Chapter Four
“This is the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.” Beckett was inspecting every small detail of this ball.
“Yeah, it is.” I ran my hand over the black roses on the stairs we were at. We’d practically stepped into the Meridin Forest in the middle of New York City. It was a gamer’s dream. I’d spent so much of my time playing this game that seeing it come to life was unimaginable.
“Don’t sound so enthusiastic now,” Beckett shot me a look.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t enthusiastic about what was happening around us. My mind was on other things. Had been all day.
“Mom called this morning,” I started as I made my way up the first step. I needed to get out of the surrounding crowd.
“Anything wrong?”
“They will be closing on the sale of the café next month.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah,” I took a few more steps up. The scenery was allowing me to step outside of the real world, even if only a moment.
“You’re thinking more about whether you want to keep things the way they are.”
I looked up, lights hanging from the branches like falling stars.
“I don’t know what I want to do, but I just have this feeling that something needs to change.”
“I’m here with whatever decision you make, dude.” Beckett placed a hand on my back.
“Tha—
“Except for right now, because that man over there has food.”
And then he was gone.
I rolled my eyes as I made my way further up the stairs. We’d come here tonight with one agenda item—to see Odette—but the longer we were here and the more my mind pondered about my future, the less I wanted to be here.
I had no idea what I was going to do. If I wanted to stay as an anonymous gamer, or out myself. I didn’t know how the public would take me if they knew who I was, but there was no honest reason for me to keep myself a secret if my family was no longer tied to the Blackbird.
I took another step and glanced up, almost having reached the top.
My breath caught as my eyes met hers, and I froze mid-step.
Odette.
“Coming back,” Beckett said from behind me.
She was in dark green lace over a little white slip with a mask that matched. The color looked stunning against her pale skin, and the dress hugged her curves, her leg poking out, thigh on full display.
I wanted to wrap my hands around them.
As much as Beckett was unsure of if I knew who she was when I saw her, I knew instantly. It was like all the worry from a moment ago washed away, and Odette was my only thought again.
It was her. Really her.
I took in the sight of her one more time before Beckett stopped next to me, still unaware of what was happening. I nodded my head to where Odette was standing with another woman.
His gaze moved to where I was gesturing.
“Oh, shit.” His words were only loud enough for me to hear, but he jumped into action before I had a chance to say anything. He walked up to the woman Odette was with, and they walked off arm in arm, heads close together in conversation.
Beckett was always the smooth talker between the two of us.
I took a few steps toward Odette, a word slipping from her lips, barely audible.
“Seriously?”
“I take it you don’t want to be left alone.” My voice was shaky as I addressed her. My first words spoken to the woman I’ve been admiring for years, and it was basically an implication that she didn’t want me to be anywhere near her.
“Oh.” She gave me her attention finally, her eyes with worry in them. With Odette’s eyes on me, it felt like she could see me, and the nerves I was feeling slowly diminished. I’d moved so close to her that there were only two feet between us. “It’s not that.”
She rubbed a hand along the front of her dress, a gesture I’d seen her do before at other events.
A nervous tick.
“Then what is it?” I took another step toward her, hoping to help calm her nerves as she so easily did mine. My anonymity was also helping in my brazen actions.
There was something about this woman that made me want to get to know her, as her.
Not the author or game creator that I followed, but just Odette.
Her eyes met mine, and I realized how unfair it was to take these kinds of liberties when it was clear that I knew her but she had no idea who I was.
I let us stand there in silence, getting comfortable, as I waited for her answer.
She seemed to avert her gaze from me, looking anywhere but my face.
She was bunching the lace between her fingers before smoothing down the fabric again.
“Nothing,” she finally said.
“It clearly is.” I reached out my hand but pulled it back right before my fingers brushed her face.
I turned my back on her.
Get it together, dude.
I’d almost touched her without her consent. Any nervousness I had around her was completely gone now, and I was taking advantage of the situation, but I didn’t know how to backtrack.
Breathe.
Don’t lose your cool in front of the woman you’d had a crush on for years.
“And what if I told you the truth?”
My head turned as she reached out to grab my hand.
To her, in this moment, we were strangers. Nothing more. She was reading the situation and making her own decisions about what she wanted to say and do.
“That I don’t like to be alone in large crowds.
That I’m scared of breaking down in front of people, because that has happened before.
If it gets to be too much, I’ll end up in a ball on the ground, crying until I’m throwing up.
” She’d gone from silence and one-worded responses to word vomit.
I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t know how to do that, because even though I thought I knew her, I didn’t.
Instead, I turned around and held her hand.
“When I normally do these events, it’s just for the segments that I am a part of, not all of the extras, but I couldn’t very well turn down something like this. Something built in honor of my game.”
Odette held a hand over her mouth, and her eyes got wide at what she said. She’d just outed herself, but I tried not to bring any attention to it.
“If it’s any consolation, I don’t like to do these kinds of events either. I’m normally behind the stage, checking out others and minding my own business.”
She chuckled and ducked her head, resting it on her right shoulder.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Why is that?” Now I was curious as to what was running through her head.
