Chapter 5
Maya
I died for the fifth time in a row, my character plummeting into a pit of toxic sludge, and threw my hands up in mock despair. “I hate this level!”
“You’re overthinking it,” Geoff said, his voice rumbling with barely suppressed laughter. “Trust the momentum.”
“Trust the momentum, he says. As if physics and I are on speaking terms.”
“Don’t you remember? You explained optimal DPS rotations to me using calculus last month.”
“That’s different. Game math makes sense. Physics is just the universe mocking me.”
He laughed. It was a deep, full-bodied sound that I felt as much as heard.
We were sitting on his couch, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from him, yet far enough that we weren’t quite touching.
Well, unless one of us got excited and grabbed the other’s arm.
Or when we both reached for the bowl of popcorn at the same time.
Or when he leaned over to point at something on the screen and his shoulder pressed against mine.
Those moments were becoming more frequent as the day wore on.
“Okay, watch,” he said, restarting the level. “See how the portal creates momentum? You’re not falling, you’re launching.”
I watched his hands on the controller. His massive hands, that could probably crush the device without effort, moved with surprising dexterity.
His claws were filed short, I noticed. Neat and careful.
Everything about him was like that, I was learning.
Controlled. Contained. He was constantly aware of his own strength and actively chose gentleness.
It was doing things to my heart I wasn’t quite ready to examine.
“Your turn,” he said, passing me the controller. Our fingers brushed, and I definitely didn’t imagine the way he hesitated before pulling away.
I tried the level again, following his guidance. This time I made it through, barely.
“Ha! See? Physics and I are friends now.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I could have figured it out. Eventually, I mean.” I winked.
“Maya, you’ve died twelve times on this level.”
“You know, in some cultures, thirteen’s a lucky number.”
He shook his head, but he was smiling. That smile did things to me. It was so different from what I’d imagined during our late-night gaming sessions. It was wider, more uninhibited, revealing those sharp teeth that should have been intimidating but somehow weren’t.
Everything about him was like that. Different from what I’d imagined, but in ways that made the reality better than the fantasy.
We’d been gaming for hours now, falling into our familiar patterns.
The awkwardness from this morning had faded, replaced by something comfortable.
This was us, the way we were online with the banter, the teamwork, the peaceful silences between levels.
Except now I could see his expressions when he laughed at my jokes, could watch him lean forward in concentration during difficult sections, could catch him looking at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.
I snuck a glance at him every chance I could.
“Break time?” Geoff suggested, standing up and stretching. His shirt rode up, revealing a strip of white fur over what looked like extremely well-defined abs.
I looked away quickly, heat flooding my cheeks. “Yeah. Break time. Good idea.”
He headed to the kitchen, and I took the opportunity to grab my phone from the counter where it had been charging. Finally back to life, the screen lit up with a barrage of notifications.
Seventeen texts from my mom. Ten from my best friend Heidi. Two missed calls from my new landlord. And one text from an unknown number that made my stomach drop. Hey, it’s Chase. Heard you moved to Calamity Creek? We should catch up.
I stared at that last message, my good mood evaporating. Chase. My ex. The guy who’d spent two years slowly convincing me I wasn’t interesting enough, attractive enough, successful enough. Who’d made me feel small in ways I was still recovering from.
“Everything okay?”
I looked up to find Geoff watching me, concern etched across his features. He was holding two glasses of water, but he’d gone very still, like he was reading something in my body language.
“Yeah, my ex-boyfriend texted from an unknown number because I blocked his dumb ass ages ago. Haven’t heard from him in six months and suddenly he wants to ‘catch up.’” I made air quotes, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.
Geoff’s expression darkened. “You don’t have to respond.”
“I know. I won’t. Haven’t talked to him in over a year, and I’m not going to start now.” I sighed, tossing my phone onto the couch. “Why do they always do that? Wait until you’ve finally moved on and then pop back up?”
“Because they’re idiots who don’t know what they had.” He said it with such conviction that I looked up in surprise. “What? It’s true. Anyone who didn’t appreciate you is an idiot.”
Warmth filled my chest. “You don’t know what I’m like in a relationship. Maybe I’m terrible.”
