Role Playing(18)
He immediately felt better.
OtterLeader: All right, gear up, then let’s get going.
They went about getting their healing potions and their armor, then put away anything they could to free up carry space. Then they went on the mission.
It was, in a word, epic. The guys liked playing with the new gear and used it to good effect, cutting through enemies like a blowtorch through butter. The bosses were still a challenge, and the last boss, the Hierophant, was an absolute dickpunch. But he learned a few things.
When tempers flared (read: BigDorkEnergy), Bogwitch tended to get him to calm down . . . not by catering to him but with a quick, sharp retort and some applicable advice, even if it was “quit fucking around and notice the traps, dipshit” even as she tossed re-gen potions at him. Things that would’ve pissed off Dork if one of the other guys said it tended to go smoother when she did. Probably because he’d talked to them all offline, making sure they were nice to her.
“She’s an old woman,” he’d pointed out via private messages. “And she’s got skills, so be nice, okay?”
Needless to say, between the fact that she’d essentially given them an early Christmas with all the gear and the fact that she was probably an octogenarian woman who swore like a trucker while killing bad guys like a Terminator, the guys had rallied and now looked at her as their own personal mascot.
After they’d trounced the Hierophant and gleefully split the loot, he sent one more private message to Bogwitch.
OtterLeader: Thanks again for everything. And for tonight. You really kicked ass.
BOGWITCH: Ok. No worries.
OtterLeader: For real—it meant a lot.
There was a pause, then a flurry of typing.
BOGWITCH: You’re not hitting on me, right? Because I will punt you into the sun.
He let out another bark of laughter. He could hear the amusement in her tone.
OtterLeader: You keep giving me legendary loot, I might consider proposing.
BOGWITCH: Right into the sun!
OtterLeader: Nighty-night, snookums
BOGWITCH: raises fist GET OFF MY LAWN!
He shook his head, still chuckling, before signing off. It was kind of hysterical that she kept warning him off, telling him not to hit on her. Honestly, he had his own problems with dating anyone and tended not to hit on people, much less a grouchy elderly woman who he’d only “met” online. He wasn’t like Riley, searching for someone to nail and bail, and this late in his life, he’d given up hope on having a relationship. But he’d begun to count her as a friend . . . and he was starting to realize he had precious few of those.
CHAPTER 8
GREAT BIG LIBRARY OF EVERYTHING
Kit video called Maggie on Friday night. He took after her: shaggy dark hair rather than his father’s sandy blond, dark-brown eyes rather than hazel. It was yet one more thing that had alienated Trev, convinced that Kit had nothing in common with him, not even dominant genetics.
Nope. Not going down that road.
“How was this week?” she asked, forcing her voice to stay cheerful.
He shrugged. He had stubble, which continued to throw her, and he was wearing his favorite hooded sweatshirt, a black, thick fleece. She had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from asking if he’d washed it since he left the house. “This week was okay,” he said. “Same shit, different day.”
“Classes?”
“Fine.”
“Is your roommate there?”
He smirked, shaking his head. “He’s still rushing. I imagine he’s getting paddled by chanting, masked individuals in a candlelit basement as we speak.”
She chuckled. “You get the picture?”
“Of you with that duck-face lady with the peace sign?” He started laughing. “Yeah, I got it. You looked like you were being tortured.”
He wasn’t wrong, but she couldn’t exactly admit that. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, I went. So, what did you do?”
“I haven’t gone yet.”
She tutted. “No-hypocrisy card,” she said, parroting his words back to him. “I got out there. Now you’re on deck, pal.”
He grumbled. “I am not taking a selfie,” he muttered.
“No, you don’t have to. I’m going to trust you,” she said, even though her voice was stern.
“I don’t know why it’s such a big fucking deal,” he said, and there was a definite edge to his voice. Because they were video chatting, she saw the shadow of pain that crossed his expression, one he might not have even realized until he saw himself on screen. He quickly schooled his features to a kind of implacable blank and shrugged again.
He’d learned to go featureless because of his father. She knew that.
Worse, she knew that he’d learned it from her.
She took a deep breath. “I joined a Blood Saga guild.”
His eyebrow kicked up, and his forced calm turned into amusement. “No kidding? Been a minute since I played that. Are you playing with Mac or something? I didn’t think she was that big a gamer. More into anime.”
“Mac isn’t into playing video games, especially online. Says that they’re misogynistic cesspools, and generally speaking, I can’t say I blame her. So this actually should count as making friends,” she half bragged, even as she recognized the lameness of her boasting. When you were bragging that you had made friends with (presumably) a guy who promptly hit on you, then called you a grandma, then chanted ONE OF US! at you, you weren’t winning any kind of extrovert awards. “They’re based here in Fool’s Falls. Theoretically, I could actually meet up with them face to face.”