“Because you have this air about you. You hold yourself in a way that makes it seem like you’re the life of the party. That you can talk to anyone and be the one everyone wants to talk to.”
I took my other hand and ran it through my beard poking out from under my mask, as if I was in thought.
“The way it looks to me is that you’re the only one I want to talk to.” Odette snapped her head up and opened her mouth to speak, but I got to it first. “And if anyone else came up to talk to me, I’d simply tell them I was too busy talking to the most interesting woman at the ball.”
Now she was left with her mouth hanging open. Speechless.
“You’re a little too good to be true.”
“Oh, yeah?” I took another step toward her, the space between us disintegrating.
“Yeah.” Her voice was shaky this time. “You’re providing some damn good inspiration.”
“I’ll be all the inspiration you’ll ever need.” I fucking meant it, too. She was everything I had hoped for and more. I wanted more time with her.
The song around us changed, and I thought it was the perfect moment.
“Dance with me.” I didn’t wait for an answer before I led Odette back down the grand steps to the middle of the dance floor.
Turning her toward me, I pulled her flush against my body, eliciting a small gasp from her.
I had one hand out, and the other wrapped around her waist. She had one hand in mine and the other on my shoulder.
The song that played around us was set to the part of the League of Witches where Abigail is reunited with the love of her life after waiting for him for five hundred years. From playing the game so often, I remember the conversation distinctly.
“I waited.”
“But why, my love?”
“Because you were it for me.”
“Were you ever happy without me?”
“Always. Because I had our memories. I always had us, even when I didn’t have you.”
Abigail’s unwavering love was something I always admired about the game, hoping that it came from a place of truth within Odette.
“It’s been forever since I’ve danced with someone.
” Odette’s comment was quiet, and I watched as her face fell.
She blinked a few times before looking up at me with a slight smile.
She was trying to push through whatever was going through her head.
I wanted to soften all the memories that made her face fall like that.
I wanted to be the one to fill her with happy memories, just like the ones Abigail held on to.
“How many more dances would you like tonight?”
“Is there a limit we need to hold to?” Her smile grew as I spun her around, letting the music engulf us.
It was just us two, in this moment, and it was then that I realized why I loved being anonymous.
No one to bother us, stop to ask questions, or bombard us with photos.
We could just be ourselves in a room full of people.
“As a special part of the evening, we have a surprise we’d love to share with you all.
” A gentleman walked up in front of the band with a microphone, his words echoing around us.
I stopped myself and Odette, but didn’t let her go as we watched.
“We are well prepared to give the honorary award tomorrow night to the production team of League of Witches, but tonight we’re here to announce the momentous news of our very own Odette Reign being inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame! ”
Everyone around us burst into hollers and claps.
I felt a tug on my hand and looked at Odette.
We both knew what was about to come. No one knew who she was at this moment except for me, or at least, wasn’t supposed to.
My hand tightened around hers, hoping she’d understand the silent response that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
That, if she stayed with me, I would be there for her in this crowd of people.
Her eyes were wide with panic as everyone looked around, waiting for her to make her way to the man who had been speaking.
“I—” She was about to speak, but a server bumped into me, sending me tumbling forward and into her arms. Our heads butted, and my hand immediately went to my face, pulling my mask off in the process.
“Are you okay?” I asked, worried that I’d hurt her. I could already feel a lump starting to form on my head.
Her hand reached out to touch my face, her fingers lingering on my cheek and then through my beard.
Her friend from earlier scooped her up and led her over to the center of the dance floor.
Our eyes were still connected as a sea of people moved in front of me to circle around them in congratulations.
“Odette.”
Her name slipped off my lips, and her eyes went wide at the sound of her name. Then I lost sight of her; the crowd around us broke the contact. I would have waited for the crowd to die down, anything for another second with her, but then the announcer made his next statement.
“As a special treat, we also have CovertRetriever here this evening.”
“Fuck,” I said quietly, as Beckett came up to me and we quickly moved to duck out of the event.
I could hear the man trying to coax my gaming persona out of the shadows, but we were already making our way out of the castle and down to where a row of pedicabs were waiting. Beckett hopped into the first one we came up to, me behind him.
The driver hauled out of there as I looked back, the lights from the evening growing dimmer as we made our way back to the city and out of the park.
“I have to see her again.”
“What?” Beckett asked. “It was that good you need to risk it all again?”
“I need to see her at the award ceremony tomorrow.”
“Fuck’s sake, man.”
I finally turned toward him, my mask still off. He must have realized from the look on my face how serious I was. We hadn’t planned on me going as myself to the actual ceremony, just the ball. We had no plans for tomorrow.
“I’ll make some calls when we get back, but in the meantime, I’m going to figure out who let slip that you were there tonight.”
He started texting away on his phone. I hadn’t even cared that someone had given a heads-up that I was there tonight.
I stared back out the window. Belvedere Castle now long gone from my sight.
I might have had to leave Odette this evening, but I was going to make my way back to her by any means possible.
I’d spend five hundred years finding her again.