Chapter Sixteen #2
Really, it could be nothing. During the few months when Owen and I lived together, I remember pulling holey shirts with unrecognizable logos from the laundry basket and asking him why he still had decades-old tees from things like Freshman Frisbee Friday and Mountain Dewds.
He’d look at me, bewildered, and say, “They still fit, don’t they? ”
I can’t blame Wesley for holding on to it. It’s a cool shirt, and if he hadn’t disappeared with it, I would have kept it. But it’s not just that I like the design. I have half a dozen shirts from my dad that don’t fit anymore, but I still keep them folded neatly in a corner of my closet.
I wonder what sentimentality drives us both.
Mona goes on. “I mean, look at you two. The D&D sessions, how he watched you dance at the bar, the way he raced to come help me out, the fucking shirt…He looks at you differently, Rea.”
I press my lips together tightly. Sometimes, during quiet moments, like when I’m driving or when I’m half delirious from staying up all night working on Afterwards, I feel like I can still taste the mint and rum of his mouth on mine from that night at Wizardry.
I don’t keep secrets from my sister, but…
I haven’t told her yet. I’m keeping this one close to my chest until I’m confident I can talk about it without sounding a little breathless.
I audibly swallow, wondering if she can see the truth on my face now. “He’s not weird at the D&D sessions.”
We share a long look, acknowledging how it’s the only one of her examples I’m protesting.
Mona’s eyes sparkle. “Why is it that Sindra is the one who got bit, huh?”
“She wasn’t the only one!” I insist. “He bit Mortimer first and would have killed Sindra, too, if Antoni hadn’t woken her up. Vadrien attacked everyone.”
“What about the sexy psychic bond? The special dreams?”
I scoff. “It’s clearly baked into Wesley’s vampire lore. The character who got the connection was completely up to the dice.”
“Uh-huh. Right. The dice. The lore.”
I hang my head with a groan, knocking my forehead against the top of my laptop screen. “Even if you’re right…Whatever it is, it’s a bad idea. He’s bad news.”
Mona hums an uncertain note. “Maybe,” she says. “Did he ever tell you why he left that night?”
Thank god for that reminder. My insides had started to fill with bubbles, but Mona’s question is a sharp needle that pops every one of them. “Oh, I asked. He deflected, said he wanted to start fresh.”
Mona snorts. “And you just let him? You didn’t push?
It’s not like you to let that slide,” she observes thoughtfully.
She says it like maybe there’s a reason I’m making an exception for Wesley.
I’m combing my mind for an excuse and am horrified to realize I don’t have one when she asks, “Has he, though? Started fresh?”
I pause. Slowly, I say, “Yes and no.”
“Explain.”
“Where the D&D game is concerned, yeah, I think he has. We get along well enough now, and I feel like the group is more comfortable than when we first started. Everything feels friendly, right?”
Mona nods. “Right.” I pretend not to notice her poorly concealed relief at that fact.
“But then other moments between us feel just like old times—like nothing has changed at all. When D&D first started, I could tell we were holding each other at a distance, and for good reason, until…”
“Until?”
“NEWT. Now that we’re competing again, it’s just like it was before. He’s always pushing me for details about my game, and telling me I could do better, and bragging about how effortlessly he’ll win. It’s just like college all over again.”
“But you’ve changed.”
I purse my lips. “How do you mean?”
Mona shrugs. “It doesn’t sound like you hate him for goading you anymore. It sounds like it’s motivating you.” She waggles her eyebrows. “Is this a new strategy? Keep your enemies close?”
My eyes roll toward the ceiling, and I drop my head back onto the couch cushion. Mona just laughs and pats my shoulder consolingly. “Whatever the catalyst,” she says, her tone suddenly earnest, “I’m just glad to see you so…passionate about creating again, Reagan.”
There’s an uncomfortable truth to her words that makes me want to sink farther into the sofa.
Until recently, I hadn’t fully realized how sad I was.
Breaking up with Owen had felt so freeing and right that I hadn’t taken stock of how painful losing my group—and the story I’d written for them—had been.
Since high school, I’ve always had some sort of project taking up space in my brain—whether it was the half-baked fantasy novel I wrote when I was fifteen, or the games I made, or the D&D campaigns I orchestrated in college and beyond.
But after the Cataclysm, I’d just kept my head down and cycled through work, the gym, and mind-numbing partying and hookups, rinse and repeat.
Having a competition to tackle and a well-matched competitor to battle against… it feels like waking up.
It’s infinitely annoying that Wesley is to thank for that.
But sometimes Mona’s starry-eyed optimism really freaks me out. She gets herself in trouble that way, and I’m the one who has to tug her forcefully back down to earth.
The last thing I want her to get excited about is Wesley.
Especially when my feelings about him are this complicated.
“I can’t wait to replay Afterwards when it’s finished,” she muses. “I’ve always loved your games.”
I know, I think. I’ve always made them for you.
Suddenly aware of an unwelcome tightness in the back of my throat, I gesture to where Mona’s costume is laid out on the couch. “Are you going to tell me what Shay’s dressing up as yet?”
Her grin is impish. “That,” she says, “is a surprise.”