Chapter 8
I most definitely do not stare at my ceiling for hours thinking about what happened.
Not at all.
And if I do, it’s probably just all the hot chocolate I guzzled throughout the day—it contains caffeine, a three a.m. Google search informs me.
Or maybe it’s the cold of the room, which has seeped into my bone marrow and seems to have become part of my body, despite the blankets and the fires and the layers of clothes I’ve been putting on.
It has nothing to do with Jesse, who surely did not mean what he said. He was drunk. He was half asleep. He was out of his mind.
But he said your name, a little voice whispers in my ear.
Viola. With the same precise, specific tone he might use to inform me that the current patch of my game is a bug fest and has caused considerable slowdown issues.
He said, “Viola,” and he looked at me, and then he touched me.
Like that. He said that you were beautiful.
He also ignored you for five years and declared that he wanted nothing to do with you, a more sensible, less sultry voice suggests. It definitely has a point.
I end up falling asleep in the early hours of the morning and wake up late, groggy and anxious.
Outside my window the snow is falling, big, silent flakes that look like they’ll stick to the ground, even to my meteorologically inexperienced eyes.
I wonder whether fresh precipitation will cause more people to stay in and off the slopes.
Then I check my texts, find Mike’s message, and realize that the person I’m most interested in avoiding won’t be skiing anyway.
Let’s have a meeting in the early afternoon—Otto, Jesse, you, and me. We can make sure we’re on the same page when it comes to Limerence 3 and present a united front to the team in case they have questions.
I close my eyes and sit on the side of the bed until I’m shivering.
Breakfast is no longer being served by the time I get to the dining room, so I make do with cold coffee, a slightly stale bagel, and some suspicious-looking grape jelly.
I’m alone at the table when Ethan comes in and takes a seat in front of me.
He glances furtively around, like he’s afraid of being followed, then leans in to whisper:
“We need to talk.”
I blink, putting down what’s left of my breakfast. It’s gross, anyway. “Okay.”
“It’s a bit of a delicate matter.”
“Um. Okay?” I hesitate. Ethan is usually more direct than this. It’s why I like him. “Is this about Shannon?”
“No. Well,” he amends with a tilt of his head, “yes. Partially. Indirectly.”
Oh, god. This can’t possibly be good. “Okay. Just as a warning, if it has anything to do with your sex life I might not be the best person to ask advice of, because I don’t think I want the mental image of you and Shannon doing stuff that involves, I don’t know, feet or handcuffs or—”
“Have you been telling people that we’re dating?” he asks, sounding dead serious.
“What? No. I know you and Shannon have decided to keep it a secret, and—
“No, I meant…You and I. Have you told anyone that you and I are dating?”
Whatever I expected, this was not it. “What?”
He rubs his jaw with his palm. “Okay, I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but—there are people who think that you’re my girlfriend.
And that I’m your boyfriend. And like…I know sometimes we say that you’re my work wife and joke about that kind of stuff because of all the late nights at the office, but I wanted to make sure that—”
“What—who? Who thinks that?”
“Well, judging from the way he cornered me against a wall, Jesse Andrews does.”
I open my mouth to answer, but no sound comes out for the longest time. When it finally does, my voice is little more than a croak. “Why…Why would he do that?”
Ethan shrugs. “He saw Shannon and me holding hands. And maybe even kiss? Earlier this morning we went for a walk, and then we came back in and we thought we were alone and—then Shannon went back to her room to shower and—” He rubs the back of his neck, clearly upset.
“I’d never seen Jesse like that. I’ve always thought he was an easygoing guy—I mean, we were skiing together yesterday and having a hell of a good time, so… ”
My mouth is agape. “But…what does this have to do with me being—or not being—your girlfriend?”
“That’s the thing. Once he had me alone in one of the rooms and scowled so hard I thought I might shit myself, he said, and I’m basically quoting, that if I am the kind of piece of shit who will cheat on his partner while she’s sleeping under the same roof, I could at least make a better effort to avoid being caught.
And then he reminded me that you were upstairs and could have walked down any minute, and how hurt you’d be, and—”
“What the hell?” I almost yell, and Ethan frantically shushes me down.
“Hey, let’s keep this quiet.”
I’m too astonished by what he’s saying to point out that we’re alone. I lean toward him over the table and whisper, “I have never said or implied that you and I are dating. Least of all to Jesse. I have barely ever had a conversation with him.”
