Page 87 of Level Up for Love

“Of course. Reagan still holds the first day we met against me. I think this is punishment,” Colin says.

I scoff dramatically. “Only because you were being fucking weird, dude.”

He jabs a finger at me over the back of the couch. “Yeah, but that’s just how I am before I get to know someone! You thought I was being sexist!”

Shay turns toward me, her brows arched. “Did you really?”

“What the hell else was I meant to think?” I laugh. “He suggested we weren’t cut out for such a brutal, high-level game. Asked us, like, three times if we were sure we were up for it.”

Shay plants her hands on her hips. “Colin!”

He lifts his hands in the air and splays them wide. “Hey, now, it wasn’t like that! You told me to save one seat for your girlfriend, and I didn’t know what she looked like. Then this scary lady wearing black pleather on a Sunday fucking morning marches in and demands to join the roster, and—I was just being protective of my friends, see?” He jabs that finger at me again. “You scared me.”

Mona’s doubled over giggling, and Wesley’s face is caught somewhere between an odd wistfulness and a half grin. Shay shoots me a teasingly suspicious sidelong look.

I spread my hands outward. “Okay, fine, my mistake—but it was an honest one, okay? A miscommunication. I know you better now.” I pause, then offer an olive branch. “I’ll send you Afterwards.”

Colin snaps his fingers. “Good. We’re all cheering for you. Or, well, both of you, as awkward as it is. So one of you had better win.”

Wesley and I smile briefly at each other. I sit back down next to him, and this time, he doesn’t try to touch me again.

Shay’s gaze flashes between us. “What will you do?” she asks. “If you win.”

Even before I turn my head, I can feel his eyes on me. “Huh,” he murmurs. “I can’t believe I haven’t asked you that yet.”

I haven’t asked him, either. I’ve barely asked myself.

I blink a few times and clear my throat. “I mean—I’ll finish the game, I suppose. I’ll probably do that no matter what happens, but with the prize money and extra resources, I guess I’ll finish…faster?”

Colin laughs a little into the sudden silence that follows my dull answer, and Wesley regards me critically. “You won’t do another competition?” he asks. “Or try to take it to the next level?”

I shrug. “I haven’t thought that far,” I say. Wesley’s gaze is suddenly so intense, so focused, that I know the answer to my question before I ask it. “Have you?”

“Of course. There’s all sorts of things I’d do. I’d try to find a publishing partner, or a group of people who would want to help me launch it and make it better. Or maybe the buzz from the competition will help me make connections, so I can find my next position.” He lets out a laugh that sounds only a bit forced. “I can’t work with Art forever, and I don’t want to. I need a job. Winning this will help me find what’s next.”

There’s no good explanation for why my energy seeps out of my fingertips, leaving my chest feeling hollow like a deflated balloon.

I feel shitty. For me, this competition has been all about the race, and I’ve been careless about the destination. It just meant something for me to be able to run again. But for Wesley, it’s clearly more than that.

And the destination might take him a lot further than it would me.

I don’t know when this conversation became just between us, but when I glance around at the others, they’re all looking elsewhere. Mona is biting her lip and looking intently at something Shay’s showing her on her phone, while Colin has turned on his console and is queuing up Mario Kart for us.

Wesley still has his eyes fixed on me. While their heads are turned, he presses the side of his knee against mine. “Hey. What is it?”

But I just smile, close-lipped.

“May the best game win,” I say weakly.

“Sorry—you’re playing D&D with who?”

The last time Nali and I caught up was at the end of the summer. Since college, she’s been all over the place, hopping from game studio to game studio or contract to contract. We try to make time to see each other whenever our schedules overlap—like in March, shortly after the Cataclysm, when I visited her for a couple of weeks in Seattle—but failing that, we at least try to have regular video calls. I can’t believe it’s already been a few months since we talked.

I can’t believe how much has changed in that short amount of time.

She looks funny now, trapped in the little box of my phone screen. Her dark braid winds across her shoulder and down her chest, and her ear’s pressed up close to her camera, like she’s trying to make sure she’s hearing me correctly.

“Wesley Locke,” I repeat.