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Leonard’s in a relationship with Shauna, one of Mira and Delia’s friends. She’s a sarcastic potter with purple hair, and I honestly couldn’t think of anyone better equipped to keep up with him.
“When’s the meeting?” Shane asks, watching me.
“A little over two weeks from now,” I say, trying to sound off-handed, like I haven’t been thinking of it steadily. I haven’t seen Daphne in years, but her words stuck with me long after I stopped thinking about our failed relationship.
Too basic.
Basic means boring—any fool knows that.
It shouldn’t bother me, being boring, and in some ways it’s an aspiration of mine. The world can be too much for me—too loud, too bright, too demanding—so I like taking in little pieces of it at a time. Picking up a latte and sitting in the park. Working on the balcony in the afternoon or evening, when the sun’s not too bright. Drinking a beer with my buddies at one of their houses, or in a bar that’s so bad it’s not flocked with tourists. Spending quality time with my sister and my niece. Biking in the mountains and watching the sun rise above them and wrap them up with gold. Those little pleasures might sound small, but sew them together, and you get something good.
Except for Safe-T Net. I’d give my day job away in a fucking heartbeat, if I could afford to.
That’s where my long game with the computer game comes in. If we make good money off it, and I’ve convinced myself it’s worth good money, I might finally be able to quit.
Drew had some money saved up, so he’s already quit his job. Of course, he didn’t have the same shitty reasons to stay. I don’t blame him for moving, but I wish he’d come back to take this meeting with me. I’m going into the unknown alone, and that’s never been something I’m good at in real life. Online, it’s different.
“You determined to remind her there’s nothing basic about your schlong?” Leonard asks with a grin, lifting his beer as if to…I don’t know, salute my dick. I lift my beer to salute back.
“I don’t know, man,” I say. “Maybe.” But my mind summons up an image of Mira after that box dropped on her foot, cuddled in a ball at the junction in the middle of the stairs. I feel a hollowness in my chest. Maybe I can’t shake that memory because I feel like a dick for not doing more to prevent her accident. I guess I also admire her for being brave and tough and—
I’m supposed to be thinking about Daphne.
I shrug self-consciously, trying to scrub my mind. But it’s not so easily scrubbed. Sometimes when images come into my head, they stick as surely as if they were covered in glue. “She’s the one who got away, I guess,” I say mechanically. “I was in love with her.”
“She didn’t get away so much as she stepped out on you,” Leonard says, giving me a pointed look.
“Yes, Leonard,” I say flatly. “You’ve made it very clear how you feel about Daphne.”
He shrugs. “I’m not going to get in the way of you getting your freak on, brother, but I think she did you dirty. We all did.”
I glance at Shane, who inclines his head in agreement.
“She got a job in Paris,” I tell them, a little annoyed. “Who wouldn’t have taken it?”
“You,” Shane says. “You wouldn’t have left her.”
He’s right, but for some reason I say, “I could have gone with her. She asked me.”
I couldn’t have gone, actually. My agreement with Safe-T Net stipulates that I can’t take any international trips longer than two weeks. She didn’t know about that, though, because I never told her about the agreement.
I’d thought about it.
I’d danced around it.
But for some reason I’d never shared that part of my life with her. My sister would probably say it was because I subconsciously didn’t trust her, but I saw it as simple compartmentalization. The Safe-T Net situation happened before Daphne and I met, therefore it was unnecessary to tell her about it. And, indeed, I wasn’tsupposedto tell anyone.
My friends knew, and so did Ruthie, who’d been at the middle of the whole thing in some ways, but that’s because they’d all been there while it was going down.
“No doubt,” Leonard says, but it lacks conviction. “Well, I’m sure y’all will have a lot to talk about.”
She will, anyway. Daphne lived in Paris for a few years, and now she’s back in Asheville. I’m still where I was eight years ago, back when she called me basic. Living in an apartment I don’t own. Working at a job that I hate but can’t yet quit.
If my life seemed boring to her back then, it sure as shit won’t be interesting now. I’m still not the kind of guy who enjoys networking events and cocktail hours with strangers who’d like to be impressed. I’ll never be.
When I first found out about her connection to Big Bear Games, in a scheduling email sent by an assistant, I promised myself I would change her impression of me. It had seemed important, because it had been years since I’d met a woman who’d made me feel anything but the most…well, basic sort of interest. Maybe there was a reason for that, I’d speculated, and Daphne could be that reason. I’ve thought about emailing her directly, asking her to get a drink to ‘clear the air,’ but every time I sit down to write the message, I seem to find something else to do. And she hasn’t reached out to contact me either. In the chaos of the last few days, I haven’t really thought about it.
“Didn’t Mira say she wanted to give you a makeover?” Leonard asks offhandedly, his lips twitching like they want to smile.