You did last night, the little voice murmurs. And the one before.
Yeah, the wiser voice replies harshly. And look how those clusterfucks turned out.
“Right, I thought so. I mean—I’m not sure why I’m asking. I know you wouldn’t.” Ethan shrugs. “Jesse must have assumed. I mean, you and I do tend to be attached at the hip during conventions, but that’s because you have impeccable taste in choosing which panels to attend.”
I shoot him a small grin. “Likewise.” Ethan is right. Jesse must have assumed, heavy on the ass, because of circumstantial evidence. It’s the only acceptable explanation.
Or it would be, if it didn’t require a level of attention to my habits that I cannot imagine Jesse sparing. He’s not interested enough in me to even wonder about my dating life.
Or at least, that’s what I believed until last night.
“I haven’t thought about anything but you since the first time I saw you.”
“Glad we figured this out.” Ethan looks relieved. “I wouldn’t have pegged Jesse as that type, you know?”
“What type?”
“The type to threaten me because he thought I was cheating on a girl that he barely knows. Seems a bit too…caveman?”
“Caveman,” I repeat.
“Yeah. That überprotective shit, when he practically ordered me to come clean with you? Not on brand at all.”
“Right,” I say weakly. My mind is spinning in an odd way, making me dizzy.
“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I ended up telling him, by the way,” Ethan adds. “No other way around it.”
“Telling him what?” I ask.
“That we’re not dating. That Shannon and I have been sexing each other up for weeks and I’m in love with her.
Isn’t it weird that I told Jesse Andrews before I told Shannon?
” Ethan shakes his head, amused. “But it’s true.
I don’t think I had admitted it to myself, either, before, but Jesse is so damn tall and he looked pissed and I did not want to risk it, and…
I don’t know, maybe it’s a good thing that he did that.
The panic made a few things clearer for me, you know? ”
“What did he…” My mouth is as dry as the desert. I have to swallow before continuing. “What did he say? When you told him?”
“Nothing. Nothing, he apologized and then he left. He looked…kind of dumbstruck, to be honest. Like I told him that Santa and leprechauns don’t really exist?”
I sag against the back of my chair. Ethan moves on to a tangentially related topic, some Irish leprechaun game he came across the other day that’s “so fucking bonkers,” I absolutely need to play it, but I’m no longer paying attention.
Because all I can think of is Jesse’s voice when he said, “Viola.”
After my conversation with Ethan, I look for Jesse all over the lodge, but he’s nowhere to be found. I’m convinced that he’s avoiding me. When the time of our meeting comes, I’m so certain he won’t show up that I physically recoil when I see him already sitting at the pale oak table.
“Did you see a spider or something?” Otto asks me in his usual sneering tone—which, I’m starting to understand, is his only tone. How unfortunate, for him and for the rest of us.
“No,” I say. “No.”
Mike points at the chair next to him. “Sit down, Vee.”
Jesse is across from me, calmly sipping from a steaming mug of pitch-black coffee.
I watch him suspiciously, willing him to meet my eyes, but even when he does, his gaze is inscrutable.
Nothing in his behavior, demeanor, or tone indicates that a few hours ago he nearly held Ethan’s head over a toilet because he suspected him of cheating on me.
Fascinating, I think, as he starts the meeting by pulling up a few designs on his tablet and introducing some of his ideas on how to best adapt aspects of the Limerence stories into different levels, quests, tools, characters.
It’s clear that Otto is very hands-off—a money and logistics figure rather than the creative force behind the games produced by Nephilim—and the more I listen to Jesse, the gladder I become for it.
Because Jesse Andrews absolutely gets it.
Limerence 1 and 2 were good games peppered with moments of greatness, but they had several limitations, first among them the fact that they used the world-building and the magic system of the books to create completely new stories with new casts of characters.
Jesse, like me, has no intention of doing that, and plans to stick much closer to the source material.
The knowledge makes my heart pound faster.
I need to talk to you, I think at him. Alone. Right now. I need to ask you…so many questions.
“Four acts might be overambitious,” Jesse says, “but I don’t think StarPlay would object to shooting for the moon.”
“Are you dead set on two playable characters?” Mike asks, frowning.
Jesse nods. “It’s the best option.”
