Chapter 15
Felix held a T-shirt against his torso.
“Yup, that’s the one,” Trey said.
“Yeah?” he replied. “Not ‘Things Are Getting Dicey’?”
“It’s too generic,” Trey said with a shake of his head. “Get the fighter one.”
“Maybe I’ll get the dicey one for Jo, though. I think she’d like the pun.”
“She does own more dice than anyone I know. When Aida and I helped her pack for Kansas, we filled an entire box with dice. Those sons of bitches get heavy.”
Felix chuckled and found a dice shirt that looked Jo-sized. He paid for the shirts, ignoring the twinge in his stomach at spending the money. It would be fine, he told himself. Sharing a room with Jo meant this trip would be significantly cheaper than he’d anticipated. And it would be worth it, to see the look on Jo’s face when he surprised her by wearing an MnM T-shirt.
He and Trey continued to wind through the sprawling exhibit hall, where big-name companies and an official MnM merch booth were nestled alongside independent artisans, authors, and game developers. The two of them set a leisurely pace, stopping to admire everything from art prints to handmade tote bags, from gaming accessories to jewelry. And dice. So many goddamn dice.
Felix picked out a new, cheap dice set for himself, since he only had the one set of yellow dice Jo had given him. Trey splurged on a large d20 made out of moonstone for Aida and bought himself a hammered silver tankard with a hinged lid he could open and close with his thumb. He also made Felix take pictures of him with all the replica movie swords he could get his hands on. He texted every single one to Aida.
Eventually, after looping through each aisle, they started back toward the gaming hall to catch the last hour of the Legendary event.
“Thanks for showing me around,” Felix began, trying to find his way to a topic he’d been wanting to bring up. “I appreciate you helping me feel a little less lost.”
“Don’t mention it, man,” Trey said, gripping Felix’s shoulder as they passed through the exhibit hall doors. “I’m usually only good for one or two games anyway, so it’s nice to have someone to wander around with.”
Bless you, Trey.That was probably the best opening Felix could have hoped for. “You only play occasionally, right? Not with the weekly group?”
Trey nodded. “Yeah, just at cons a couple times a year.”
“With a catboy wizard.”
“Catfolk,” Trey corrected. “Catboy is a very different thing.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Felix said. “So… you play for Aida? To make her laugh?”
Trey gave him an appraising look before answering. “Not only for her. I like MnM well enough, but it’s more fun for me when it’s rare. If I played every week, I’d run out of stamina and creativity pretty quick.” He paused and tilted his head toward Felix. “Now, do you want to tell me what you’re really getting at?”
“Am I that transparent?” Felix asked with a self-deprecating shrug.
“I’m that perceptive,” he responded. “I’m also a great listener.”
Felix sighed and let his concerns tumble out. “I was barely even aware MnM existed until a few weeks ago. I started down this path because my job required it, and now it’s all jumbled up with Jo and how I feel about her. I love how much she loves MnM, I really do. It clearly makes her happy, and I like seeing her happy. But… does she expect me to become as enmeshed in this world as she is?”
Trey shook his head gently. “I’m not sure I can answer that for you.”
“I know; I don’t expect you to. I guess I’m thinking out loud.” Felix paused, uncertain if he should even ask his next question. It sat there, on the tip of his tongue, as they walked. They’d almost made it to the gaming hall when it finally slipped out. “Did Jo’s ex play MnM?”
Trey looked uneasy. “No. But I’m not answering any more questions about him. Jo should tell you all that herself.”
“I know,” he said again as guilt crept in. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to put you in the middle of this.”
“Felix.” Trey came to a stop in front of the wall of sign-up sheets. The racket in the hall nearly drowned him out. He rested a hand on Felix’s shoulder and leaned in to be heard. “You and Jo have been together for, what, twelve hours? Give it time. You’ll figure it out.”
Felix combed his fingers through his hair. “I never expected this, Trey. To care about someone so deeply, so fast. I want to give Jo what she needs” —he gestured toward the hall— “even if it’s something that seems frivolous on the surface. Fuck, I’m sorry, man. You barely know me, and here I am, dumping all of my shit on you.”
Trey shrugged and smiled. “I told you I’m a good listener.”
“You are, and I appreciate it.”
“For what it’s worth, Felix, I think Jo is lucky to have you. She deserves to be with someone considerate of her needs.”
Something in Trey’s tone made Felix pause. As if Jo hadn’t had that kind of consideration before. The more he gleaned about this ex of hers, the less he liked the guy.
“I’ll do my best,” he said. A promise to himself—and to Jo.
Trey gave his shoulder a firm pat as there was a collective outcry from the hall. He pointed his thumb toward the doorway. “Shall we go see what that was all about?”
