Chapter One #2
“Absolutely the fuck not.” Jemma took the invitation out of my hand and waved it around.
“We are going to the ball and the awards ceremony. You are going to strut your stuff after you’ve submitted your first draft of your next book, and we are going to enjoy ourselves.
Who cares if we don’t have any arm candy for the event? We’ll have each other.”
I laughed, and a small amount of weight lifted from my shoulders. She wasn’t wrong. With this being the fifth anniversary of League of Witches and it now being ranked the top video game in the world, I had some massive bragging rights.
“You think I can write this?” I asked, bringing attention back to the impending deadline I needed to meet.
“Yes.” Jemma sat up straighter in her chair. “Write a masquerade ball where you find your prince charming, but then get kidnapped, and he has to find you.”
I rolled my eyes again because that was definitely not what I wrote. While I wrote romantasy, I had a high focus on the fantasy element.
“You can make him a dragon shifter if you need it to be a little less real.” Jemma winked at me, and I belted out a laugh.
“Fuck, I actually might take that idea.” My brain started working, thinking of how I could make up the scene and who these characters were.
The cogs were turning in a good way. “Fine, but just because we are going, it doesn’t mean that I’ll have a good time with the sheer number of people that are bound to be there. ”
I had a hard time with crowds and being in them for too long.
With what I did for work, though, there wasn’t getting out of it most of the time.
I paced myself at each event, brought headphones or earplugs—whatever I needed to do to make it through—but I was always anxious in the lead up to the events.
“Lies.” Jemma scoffed. “You tell yourself that, but there will be gamers there that you can get your hands on. You’re worried about your love life, but you’re about to walk into a whole pool of people to choose from.”
“Absolutely the fuck not.” I threw her words back at her.
I was not going to get myself involved with another gamer. The last one I allowed into my life had fucked me up enough that it took me almost three years to start dating again.
“You can’t let one man ruin your view of a whole selection of eligible candidates.”
“You mean I can’t let one boy determine the dateability of others who also play games. It’s not just boys, Jemma, who can ruin your life.”
Jemma spit out her tea with a laugh before responding.
“When you put it that way, you’re not wrong.”
“Of course I’m not.” I stood up and took both of our mugs back into the kitchen, setting them in the sink. “And I no longer let that one boy ruin my life.”
“For which I am proud of you, because he was the fucking worst.”
Jemma had been in my life during the end of my relationship with my ex.
She saw the downfall of it all and didn’t judge me leaving someone I had been with for almost six years.
She’d worked hard to help me through a lot after getting out of the relationship, working through trauma, and trying to figure out who I was by myself again.
I looked down at the stove to see it was well past nine now, and while I’d been on a date a few hours ago, I hadn’t really eaten much and didn’t bring leftovers home.
As if on cue, my stomach growled.
“Food?” I asked Jemma.
“You know what?” Jemma stood up and left the room. When she returned, she handed me my cardigan and purse. “It’s still early enough that we can go get a frozen margarita and some chips and salsa.”
My eyebrows knit together, concern coursing through me.
“What’s up?” I questioned Jemma. She wasn’t much of one to head out this late to go to dinner. I anticipated us ordering in.
“Oh, nothing.” Jemma walked over to the kitchen table and grabbed her phone and wallet that she’d set to the side.
“I call bullshit.” I walked over to her. “You only take me for chips and salsa when you need to break something to me and it’s quite late, so it’s got to be something big.”
Jemma turned away from me and walked to the front door, where she stopped before she finally spoke up. I could see her shoulders finally sag when she accepted the defeat of silence.
“Melody called.” My eyes went wide at the name that crossed Jemma’s lips. That was Parker’s assistant.
My ex, Parker.
The gamer boy.
“Why would she be reaching out?”
“Parker will be at the award ceremony.”
“That really isn’t news to me since the award ceremony is for game creators and streamers.”
Jemma was rocking on her heels in front of me.
“There is more, isn’t there?” There was always more with Parker, and it was why I tried to keep my distance from him as much as I could.
“Parker wants to do a spotlight with you before the award ceremony.” The words quickly jumbled out of her mouth.
“No.” My response came out just as quickly.
I didn’t care that he was in the same profession as me, and I had to be cordial; I would not willingly put myself in the same space as Parker.
It wasn’t just that he was my ex and that it was best to keep my distance, but his extroverted personality spiked my anxiety.
“I told her that, but I wanted to let you know that it’s on his mind.” And that’s when I understood what Jemma meant in telling me this.
“Ah,” Parker was most likely not going to take no for an answer; he never did, especially when it was something he really wanted. I needed to be prepared in case he sought me out, because most likely, he would.
He’d done it before, and I handled it, but that’s when we spoke to Melody, his assistant, and told her that he could not do that again. I guess she took it as ‘ask us first’ rather than a permanent no from me.
“We can find someone to keep you more occupied than him.” Jemma turned back around, still looking a little skeptical about the bomb drop.
“I already said no to that, too.”
“But you never know.” She opened the door, trying to lead us out of the house. “I heard a rumor that CovertRetriever might actually be there, and not just video in.”
“No one even knows who that is, and stop circulating the rumor mill with gamers.”
“Maybe you could find out.” She threw me a wink and headed out of the house. I followed behind her, shaking my head.
There was no way that I was going to be searching for someone to date at the Gamer Awards, let alone actually try to meet CovertRetriever.
They’d been an anonymous gamer for years, focusing solely on my game, League of Witches.
Everyone wanted to know who they were, but it was crazy to think that I would ever meet them when all they wanted to do was be unknown.
Right?