CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Gabe felt a stab of panic but crushed it ruthlessly as he sat up straighter.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, and he sensed Holly stiffen beside him.
“No! It’s not bad! It’s good! That thing with Recovery II I told you about, I was talking with the developers, it came back in a crazy way!” she cried, panting, clearly over-excited.
“Chloe, you’re talking too fast.”
“Goddamnit!” She went silent for a moment and when she came back, sounded marginally calmer.
“Okay, I said I was talking with the developers and they sent that message. Well, I got another message this morning and it was from the lead dev and apparently she’s traveling for a game developer’s conference and has a layover nearby and wants to talk to me about this. ”
“Oh, shit. Wow. Yeah, okay, you should definitely do that,” he replied.
“I know! I am! But you need to come with me because I’m intimidated!”
He laughed. “All right, I will. Holly and I are on our way home already.” He paused. “Wait, how did she know she’d be near where you live?”
“What? Oh, my hometown is on my socials, so it’s pretty easy to dig up. She wasn’t even sure if I still lived there, just said that if I did, she’d like to meet me at a diner not far from the airport. I looked it up and it’s about half an hour away. We can absolutely do this!”
“All right, get ready, Holly and I will be home in about fifteen minutes.”
“Okay! I love you!”
She hung up before he could respond and he laughed again and sent an ‘I love you’ text, then updated Holly on what was happening.
“That’s pretty exciting,” she said.
“Yeah. Hopefully they’ll give her early access to it. I wonder what it was about Chloe that made them reach out like that.”
“Maybe it’s just because she asked.”
“Maybe...I guess Recovery didn’t really get a lot of attention. It’s kind of got the beginnings of a cult classic or sleeper hit, but I was always surprised by how small the reception it got was, given how fucking cool it is.”
“It does seem really interesting and unique compared to a lot of other games I see online, although I guess since I’m not really looking for video game stuff online, I probably only see the most popular stuff that gets blasted across the ether.
I’ve been thinking about trying to play it. Watching Ellen go through it was fun.”
“You absolutely should play it. It’s probably my favorite game.”
“Are you still writing that story about it?”
“Yeah. I’m almost finished with it, thinking about a sequel.” His phone buzzed and he checked it.
I love you too now fucking hurry!!!
He laughed. “I guess we’d better step on it before she has an accident.”
…
“All right, you should at least try to calm down,” Gabe said as he drove Chloe along the highway.
“I am trying!” she snapped. He glanced at her. She let out a groan that became a scream, then took a deep breath, held it, closed her eyes, then slowly released it. “Okay, I’m calming. I’m calm. Fuck, I knew I should’ve at least toked once.”
“But you didn’t because you want a clear mind for this.”
“Exactly, I didn’t because-how the fuck did you know that’s exactly what I was going to say?”
“Because I know you so well.”
She sighed, then laughed. “I’m really glad I have you here with me for this because I am a fucking mess.”
“Okay, babe. Let’s be rational about this. What do you actually need to do?”
“I guess...convince her to let me have early access to Recovery II and stream it.”
“Right. What are the consequences of success and failure?”
“If I fail I don’t get to do it and maybe look like an idiot to the mind behind one of my favorite games ever.
If I succeed, I might really grow my channel and also get an in with the indie game scene and grow my channel even more.
I haven’t really gotten a real foot in the door like this.
And I guess I could also fuck up and maybe somehow make them hate me because I accidentally show their game in a bad light or insult them without realizing it? Fuck.”
“Have you had anything like that happen before?”
“No. But this is uncharted territory!”
“Chloe…”
She groaned. “I know! Calm. I’m supposed to be calming. Just-this is intimidating!”
“Babe,” he put his hand on her leg, “whatever happens, I will have your back. We all will.”
“Right.” She seemed to actually relax then.
“That’s right. I’m so used to having to rely completely on myself and having very little in the way of an actual safety net.
But now I have you. And everyone else. And I’m so lucky for that...
okay, I’m feeling calmer. Also, there’s something else that’s kind of throwing fuel on my anxiety fire I wanted to ask about. ”
“And that is?”
“What did you go out with Emily for last night? Was she...mad at me?”
“At you? What? No, she was not mad at you at all. She’s got...anxieties about becoming a parent.”
“Oh! That makes a lot more sense. I was kinda scared I’d pissed her or maybe Ellen or Krystal off by butting in during their date night.”
