Role Playing(30)

BOGWITCH: So that’s why I think it’s impossible to go back in time and kill your grandfather.

BOGWITCH: Which is why I think the movie TENET is kind of ridiculous.

OtterLeader: That’s sort of wild. I have never thought of time travel that way.

She had never actually told anybody her time-travel theory. Well, other than Kit, who had heard her as she refined it over the years, to the point where he covered his ears if she so much as breathed the term “time travel.” Otter, on the other hand, not only “listened,” he proved that he was paying attention and that he understood the concepts by asking her some very good questions.

OtterLeader: I have mixed feelings about Christohper Nolan. I appreciate his obvious influences from Andrew Niccol, like Gattaca . . .

BOGWITCH: YOU watched Gattaca? Isn’t that, what, vintage for you?

OtterLeader: lol I’m not that young

She wondered what that meant. Maybe he was all of twenty-one or something. Kids these days. She shook her head, even though he couldn’t see it, feeling indulgent.

BOGWITCH: Kiddo, you probably tell people your age still using halves and quarters.

It looked like he was about to type, but she quickly saw something behind a crevice they’d walked past easily twenty times.

BOGWITCH: Oh my God do you see that??

BOGWITCH: The purple stones.

Whatever he’d been about to type, he didn’t seem to complete, because she saw his response.

OtterLeader: Holy shit is that a door??

BOGWITCH: Let’s gooo

They entered tentatively. And then spent the next five (yes, five) hours exploring a small cavern that opened into a bigger cavern. That brought on one of the toughest, weirdest bosses she’d ever fought in Blood Saga.

One that looked, funnily enough, like the damned Claymation villain.

After getting killed three times, they finally decided to return to the guildhall and then try to convince the rest of the team to work with them to take down the boss. Hopefully they would be able to find it again. As it was, it was now two in the morning, and Maggie was starting to feel exhaustion descend on her like a storm.

BOGWITCH: 2 am I gotta sleep

OtterLeader: I’m sorry

BOGWITCH: Why?

BOGWITCH: I make my own decisions. If I wanted to sleep earlier, I would’ve told you. Don’t be ridiculous.

OtterLeader: lol

OtterLeader: Okay. I like hanging out with you.

That took her by surprise. The thing was, she’d never had any intentions of staying up quite this late. But she’d had a great time, and her need to “kill shit” had been replaced with a warm, drowsy, happy feeling. She couldn’t quite remember the last time she’d felt that way, actually.

Huh.

OtterLeader: Besides, I imagine at your age you need less sleep anyway, right?

BOGWITCH: Don’t make me regret my decision

OtterLeader: LOL good night, Boggy

BOGWITCH: ‘Night, Otter.

She signed off, then looked at her computer for a long second. She felt tired, yes, but she felt better. Better than she had in weeks. Better than she had since Kit left. Longer than that, if she was honest with herself: since the year leading up to Kit leaving—figuring out the money for his tuition, trying to organize all the things that would help him get there. Hell, even dealing with Kit’s temperamental roller coaster of emotions as he tried to figure out where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do. She’d been wrung out like a sponge.

She enjoyed fighting with the guild. But this, this one-on-one with Otter, had been the most connected she’d felt to someone else in a long time.

She was still for a moment as her tired brain processed that.

You felt close and comfy “hanging out” with a guy who is, tops, twenty-one.

That . . . might not be a good thing.





CHAPTER 13


BEING GOOD SUCKS


Aiden gritted his teeth so hard, he was surprised his molars hadn’t turned to powder. He was at his mother’s. He’d managed to pretend that her whole engine had blown up and he needed a slew of replacement parts (and had even gotten Davy’s buy-in to bolster the lie). Meanwhile, Davy said that he’d get her a new car, but it was going to take time to get the right one. Since she liked Davy better, she took the explanation with a degree of pride and grinned smugly at Aiden. It didn’t bother him as much as it used to that he wasn’t her favorite. Although it did still bother him. Especially on days like this.

She’d called him at six in the morning, telling him there had been a loud noise, a crash. In a panic, he’d tossed on sweats and driven over like a demon, hoping that there wasn’t any black ice—it had gotten cold. Still, he lived only ten minutes away, on the other side of their small town.

When he arrived, she was drinking coffee . . . and there was a small, angry, barking little dog.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

At which point she got up, still dressed in pajamas and a thick flannel robe, and shuffled her way to the living room.

His father had been many things, but a carpenter he wasn’t. Still, he’d surprised Aiden’s mother with a “built-in bookshelf” one year, on their thirtieth anniversary, and they’d put every book in the house on it, including a now-ancient set of children’s encyclopedias. Year after year, with every visit, Aiden had noticed that the weight of the books had caused the shelf to continuously sag, like a slow, tired smile. Now, all the books were strewn across the floor, and the shelf itself was wrecked.