Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Andi
What have I done.
I stare at Gabe’s latest design of Dane, the Spyglass. They’re wielding a short sword in their right hand and a parrying dagger in their left, along with an inscrutable expression on their angled face. An old scar mars their otherwise immaculate jawline, and their hair is tied back in a topknot. They’re dressed in a basic, dark-green leather tunic trimmed with gold, leather gauntlets and greaves, and a hooded short cape.
Objectively, Gabe’s done an incredible job: Dane looks determined, wary, and downright attractive—a tall order for a half-orc with blue-green skin. All I need to do now is write a compelling romance on top of their existing platonic-with-a-capital-P relationship with Sentinel.
Shitballs, what have I done .
Once Cat said that thing about me not being able to catch a single feeling, it was game over. My egotistical lizard brain took over and volunteered me for the hardest pairing in the entire game. Kelsi’s romance practically writes itself; she’s blonde haired and blue eyed and human. Catha, adorable and on the younger side, vacillates between overeager and hesitant, which a lot of overprotective men are into. And Evaralin is as angsty as a high schooler discovering Evanescence for the first time, but some people like moodiness and downright hostility in their love interests (cough, SasuNaru shippers).
But Dane? Dane was never meant to find true love, certainly not with Sentinel. They’ve got fangs, for starters, and most of their personality is hiding their personality.
This is bad. Even worse, maybe, than the position I was in half a decade ago. At least back then, I had Jan as my backstop (although some backstop he turned out to be). If I don’t deliver, Dane may very well end up being the only unromanceable party member. That would look terrible, given Dane is also the only canonically nonbinary character.
Why, why , did I do this to myself? For years, I couldn’t write Connor’s romance. What made me think I can write Dane’s in a few weeks while also leading a team of thirteen?
“I need a drink,” I mumble, pushing up from my armchair. It releases me with a concerning groan, and I turn around to eye it. “Don’t you fall apart on me. I need you.”
“Talking to your bed,” Philo says with a knock on my door. She knows how much I appreciate visitors announcing themselves. “That’s a new low.”
“Shut it,” I shoot back. “It’s not my bed. It’s my vintage accent chair from the eighties that’s—”
“Cradled you more gently than your mother’s womb,” Philo finishes for me. With a smile, she steers me downstairs and toward the Ogre Mound. At the sight of Philo and me, the few people sprawled out along the sofas in the back scatter.
“Why do they do that?” I mutter out of the corner of my mouth as they recede from view. The tester with mousy brown hair and bottle-cap glasses—Allison? Alice? Allie?—positively recoils when she catches me looking.
“They’re scared of you,” Philo supplies unhelpfully. Shoving a popped beer into my hands, she gestures at the debris our coworkers left behind. Trays of wings and picked-over nachos litter the long table along with curled paper plates, translucent with oil. “Maybe if you hung out with them once in a while …”
“Look, Phi, I support Thirsty Thursdays,” I object. “It was my idea in the first place.”
Pulling out a chair, Philo sits backward in it. “Supporting workplace perks and actually acting like one of the people once in a while are not the same, Andz, and you know it. But I’m not here to talk you into breaking bread with those you consider plebes.”
I frown at her wording but let her move us along. “So why are we talking?”
One corner of Philo’s mouth creeps up, digging a dimple into her cheek. “It’s about IAX,” she says, passing her bottle from hand to hand.
A shiver skitters up my spine. I don’t like whatever’s causing Philo to smirk at me like I’m a baby and she’s a dingo. “What about it?”
“It’s in mid-October, right? Do you know what you’re going to wear?”
My frown deepens. “Why would I know what I’m going to wear to a con weeks away?”
“Because,” Philo says, cracking her neck. “Cosplay takes time to put together.”
“ What? ” I stare so hard at Philo my eye sockets hurt. “What are you talking about?”
“Remember how at last year’s holiday party, we asked everyone which lead among you, me, Gabe, and Dom they’d most like to see in cosplay and you won by a landslide?”
In a second, my blood runs cold. Philo had designed the silly superlative-style survey on a whim, and I, thinking nothing of it, agreed to set up a ballot box between the crudit é s platter and the hummus station. Little did I know that while I was knocking back flutes of champagne, people were conferring and voting. At the end of the night, Dom read my name out for the embarrassing category … and asked me in front of the entire company if I’d commit to cosplaying “something of my choosing at a con within the next year, for the sake of morale.” I agreed. I’d been swaying on my feet with a blood alcohol content of at least 0.15%; I would’ve said yes to just about anything and anyone.
“C’mon, Phi.” Leaning against the far window, I try to wrangle my expression into one of geniality. “That was a total joke. No one remembers who or what they voted for nearly a year ago.”
“I do,” Philo offers. “So does Gabe.”
“You and Gabe are always teaming up against me.”
“And Dom and Alicia. In fact, she was talking about it before we walked in here.”
“Who’s Alicia?” I muse.
Philo quirks a judgmental eyebrow at me. “The tester who was in here? With Thayer? You spooked her off?”
Right. Not Allison/Alice/Allie, then. I decide not to admit out loud that I have no idea who Thayer is either. “Can’t I at least wait till Halloween?” I grumble. “Why does it have to be at IAX?” I’ll be drawing enough attention as is, what with Compass Hollow dropping end of next year, and it being my first official appearance in three years. Abruptly, I wonder if Jan will be there. I wonder if I’ll be forced to interact with him.
“By all means, wear your cosplay at both IAX and the office on Halloween,” Philo says, spreading her arms out wide. “But you promised everyone out there you’d cosplay, not just dress up for what’s basically a national holiday, and the year’s almost over, Andz. I’m just here to make sure you keep your promises.”
I groan and press my cold beer bottle against my very warm forehead. “Why do you hate me, Phi?”
“On the contrary, Andz, this is what love looks like,” Philo says with enough buoyancy to float a brick. “Look on the bright side: the more you gussy yourself up, the less recognizable you’ll be. Don’t you hate fan attention?”
This, at least, is true. Still scowling, I peer at Philo through my fingers. She’s grinning at me like she’s just handed me the last square of toilet paper in a postapocalyptic public restroom.