The hall was more crowded than it had been all day. Hundreds of people were crammed around dozens of tables—shouting, laughing, rolling dice, and having the time of their lives. Trey gave Felix a nod and went off in search of Aida. Felix listened in at a table near the door, catching the end of a combat encounter.
“And with that final blow, the chimera is defeated,” the GM cried. She called for someone to make a d20 roll for a nature-based skill check. A kid who couldn’t have been older than ten raised his hand and made the roll. He counted the total on his fingers.
“Seventeen!” he said proudly.
“Excellent,” the GM said. “Working quickly, Ivan is able to extract a tooth from each of the chimera’s three heads. Your allies will be able to use the teeth to create the potion they need to complete their objectives.” She handed the boy a slip of paper. “Please take that over to table twenty-three.”
The boy hopped up and took off running, beaming and giggling. Felix couldn’t help but laugh too. The GM caught his eye, and they shared a quick smile before she continued with the game. He moved around the room, catching bits and pieces of the story as he went. The energy in the room was palpable, but instead of being overwhelmed, Felix just felt… excited.
Finally, he found Jo at her table. She was so invested in her game she didn’t notice him at first.
“The sphinx rises on all fours above you, looming twelve feet tall at the shoulder,” she was saying. “She stretches her wings, and their fluttering sends wind cascading over you, billowing your cloaks around your ankles. She leers at you and lazily says, ‘What in the world could you small things possibly wish of me? Come to destroy me, perhaps? Or do you seek a riddle? An attempt to prove your worth to me and beg of me a favor?’”
“That last one,” a young man at her table replied. “But we will kill you if we have to.”
The player sitting next to him shook his head. “No, we won’t. We need her help.”
“Well, you should decide soon,” Jo said in character. The languid, sensuous voice of the sphinx stirred a strange, startling desire within Felix.
Shit, was he into roleplay now?
“‘I’m about to become bored,’” she continued, “‘and you all look very much like playthings to me.’ Then the sphinx lifts one of her massive paws and bats Nox on the shoulder like a cat with a spider. You aren’t injured, but the paw covers you from shoulder to knee.”
“Wow.” The player that Felix assumed was playing Nox switched to his character voice and continued, “No, yeah, let’s definitely get that riddle. No killing here, nice big cat lady.”
Jo glanced down at her notes and finally spotted Felix when she looked up. She grinned, and he gave her a small wave.
“What is it that breaks once its name is spoken?” Jo-the-sphinx asked.
Felix crossed his arms and watched the players debate the answer. He stole a glance at Jo, who was staring at his biceps. He waited until her gaze shifted up to his face and winked at her. She went bright pink and returned her attention to her players.
“Time’s up,” she purred. “Do you have an answer for me? Or will you turn tail and run like rats? I do so love a chase.”
“We’re going to say quiet.”
“No, silence.”
“Right, silence. You break the silence when you say the word out loud.”
“‘My, my,’” Jo replied with a feline tilt to her head. “‘What unexpected cleverness.’ The sphinx folds her paws under her and curls up into a cat-like loaf, still nearly ten feet tall. ‘Now, what sort of favor would you ask of me?’”
Felix blew Jo a kiss and continued his stroll through the tables. He waved to Jo’s friends when he saw them. Kim and Young were at a table together, and Max was at another, once again acting out the casting of his bard’s spells with a dramatic flourish. David was GMing at the table where Aida was playing, giving his players the same sphinx riddle that Jo had. Heather’s rogue was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she was there somewhere, out of costume. Felix doubted he would recognize her outside of her all-pink getup.
As the Legendary neared its end, an event administrator at the front of the room—a lanky white man with neat gray hair and a name tag that read “Matthew”—started giving a countdown in five-minute increments. Each announcement was returned with cries of anguish from all around as the players raced to complete their objectives. People were getting up from their tables and -running to the front to report their successes to the admins. At that point, Felix decided he should keep the pathways between the tables clear. He watched the last ten minutes of the game from the side of the room, mesmerized.
It was pandemonium. Dice flying. Players jumping up and down at their tables. Slips of paper being passed from hand to hand. Full-on sprints to the admins. Three white boards tallying successes in different categories. GMs hurrying their players along. The countdown increasing to one-minute markers. More anguished screams. Glances at the white boards from tables that finished early. People on their tiptoes trying to count tally marks from across the room.
“Thirty seconds!”
Felix saw Jo on her feet, frantically pointing back and forth between two players. He couldn’t tell what they were doing, but suddenly there was a whoop of joy, and Jo held out a slip of paper.
“Fifteen seconds!”
A player at Jo’s table grabbed the slip and pelted toward the front, dodging chairs and people like an honest-to-God rogue.