“No way, Chloe. You know how they are, especially when they’re around each other. They’re worse than you.”
“Fuck’s that supposed to mean!?”
“It means they can’t fucking keep themselves from being catty bitches worse than you can’t when you’re in a mood.”
“You’re putting me in a mood right fucking now.”
He chuckled. “That might be intentional. Also, this is completely your fault.”
“Oh fuck yourself!”
“Why, when I’ve got you so goddamned eager to fuck me whenever I want?”
“I will actually grab the wheel and drive us off this fucking highway you fucking fuckhead.”
“I think someone needs a hard, firm spanking tonight.”
She seethed at him for a moment, then sighed and leaned back. “God, yeah, actually. I need to release this tension. Whatever the outcome. Fuck. Why is so much crazy shit getting thrown at me? And why am I even complaining about it?! Everything is going well!”
“Because you have anxiety problems, babe. And because change can be overwhelming and scary at the best of times, even if it’s good change. You’re paranoid it’s going to fall apart.”
“I am,” she grumbled. “I hate being like this...do you really think this medication is going to work?”
“I hope so. Do you think it’s working?” he replied.
“I mean...I feel kind of calmer. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but honestly I’ve been a little surprised by the intensity of it.
I think...I think if I wasn’t taking it, I might have been looking for a way out of this.
I might have ‘forgotten’ to check my email or something.
Ugh, that’s so fucking pathetic that it’s something I would do. ”
“It’s not pathetic, Chloe. It’s a coping mechanism.
A lot of them aren’t healthy. Mental illness can kind of force our hand into making us make obviously wrong choices by justifying it to hell and back.
When your brain overproduces anxiety chemicals, it causes you to go scrambling for excuses to just opt out of everything, because you can’t lose if you don’t play. ”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” she muttered. “I hate that I have anxiety problems. They fuck everything up and make everything so much harder...oh shit, this is the exit.”
“Yep,” Gabe agreed, pulling off the highway.
“I’m so fucking nervous.”
“It will be okay.”
“But you don’t know that!”
“Even if it isn’t okay, it’s going to be okay.”
She sighed and didn’t say anything else.
He supposed that was going to have to be enough of an acknowledgment.
It was interesting, he reflected, how each woman he was with seemed to develop their own language with him.
And how quickly he’d apparently learned to pick that language up.
If this had been Holly or Ellen, he would have been worried at the lack of a response.
But not with Chloe. Her lack of a response wasn’t apathy, it was conceding the point.
He wondered what his own language looked like from the outside.
Gabe pulled into a small, cracked parking lot and parked in front of a small diner that looked like it had been there since the fifties. One of those places that had the really, really good breakfast foods. The sign read simply DALTON’S.
They got out and headed inside, and Chloe was still a bag of nerves, but she was doing a decent job of hiding it by now. Inside, at a corner booth, she pointed out the woman they were meeting up with. She looked...like an indie game dev.
She was somewhere in her forties, half her head shaved, her hair dyed pink with red streaks.
Her skin was olive and sported several tattoos and a few scars.
She wore black t-shirt with a skull and crossbones across the chest and a black hoodie lay crumpled up beside her.
She was looking into a laptop, but looked up as they approached.
“Chloe,” she said, and something about the way she said that and her gaze and general countenance seemed to immediately disarm not just Chloe but both of them.
She seemed, somehow, to both embody and convey a sentiment of ‘I’m basically just like you, but fifteen years farther down the road, and less separates us than you’d think’.
“Miss Marino,” Chloe said, offering her hand a little awkwardly.
She laughed and shook it. “Aria is fine.” She looked to him.
“I’m Gabe,” he said, shaking her hand as well.
“Emotional support boyfriend?” she asked.
“Fiance, but basically.”
“Ah.” Her eyes flicked to his left ring finger, then to hers. “Sorry, I’m pretty jetlagged.”
“It’s fine,” Chloe said. They settled into the booth across from her. “Um, hi.”
Aria chuckled softly and set her laptop aside, straightening up a little and taking a drink from a steaming cup of coffee.
“You don’t have to be nervous. I’m pretty chill and hard to annoy.
I kind of did this on a whim, honestly. Someone bounced me your e-mail while I was on the flight in and I’ve been through here before and actually chose to have my layover here because of this diner.
This place has amazing breakfast. Speaking of which… ”