the game’s every secret? Wouldn’t his group members weasel it out of him?
“I need the story on this,” I said to Kat after we’d logged off. I began to gather my things. It was starting to get late, and we had another long and exhausting day ahead of us tomorrow.
She frowned at me, clearly consternated. “Don’t you ever just get on to play for fun?”
I sighed and shook my head. “Occupational hazard, I guess. I’ve kind of lost that initial love I had for DE.”
She shrugged. “Well you know, it doesn’t take that much to fall back in love with it. Especially when it’s more about the people you’re playing with than the game itself.”
“Is that how the four of you met? In the game?” I asked.
She nodded, then her face clouded, and she shrugged. “Actually Heath and Mia have known each other forever. Since preteen days. They started playing DE together in the beta. I got the beta and played while I had a really annoying job working overnight in a data center. We all played odd hours.”
“So… Adam was just playing his own game, and he ran into you all? Did you know who he was?”
She shook her head, smiling. “Nope. Fun, huh? That Adam and Mia would hook up over the game like that. So many romances have been made and broken playing this game.”
I laughed. “You know people who’ve broken up over the game?”
She nodded. “Oh yeah. People in our guild even. Big time drama. This married couple played the game together. They were power players, on all the time. The guy was our raid leader. His wife started grouping with other people, then started falling for one of the other guys in the guild. Eventually she decided to leave her husband over it. Like, they were halfway across the country from each other so it wasn’t really an affair but—”
I stiffened. “It was an affair.” My gut twisted at the familiarity of the story. I identified all too much with the raid-leader husband. Busy, caught up with all he had going, probably with work, real life demands and that of the game, which can also become like another job. And she, feeling neglected, sought comfort somewhere else.
Yeah, I recognized that story all too well. “Cheating is cheating. Emotional affairs can be just as damaging as a physical one.” With a little more heat than I’d intended, I snatched up my things and stood. Kat rose with me, setting down her headset so hurriedly it crashed to the floor. She ignored it.
“Whoa, hey! Are you okay?” she asked.
I jerked my head back to her. “What? Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
Her eyes widened, and she blinked. “Because you’re talking very loud and it’s obvious that your blood pressure just shot up about a hundred points. You’re also as flushed as a lobster.”
Instead of answering, I bent to scoop up her pricey headset with my free hand and set it gently back on the desk.
“Did—um, did your ex cheat on you?”
I clenched my jaw and then released it. “Depends on if you think an emotional affair is cheating or not.”
She frowned and looked down. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. I could feel a headache threatening at my temple and I was exhausted from the long day.
“Goodnight,” I muttered quietly and left without another word, depositing the armful of things onto my bed.
I hadn’t even had time to grab my things out of the dresser to get ready for bed when I noticed a movement in the doorway. Kat stood there, still looking gorgeous in that tight pink t-shirt, those short-shorts. Her chin was tilted down, her blue eyes huge and full of apologies.
“Lucas, I’m so sorry.”
I halted where I stood and watched her approach me. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
She shook her head. “My words hurt you. I’ve never been cheated on—that I know of—and I have no idea how it feels. I-I’m sorry.”
I looked away, avoiding her gaze. “It’s not just about being cheated on. It—well that was a crappy time of my life all the way around. I still had no idea who I was as a person and I took on way too much. In the end, it was too much to handle and…” I shook my head. “I guess you could say I overestimated how strong I could be. At least that’s what everyone else around me told me at the time.”
She frowned so deeply her forehead puckered. “What—people blamed