“And they would be the warlock and the human, right?”
“Correct.”
“Hang on.” I raise my finger to stop him. “In your proposal, you wanted both Aqualuna and Noham to be playable?”
“You didn’t?” Jesse seems as surprised as I am.
“Well…The saga is from Aqualuna’s point of view.”
He nods. “And?”
“And…” I fall quiet.
And? I ask myself, leaning back in my chair to think it through.
I always conceptualized Limerence as primarily Aqualuna’s story, and I still think it is.
But that’s not to say that Noham doesn’t have his own arc in the books.
We may never be directly in his head, but he and Aqualuna have so many long talks, they share such a large amount of space on the page, he’s just as much the protagonist as she is.
But having him as a playable character would completely change the narrative structure. It would require—
“I don’t know.” Otto’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “We could make it so much easier on ourselves if we only had one playable character.”
“Yeah,” Mike agrees. “To be frank, Noham’s role is so complicated, it would be a pain to adapt him even as a non-playable character. We could cut him out altogether and give the girl other sidekicks, maybe from the first two games—”
“No,” I say.
As quickly and firmly as Jesse does.
Mike glances between us, a hint of betrayal in his eyes, as though we’re unjustly ganging up against him. “Fine.” He shrugs. “If you prefer, we could cut Aqualuna and have Noham as the—”
“No,” we say in unison, so vehemently that Mike shrinks back in his chair.
“What’s wrong with you two?”
I scoff. “What’s wrong with us?”
Mike frowns. “It’s not like you were planning to have Noham as a playable character all along, Viola.”
“No, but I would never dream of cutting him or Aqualuna out.”
“Listen, I’m just trying to be pragmatic.”
“Have you read the books?” Jesse, usually congenial, sounds as full of contempt as I feel.
“I…yes. A while ago. I was going to reread them, but only got through the first three. Or, um, two and a half, and—they are very verbose.”
Jesse sighs, broadcasting my exact feelings.
“Without Noham or Aqualuna—without Noham and Aqualuna together—there is no story,” he says firmly.
“Which is what the first two games never understood, and the reason we need a third. The titular limerence is theirs. What makes this series special are not the monsters and spells, but the relationship between the two main characters. If we lose them, we lose the spirit of the material. We may as well turn around and adapt something else, or design a game from scratch.”
Mike cocks his head. “That seems like an exaggeration.”
Jesse’s eyes narrow. “Do you know what ‘limerence’ means?”
“I can’t say I do.”
“It’s unrequited love. The act of desiring someone you can never have. Ever experienced that?”
Mike flushes.
Otto looks away.
And I…I find myself continuing Jesse’s thought.
“Throughout the series, Noham and Aqualuna have adventures together. They start out as begrudging allies, then become friends, then fall in love. Most readers think that the story is leading them toward a happy ever after, but in the last chapter of the fifth book we discover who they really are.”
“And that is?” Otto asks.
“Reincarnated lovers. Who have spent countless lifetimes together, but are destined to eternal misery. They have been cursed for the misdeeds of their ancestors. Every time they are reborn, only one of them will be able to recall their previous lives. That person is burdened with the knowledge that the moment the other confesses their love, they will instantly die.”
Jesse nods. His eyes hold the same faint trace of surprise I’m feeling. It’s like we’re both thinking: You, too? You love these books as much as I do? You understand, don’t you?
“In the series,” Jesse explains, “Noham recognizes Aqualuna as his one true love the second they meet. But he knows about the curse, and is aware that the moment she professes her love, she will remember their past lives. He will die, and she will be alone for what is left of her life.”
“And that,” I continue, “will kick off a new cycle. In the next life, Aqualuna will be the one with magic powers, and Noham will be human, and he’ll only remember their previous encounters when he professes his love—and she dies.”
Otto grimaces. “Jesus, this is fucking depressing.”
“It’s not,” Jesse says simply. His eyes meet mine for a split second that makes my lungs empty of all air.
It ends so quickly, I wonder whether I imagined it, and when I try to search his face he’s once again looking down at his tablet, pulling out a diagram about level structure that means moving on from what we’re discussing.
And yet he adds, lower, as if not meant for anyone’s ears, “It’s an ode to the enduring power of love.
To wanting, and to the way the feeling can survive for the longest time. Even without having.”