“Ten! Nine!” Dozens of people—admins and GMs and players alike—took up the countdown. Felix joined them.
“Move!”
“Eight! Seven! Six!”
Jo’s player slammed the slip onto the admin table, panting. A woman behind the table snatched it up.
“Five! Four!”
“Success in combat,” the woman said, and a tally went on the board.
“Success in exploration,” added another admin as a player thrust a piece of paper in his face. Another tally on a different board.
“Three! Two!”
“Success in social,” said two admins at once. Two tallies.
“One!”
“Successincombat,” someone snuck in. A hasty tally.
“TIME!”
A subdued scattering of applause around the room was all that met that announcement. Felix was surprised there wasn’t more excitement, but then he remembered. David had said that everyone wins or loses the Legendary together. MnM wasn’t typically the kind of game players win or lose; Jo had explained that to Felix early on. Telling a story together came with highs and lows, successes and failures, but that was where the concept of “winning” usually ended. The Legendary, though, was different. It had a win condition. And the group here at Indi-Con didn’t know yet if they had won.
The admins hurriedly took down the white boards and turned them away from the crowd. A hush fell over the room. Hundreds of people on pins and needles. Felix, caught up in the moment, felt his heart pounding.
“Heroes of the Sibylline Wastes,” shouted Matthew, the admin who had called the countdown. “Tonight, you—”
“Yes, you, adventurer!” half of the room supplied.
“—took up your calling. In order to win your Legendary adventure, you needed to collect forty successes in each of the three categories.” Matthew gestured toward the backs of the white boards and paused dramatically. “In social encounters, you earned a collective forty-four successes.”
Some cheers and applause as one white board was flipped over and held up.
“In exploration, you earned a total of fifty successes. Well done, explorers.”
The second white board was turned. There were no cheers this time. The room was silent.
“In combat,” Matthew yelled, his voice cracking from overuse, “which is the most challenging category, you earned… exactly forty successes.”
The silence broke. The uproar was deafening. GMs applauded and high-fived their players. Some people actually danced with excitement. Felix had never seen anything like it. The closest comparison he could come up with was a stadium full of football fans cheering for their team’s playoff win. Except, even that wasn’t quite right—everyone here had participated in the win. They weren’t the fans; they were the team. And unlike a football team, most of these people were perfect strangers to one another.
There was something beautiful, awe-inspiring even, about it. Felix remembered this feeling from the night Jo first explained MnM to him. Not the books or the rules or the archetypes, but what the game was really about. Inclusivity, teamwork, and good prevailing over evil, even if it was for pretend. The idea that, with unshakeable belief and a good group of allies, it was possible to win. Felix doubted that everyone in the hall tonight saw MnM that way. For most of them, it was probably just a game. For Trey, it was a way to goof off and let loose and make his fiancé laugh. For Max, it seemed to allow him to come out of his shell and become someone else for a while.
But for Jo? For Jo, it was this. This feeling of camaraderie and triumph that hummed like magic through the room.
And Felix got it.
“GMs, please distribute rewards to your players,” Matthew bellowed with the last vestiges of his voice.
Players and GMs took their seats, and the noise level returned to the dull roar of conversation. When the hall finally started clearing out, Felix headed to Jo’s table.
“Hey,” he greeted her, leaning on the backrest of a chair.
Jo smiled at him, sending his heart into a tailspin. “Oh, good. I was afraid we scared you away.”
“That was the wildest shit I’ve ever seen,” Felix said. “And I loved it.”
Jo stopped scooping handfuls of dice into her enormous drawstring bag. She stared at Felix for a long second then abandoned her side of the table and rushed him. Felix barely had time to stand up straight before she was throwing her arms around his neck. He caught her waist, hitting her butt with his bag of exhibit hall purchases. Jo didn’t seem to notice.
“You really loved it?” she said in his ear. “You’re not just saying that?”
“I really did. And I think I understand better why you love it too.”
Jo sniffled, and Felix drew back to find her crying. He brushed her sweet, round cheeks free of tears.
“Ugh, sorry.” Jo shook her head and stepped back, roughly drying her face with her palms. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m just exhausted. It’s been a long couple of days.”
“You’re allowed to cry, Jo.”
“Over MnM?” she scoffed at herself.
“Sure, why not?” he said. “Or over your boyfriend saying something nice.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. She didn’t scrub it away. It trailed all the way down to her jaw and splashed on her T-shirt. “Thank you, Felix.”
“I got you something,” he said, opening his bag. “I hope it fits. They said I could exchange it tomorrow if it doesn’t.”
He held up the “Things Are Getting Dicey” shirt for her, with its bubbly font and scattered dice of every shape and color. Jo gasped and giggled.
