Lou, then with Andi, and now with Sally. Like a video game dialogue loop I can’t escape from.
Or—I gasp—like a main-story quest all the NPCs are begging me to focus on.
Ignoring Sally’s quizzical glance, I reframe the phrase in my head. What do I want? Better yet: what do I want? And the second I ask myself the question, I know its answer.
Andi. I want Andi. I want to kiss her again, and trace my fingers along her ribs again, and talk about our upbringings and what made us fall in love with games again. I even want to play Fantasy DILF with her again. I want her to be my person just as I want to be her person.
First, though, I need to tell her the truth about Sally and me, because there’s a small but significant difference between me being newly single and me having been single all along, and strangely, for once in my life, I don’t want to role-play someone I’m not.
In the semidark, I wring my hands. “What if what I want is to …” The words catch in my throat. I try again. “Is to come clean? Tell Andi that nothing about our relationship was real in the first place?”
For a long while, Sally doesn’t say anything. Then she huffs out a laugh. “You two kissed at IAX, didn’t you?”
Sally used logic. It’s super effective! my Pok é mon-addled brain supplies inappropriately. Shifting in my seat, I say, “Yeah.”
Shaking her head, she exhales another laugh. “God.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, my thumbs going in circles in my lap.
“No, it is what it is. I’m just—” Laughing a third time, Sally angles her chin up toward the glass ceiling above us. “What was the word you used? The day we came up with this inane plan?”
I think back to date five and her apartment with its coffee table and white couch and throw pillows. “Puerile.”
“ Puerile .” Sally snaps her fingers. “Yes. I feel so puerile.” Tugging on her earlobe, she gives me a sidelong look. “You know I tried to get a rise out of Andi that night at B8? I don’t think she even heard what I was saying, she was so busy looking at you. Sometimes I think I’m my own worst enemy, I’m so petty.”
I smile wryly. “Welcome to the club. I’ve suspected for a while that I’m my own worst enemy.”
“Yeah,” Sally sighs.
In the beam of my garage’s floodlight, we sit. I don’t rush Sally for an answer. I know I’m putting her in a difficult position. Any disclosure of the truth means she ends up with egg on her face. Meanwhile, I get to escape relatively unscathed, my family none the wiser.
Finally, she breaks the silence. “I mean, if you and Andi like each other, who am I to stand in the way of that?”
My whole body stills. Wary, I wait for Sally to go on.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is this: if you’re sure this is what you want, then you have my permission—no, blessing—to tell Andi about us.” Tilting her head, she smiles. “Are you? Sure?”
Nod for yes. Shake for no. This action will have consequences.
I nod.
I don’t message Andi that night, nor the next morning, partially because I want to give her some space after what happened and partially because I’m a coward who’s not yet ready to deal with her Big Feelings. Instead—like a Breath of the Wild player who puts off confronting Calamity Ganon because they haven’t yet unearthed every korok seed—I throw myself back into work.
With Lou out with Guy again and going into the Heartrender office decidedly off the table, I hunker down in the kitchen with Stray. I have several hundred pages of codex text to proofread, which I tell myself I have to get through before I can tackle the sample of Dane x Sentinel Andi sent me yesterday afternoon before everything went sideways. Yet by noon, my curiosity gets the better of me and I double-click on the email.
Hey C,
Dane x Sentinel incoming. LMK your thoughts. Plz & thx.
Yours,
Andi
P.S. How’s Javier doing?
Andi Zhang | Writer | Heartrender Games
It’s ridiculous, but the signature throws me for a loop and gets my stomach churning all over again. Yours? Yours? What an intense sign-off … or has she always used it and I’m just noticing it now? I go through my folders and trash, looking for other emails from Andi to me or to general mailing lists, but find no pattern either way. While she mostly uses “best” and “sincerely,” she did use “yours” once on an email to the entire writing team, which is about as unromantic a “To” line as you can get. Pausing on my search, I pet Stray, who’s sleeping on my laptop’s power cord next to me.
Why am I angsting over this anyway? She already implied that she likes me. Theoretically, she could’ve signed her email “Have a terrible day, you human Fudgsicle,” and that still wouldn’t take away from what she said to me last night. But because I have the emotional maturity of a twelve-year-old who’s just discovered two Sims can woohoo (aka have sex), I spend nearly an hour going through emails, trying to chart a pattern in Andi’s feelings toward me.
Then there’s the Javier question. Do I reply and tell her I’m in a relationship with Javi, that we made it official three (in-game) days ago under an apple tree and that he’s wonderful to my daughter Abigail? And do I inform her about the First Responder DLC that just came out, which features three new DILFs to dally with: Firefighter Jason, EMT Kai, and Police wo man Taylor?
In the end, I decide against responding at all. Best to keep things strictly professional on work servers and leave everything else, everything messy, to another forum. Opening the attachment, I dive into the comparative safety of someone else’s fictional relationship.