“You do have things you do for fun,” she said. “Besides riding horses.”
I shook my head, still terribly confused. “I don’t…”
“You were a nerd, through and through,” she repeated. “League of Legendsand Magic: The Gather? Those are games, I’m assuming. Video or board?”
I laughed, remembering I had sandwiched those tidbits in a recount of my not-so-great first kiss with a girl. “I didn’t lie to you; I just don’t do those things anymore.”
Gaming had been a pastime my brother had offered to me like well-worn hand-me-downs. I would stay up late watching him bring tiny sprites to justice and get virtual medal after medal.
Like lots of younger siblings, I wanted in on anything he did. And whenever I was old enough, got my account onLeague. And when I struggled to catch up with Wilson’s skill there, I also worked at catching up to his skill with deck building for Magic.
The games were a constant in the ever-changing weather of movement. It didn’t matter what town we were in; there would typically be Wi-Fi set up by day three in a new place. And almost every town had a small game shop filled with people like me who had poor social skills and the proclivity to obsess over one topic.
“When I didn’t have access to riding horses,” I explained, “I played games to fill the gap. But after high school…I don’t know, I just gave it up.”
“Did you lose interest?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, I just got busy and didn’t want to spend most of my free time surrounded by weird guys who either hit on me, told me I had to have stolen my deck ideas from someone online, or pretended to be my friend to talk down to me.”
“Yeesh.”
“Exactly.” Wading through the murky waters of the gaming world as a woman had gotten exhausting. “I thought of going back once. Consider that maybe being older and wiser would breed better interactions. I’m much better at calling people out now.”
“You’re telling me,” Rae teased with a smile.
I laughed.
“Why haven’t you?”
“Bills started piling up. And long days kept getting longer. And I was too tired to even think about playing a game, let alone getting in my car and interacting with a handful of strangers for hours. It was a card game, by the way.League’s video but Magic’s cards.”
She nodded for me to continue.
“You’ve…never heard of it?”
Rae shook her head, hair falling over her shoulders as she did so. “I don’t speak nerd. Or, rather, my nerd’s a little cooler, being paranormal and all.”
“You can come off as a little stuck-up, you know that?” I joked.
“I’ve learned it makes people want me more,” she confessed. “I want you to teach me to speak nerd. Teach me to play Magic.”
My spine straightened. “I don’t…you’re not going to like it.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
I opened my mouth, trying to think of how to dissuade her. “There are plenty of ways to get me to slow down and relax. This would be the most involved one. The one with the most hoops to jump through.”
“You make it sound like I’m not able to jump through hoops.”
“It’s just complicated and maybe boring to someone more active and go go go.”
“Are you saying I don’t have the head for it?” Rae pressed her hand to her chest and folded inward as if someone had just shot her point-blank. Underneath the offense, her brown eyes danced. The sun finallyfound its way through the clouds, bowing itself right in front of the breathtaking woman before me, who had windswept curls and gave me the indescribable urge to offer her everything I had. It wasn’t much, but maybe it’d be enough for a day or so.
“I’m saying it doesn’t seem like your kind of thing,” I murmured.
“Don’t tell me what my thing is, Octavia. I want to learn how to play Magic: The Gather.”
“Gathering,” I corrected.