“It’s not cropped,” he said.
“It’s perfect,” she replied, taking the shirt with both hands. “I love it. I’m going to wear it tomorrow.”
She grasped him by the back of the neck and pulled him roughly toward her, kissing him soundly on the mouth. He had barely begun to kiss her back when she released him. Felix staggered back, a bit dizzy.
She reached for his bag. “What else did you get?”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, lifting it up out of her reach. “These are surprises for tomorrow.”
Jo dropped her fists onto her hips. “Just tell me you didn’t buy any swords and promise to ship them to Trey.”
“Now why didn’t we think of that?” he cried.
She smacked him lightly on the arm.
Jo returned her attention to her pile of GM supplies. Felix offered to help, so she handed him a stack of papers and asked him to return them to the admins. For just a moment, she stared at his ass as he walked to the front of the room.
A T-shirt. He’d gotten her an MnM T-shirt with a dumb, wonderful pun. She’d almost started crying again at the sight of it. Jeremy never would have—
Stop it, Jo, she told herself. Don’t compare them.
It was so hard not to, when Jeremy was all she’d known for so long. And really, what was a few months broken up compared to their years together? He was still right behind her, just over her shoulder. She was driving on the highway, trying to move forward with Felix beside her yet seeing Jeremy every time she glanced in the rearview mirror. She just needed to keep driving, keep leaving him behind and holding on to the man next to her. Hopefully, with a little more time, a little more distance, it would be easier to separate them in her mind.
Hopefully, Jeremy wasn’t lurking in the backseat, keeping pace with them as they went.
On the walk back to the hotel, Felix told her about the exhibit hall and his time with Trey, and she gave him some of the highlights from her Legendary table. In the elevator, Felix moved behind her and wrapped one arm around her waist, his hand a warm, secure weight against her low belly. “I liked the part of your game I saw,” he murmured. “I liked your sphinx voice.”
“Oh really?” she said, pitching her voice down. She’d only done the voice in the first place because she thought it was funny. It had started as a bad Lauren Bacall impression and ended up a mishmash of femme fatale caricatures. She rolled it out for sphinxes, seductive archfey of all genders, and hags in disguise luring people to their deaths.
“Yeah,” Felix said. “I really did.”
His breath was hot on her ear. Jo leaned her head back, exposing her throat to him. He pressed his lips to the side of her neck, and she let out a breathy moan.
“I might be persuaded to use it more often,” she said in that low, lazy voice, “if—”
The elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened on their floor, revealing a well-dressed elderly white couple waiting to head downstairs. Felix quickly released Jo, and they hurried off the elevator.
“That woman gave me the dirtiest look,” he said with a chuckle once they were out of earshot.
“I was avoiding eye contact,” Jo replied. “But they’re the ones going out at ten o’clock. We should be giving them the stink eye.”
The moment they were safely inside their room, Felix’s hand was on her stomach again, dragging her backward against his chest. “What was that you were saying? You’ll use it more often if…”
“Oh, I can’t remember,” Jo said in her normal voice. She tapped him on the wrist. “Let me go, please, I have to pee.”
Felix grumbled but did as requested. She kissed his cheek, right on the edge of his stubble, before dropping her bags and disappearing into the bathroom. Leaning back on the door, she pressed her hand to her chest.
Jo knew what she wanted now, in a way she hadn’t a mere twenty-four hours ago. This wasn’t just a con hookup; it wasn’t just sex. They weren’t going to bang it out and move on. Felix was hers, and she was his. She held his hand and brought him breakfast when he woke up grumpy. He scratched her back and bought her stupid, perfect T-shirts.
Christ, how her heart was pounding. She skimmed her fingers over the spot on her neck where his lips had brushed her skin. More, her body demanded. More, more, more, with every throb of her pulse in her clit.
It was so tempting, to fling open the door and fall into his arms and ask him to touch her and taste her and fuck her until she couldn’t see straight. To give him everything he so plainly wanted. To ride him like she had dreamt about and hear the sounds he made when he came.
There was only one problem: she really was exhausted. Playing and running MnM all day, including a Legendary, had wiped her out. Her eyelids were like lead. She didn’t want to be fighting off sleep their first time together. She wanted to be present and remember every detail.
Tomorrow, she told herself as a flutter of anticipation went through her. Sleep tonight; sex tomorrow.
As Jo readied for bed, she considered if she should tell Felix what she was planning. Not yet, she decided. She was already having fun teasing him. And despite (or maybe because of) his claims that he was going to die over it, she thought he was enjoying it too. Plus, they would be playing together as Grax and Veena in the morning.
Oh yes. Tomorrow was going to be so much fun.