Role Playing(35)

Otter: I have a big favor. Can you run the mission on Thursday?

The guys will listen to you. Mouse has a thing he can’t get out of, and he’s stepping down as co-lead anyway.

Maggie smiled, pleased that he trusted her with this. From what she could tell, Blood Saga was one of the biggest things in Otter’s life.

Knock it off, you twit. She frowned at herself, or tried to.

Maggie: Sure thing. You okay? Just busy? Got a date or something?

She winced after she hit send. Got a date? What the hell?

Mac would be so disappointed in her right now. Rightfully so.

Maggie: You should date. Get out there, sow some oats. Enjoy yourself.

She winced again. Did that read as cringe-tastic to him as it did to her?

Stop making this worse!

His response was slow.

Otter: Actually, no. Not really big on dating.

Otter: And especially not right now. Minor fracture in my foot . . . long story.

Otter: Just getting around is a PITA and I’m hobbling around getting food, generally gorked by the meds. Not fun. :( They make me too sleepy.

Otter: If I feel better, I’ll play, but I don’t think I’m up for leading a big mission. Gandalf can handle healing, but he’s not quite as high leveled, so the rest will probably be grumpy about it. Just tell them I told them to knock it off.

Maggie: You’re adorable. Like I can’t handle the crew if they start bitching.

Maggie: Back up tho. You BROKE YOUR FOOT?

Maggie: What happened?

Otter: was at my Mom’s fixing a bookshelf, dog got in my way, dropped a big board on myself. Could’ve been worse. But yeah, this sucks.

It occurred to Maggie that he was going to community college. They wouldn’t have dorms. She frowned, typing.

Maggie: I don’t mean to pry, and you don’t have to tell me, but do you live with your Mom? Are you there now? Is she able to help take care of you?

Another long pause.

Otter: It’s kind of complicated. But don’t worry. I can manage.

She took a deep breath. It was the kind of breath you took before jumping off a super-high dive . . . or walked into the woods in the middle of the night in a camping trip . . . or ate something doused in the dubiously named Super Nuclear Face Melter Hot Sauce. It was scary, sort of thrilling, with an undercurrent of “I know this is a poor decision, and yet here we are.”

Maggie: Want me to bring you lunch?

She stared at the words she’d sent. She should take them back. She should block his number. She should uninstall Blood Saga and then possibly move across the country.

Not that he’d even care, right? She prayed that he didn’t care. Hell, maybe he’d think it was weird that he was friends with her, or be repulsed that an old . . .

Otter: I would love some lunch, actually. I was kinda low on groceries, and I just ate tuna out of the can. Which is a clear sign of desperation, amirite?

She couldn’t help but laugh. She wondered if he added mustard, or if he even had any mustard to add. If he was down to naked tuna out of the can, he was truly scraping the bottom of the barrel. She also felt a grudging sense of solidarity. The guy needed lunch.

He needed her.

Otter: But you don’t have to. I mean, if it’s trouble. I can take care of myself.

She blinked. Dammit. Too late now.

What had she done?

Maggie: I’m bringing soup. Just text me your address.

This was foolish. So intensely, ridiculously foolish. But with any luck, she’d see him—and more importantly, he’d see her, in her feral, frumpy, middle-aged glory—and then he’d probably drop their conversations himself. Her heart actually hurt at the thought, and she immediately regretted volunteering. Still, from that standpoint, it was probably a smart move, if she thought about it. She was getting a little squirrelly about Otter. The fact that she was volunteering to take him lunch, to check up on him after being hurt, was definitely foolish.

This is probably going to be a disaster.

With a sigh, she got up and started to get pho ready to travel.





CHAPTER 15


SUSTAINED MISUNDERSTANDING


It took about forty-five minutes for Maggie to get the pho stuff together and packed, and then to make her way down from the Upper Falls, where she lived, to “downtown”—such as it was—where Otter apparently lived. She pulled into the driveway of the house. It had white siding and a sort of rock-patterned set of panels on the front, and while the colors looked tired, it was nonetheless nicer than she had expected. The lawn was strewn with some fallen leaves. She frowned. It looked bigger than she’d thought, too—maybe a two-bedroom, or even three.

Kinda big for a kid to rent on his own.

Little pings of alarm started dancing along her spine.

She’d been so intent on helping out a kid in trouble, or at least so she’d perceived, it had never really occurred to her she was going to a man’s house. One she didn’t know, not really . . . online didn’t count: Kit was right. She glanced around. At least he had nearby neighbors. She lived on fifteen acres, and her nearest neighbor was nearly a mile away.

She’d probably be fine. Right?

She grimaced, lugging her reusable shopping bag full of pho broth and accoutrements.

Now that she thought about it, she probably should have discussed more personal details with Otter. She knew his stance on, say, Star Wars versus Star Trek (and the fact that above all he was a Doctor Who fan, which she felt spoke well of him). She knew that his favorite flavor of ice cream was butter pecan, even though it was a “grandma” flavor. She knew that he loved graphic novels like Sandman and Bone and The Dreamer, even though they weren’t the typical superhero comics that his friends were into.