“You’re not terrible.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Maya.” He set the water glasses down and moved closer, settling back onto the couch.
“I’ve talked to you almost every day for three years.
I know you’re kind to strangers, patient with Everest, uh, Tank, even when he’s being an absolute disaster, and you once spent four hours helping a new guild member learn mechanics instead of doing the raid you actually wanted to do. You’re not terrible.”
“That’s friend stuff. Relationship stuff is different.”
“How?”
I thought about Chase, about the ways I’d tried to be what he wanted. Quieter. Less opinionated. More accommodating. “Relationships have expectations. Ways you’re supposed to be. And I’m apparently not great at meeting those.”
“Or,” Geoff said, choosing his words with care, “you were with someone who had the wrong expectations.”
“Maybe.” I pulled his hoodie tighter around myself. It smelled like him and brought me comfort. “Sorry, this is heavy for a gaming session.”
“Maya, we’ve had entire conversations about your career anxieties, my family drama, and Tank’s disastrous love life. Heavy is kind of our thing.”
He was right. Some of my favorite memories from our friendship were the early morning conversations when the game was just background noise and we talked about real things. Dreams and fears and the complicated mess of being human.
Or being a Yeti, in his case. Because he’d never mentioned it, and it didn’t matter in the slightest.
“What about you?” I asked, deflecting. “Any exes who won’t leave you alone?”
His expression shuttered slightly. “A few. Nothing recent.”
“Bad breakups?”
“Complicated ones.” He picked up his water glass, studying it as if it held answers. “Dating as a Yeti is challenging. Especially when you’re into humans.”
My heart did a little skip. “You’re into humans?”
“I mean, not exclusively. But yeah.” He glanced at me, then away. “Most Yetis prefer their own kind. Simpler that way. You know, no size difference issues, no cultural misunderstandings, no having to explain why you need the thermostat set to sixty degrees.”
“But you prefer humans?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
“I prefer people who see me as a person, not a novelty or a fetish or a monster.” His voice was quiet. “I know the human world thinks of us as monsters, but we’re people too. It’s harder to find what I want than you’d think.”
I thought about what he said. Especially the part about what it must be like to never be sure if someone liked you for you, or only wanted to check off some supernatural bucket list item. “It sounds emotionally exhausting.”
“It is. It’s part of why I stopped trying. Easier to be alone.” He gestured at his house. “That’s why I prefer an online connection.”
“But you’re not alone. You have friends, like Tank, and your search and rescue group, and,” I paused. “You have me.”
His eyes met mine, and I tried to read his expression. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I have you.”
The moment stretched, heavy with words we weren’t saying. My heart was hammering so hard I was sure he could hear it. Hell, he probably could hear it with those enhanced senses.
The thought should have been unsettling. Instead, it was strangely comforting. He could hear my heartbeat, sense my emotions, probably smell my shampoo and the chocolate we’d been eating. There was no hiding from him, no carefully curated version of myself I had to maintain.
He already knew me. The real me. And he was still here, looking at me like I was something precious.
“We should,” I started.
“Do you want,” he said at the same time.
We both stopped. Laughed. The tension broke, but it didn’t dissipate entirely. Instead it lingered in the air between us, waiting.
“You first,” I said.
“I was going to ask if you wanted lunch. It’s past two, and we never ate lunch.”
“No way! Really?” I checked the time on my phone. “How did that happen?”
“We got in the zone. It happens. A good gaming session and great company helps.” He leaned down, offering me his hand. “Come on. I make a mean grilled cheese.”
I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet. For a second we were standing very close, his height making me crane my neck to look at him. This close, I could see the individual strands of his fur, and the way his eyes weren’t just blue-gray but had flecks of silver in them.
“You’re staring,” he said, echoing my words from last night.
“Sorry. Still processing the whole you’re actually eight feet tall thing.”
“Does my height bother you?”
“Not at all. I’ve always been considered tall for a woman, but there’s a question I’ve wanted to ask.”
“Go on.”
“How’s the view from up there?” I burst out laughing.
“Amazing. I can see for miles around.” He joined my laughter. “At least you didn’t ask about the weather.”
“Awww, that was going to be my next question.”
“Of course it was.”