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The avatar leaped. Enormous wings unfolded, glinting silver and billowing like a sail, filling with wind currents. The game had begun.
After several minutes of intense play, Michael deftly steered his avatar through the magical membrane of the portals into a blaze of golden light, whooping with joy. “Yes! I made it! I’m in level thirteen, and I got dragon wings now! I am killing it! Did you see me, Mom?”
Joyce Wu burst into tears and covered her face with her hands.
Michael turned around, alarmed. “Mom? What’s wrong?”
“Sorry, honey,” Joyce said, her voice strangled. “I’m just... I haven’t seen you look that happy in a long time.”
“Aw, Mom. Don’t.” Michael launched himself at his mother. He wrapped his prosthetic arms around her, patting her carefully. One of the hands landed on her long braid. He closed his mechanical fingers around it and tugged on it gently.
“I can feel your hair, Mom,” he said, in a wondering voice.
That just made her cry harder. Drew had a lump in his own throat. Then he felt something soft bump into him from the side. Thin, wiry arms wound around him.
It was the elderly Mrs. Wu, also weeping. She, too, needed to hug someone, and he was the closest person. Whatever. He wrapped his arms around the old lady, because what else could he do? Over her white hair, he caught Ava’s smile as she gestured silently for one of her cameramen to capture the moment.
Then he saw Jenna’s face, and promptly forgot everything and everyone else.
She was beaming at him. Her eyes were wet. She took off her glasses, dabbed below her eyes and then sniffed into a tissue.
What a beautiful, radiant smile. It gave him an amazing rush. He could get used to this.
He wanted to chase down smiles like that every day. Endlessly. He could dedicate himself to that project and never get tired of it.
Mrs. Wu didn’t let go, but nothing could embarrass him when he was flying so high from Jenna’s smile. He embraced the elder Mrs. Wu as carefully as if he were holding a baby bird, and just breathed it all in. Letting himself feel it.
He hadn’t felt this good in...well, damn. Maybe never.
Mrs. Wu finally let go of him with a motherly pat on his back. He caught Michael’s eyes, which were also suspiciously wet. “You play Angel Ascending in online mode, right?” Drew asked, on impulse.
“Yeah, sure,” Michael said. “As much as Mom will let me.”
“I know I’d have to up my game to play with you, but let’s hook up online. I usually play after midnight when I can’t sleep, but I could move it up a couple hours.”
“More like four hours,” Joyce announced. “He has to be in bed by ten thirty.”
“Mom!” Michael shot her a mortified look. “As if!”
“Done by ten thirty, always,” Drew agreed. “Hey, I play with Lars Feehan sometimes. He’s a night owl, too, like me.”
Michael’s eyes went huge. “No way! Lars Feehan the actor? Who starred in the Angel Ascending movie? He games? For real?”
“For real,” Drew said. “Whenever he can. He’s good, too. Last I checked, he’d just cracked level eight, but that was a while ago. He might have moved up since then.”
Jenna’s eyes were wide with startled wonder. “You know Lars Feehan?”
“Yeah. I designed his producer’s beach house a few years ago. Maybe we could all three hook up online and play sometime.”
“Lars...freaking... Feehan!” Michael repeated, his eyes still dazzled. “The gold angel! That guy is so cool!”
“Yeah, and if you hook him up with Lars, we get to film it, okay?” Ava said pointedly. “The guy has thirty million Twitter followers.”
“I’m sure he’ll be up for that,” Drew said. “He’s a great guy.”
“You play video games with Lars Feehan?” Jenna said. “The Hollywood A-list hottie and the bad boy of architecture, two of the busiest guys in their respective professions, have time to play video games together in the middle of the night?”
He sure did. It helped during those long and sleepless nights when nightmares and stress flashbacks kicked his ass. But that was nobody’s business.
