Chapter 32
I stared at the console sitting on my coffee table for long moments, debating if I really wanted to play video games instead of going out for a drink at the bar.
I’d just left from another bad date. Every single man that I had managed to go on a date with for the past year or so had been a creep. I must have had ‘creep magnet’ tattooed on my forehead or something.
I was sick of it. Sick of looking for love. Apparently, I didn’t know how to spot a good man; couldn’t do it if my life depended on it.
Catia had looked so much happier since she got her new gaming console last summer. She said it was the gaming, the freedom, whatever. I thought she was crazy at first.
But seeing how happy she’d been, how it hadn't gone away, I figured, what could it hurt?
I'd deleted the dating apps from my phone at stoplights on the drive home. All three of them. I gave each one the middle finger as I pressed 'Uninstall.'
But sitting here alone on a Friday night with a gaming console instead of a man was either genius or a cry for help, and I wasn't ruling out option two.
When I’d spotted a little game shop by my house, I’d pulled in without thinking.
The woman behind the counter was older, with gray hair.
When I stepped inside, she smiled at me like she knew me.
Which was creepy. She pointed straight to this console without me even asking, said something vague about it being "exactly what I needed," and rang it up before I could change my mind.
The setup was stupidly easy. Charging mat, console, power button. The instruction card was basically a napkin. Which should have been my first clue that something was seriously weird about this thing.
I pressed the heart-shaped button, and the TV came to life. A ring of light expanded across the screen like it was breathing, and the whole room suddenly felt charged. Electric.
Then something moved.
Not on the screen, under the TV.
My brain short-circuited. The console on the mat was literally dissolving. The edges getting fuzzy, the surface stretching, and a hand was pulling free from the grey material.
An arm. A shoulder. A head. Holy shit.
I watched a man pull himself out of my gaming console, and when he straightened up, I had to crane my neck to meet his eyes.
His skin was gunmetal grey, traced with glowing electric purple lines that pulsed with his every breath.
His face was handsome, with cheekbones that could cut glass, a dimpled chin, and eyes that burned with that same electric purple.
He looked around the room like he was cataloging every detail, then his eyes landed on me.
"Well, aren't you a hunk?" I said, because apparently my fight-or-flight response had chosen ‘inappropriate humor.’
"I'm Sy," he responded, unamused.
"Yasmin," I shot back. “Look, I know I should be afraid here. But I’m not. I’m fascinated.”
He looked at me like he was trying to figure out if I was serious. His gaze didn't waver, didn't blink, just... assessed.
"I should tell you upfront," he said quietly. "I'm not here to fall in love with you."