As we sang, I decided to be a good hostess and keep the peace. I drove my trusty Jeep named Stiles to the Dew Drop Inn, a bed and breakfast where I had originally reserved a block of rooms for the gathering. Though cozy, the Dew Drop Inn was in a rather sorry state, making it cheaper by miles than the popular Donner Lodge, but the guild budget wouldn’t stretch very far, and needs must and all that. I already had sorely disappointed the proprietor, Mrs. Potter, by canceling one room after the other over the past few months, but now she was surely going to throw a hissy fit when she saw me come in with one lone guest. I was going to have to stop by the Donner Bakery in the near future and bring her a banana cake or some lemon custard tarts by way of apology.
We both hopped out of the Jeep—a minor difficulty for Wrath because of the tricky door handle on the passenger side—and as we walked up the steps of the inn, he casually said, “You know, paying for a room for only one person for three nights seems excessive, and a waste of the guild's money. Don’t you have a guest room I could crash in? Hell, even a couch halfway comfortable? I'm not picky.”
I almost threw up in my mouth a little. Wrath had been behaving himself for the most part—other than calling me a few sexist names and a liar—but there was no way I was going to let him stay with me, for four days or four minutes. Besides, my spare room was my game room, and I wasn’t keen on letting anyone see that. It was my inner sanctum. But there was an extra bed in it, and he had a point about the waste of guild funds. The guild didn’t charge dues or anything, but people voluntarily chipped into a pot for events or gifts or prizes. We were given a slice of that for our gathering, and I did want to use it as responsibly as possible. Dammit! I hated it when Wrath had a point. By now I should be used to his critiquing some strategy I'd dreamt up. Despite his other faults, he was far from stupid. I could say from experience that it's hard to loathe someone who has a knack for pointing out the weak points in your plans.
I stopped on the stairs and let out a huge breath, the thought of Wrath staying at my place creeping through my brain. Wrath sleeping in my game room. Wrath sharing my bathroom, eating my food, touching my things for four whole days. Almost everything in me rebelled against the idea, except the phantom voice of my frugal mom protesting against the waste of money and lack of hospitality. Well, that and the appeal of Wrath potentially walking around naked wearing nothing but a towel. Gah, where had that image come from? I mean yes, he had a nice body and a beautiful face. Piercing brown eyes, silky looking black hair. Okay, so he was hot. But his appearance was not going to factor into my decision-making process. I was more disciplined than that. What if he was a serial killer? How would I know, considering they looked like everyone else? Okay, maybe that was a stretch. No more true crime documentaries for a while.
“I confirmed the rooms with her ages ago," I explained. "I have to pay cancellation fees on one more room as it is, and now you want me to cancel the entire reservation?”
“Are the cancellation fees cheaper than the rental fees?” he asked, crossing his arms.
“Yes,” I replied with dismay, letting out a large sigh. I could see where this was heading, and I didn’t like it one bit. Okay, maybe one teeny bit that was attracted to him physically, but that was simple biology, I was sure.
“Then there’s our answer,” Wrath continued. “Let’s save the money and do something fun with it instead. Or give it back to the guild. Expensing this room is ridiculous. Look, I get that you might be a tad shy to talk but I can—”
“Hold up, I am not shy!” I protested. Okay, maybe that was a wee bit of a fib, but for this weekend at least, shy had flown out the window. I was going to be as badass offline as I was on. And where had he gotten the impression that I was shy? I never shut up when I’m online. Maxine Peters might be reluctant to cancel on Mrs. Potter, but Maximus_Damage? She got shit done. And for the next four days, online or off, I was Maximus.
We ascended the staircase, and I held the door open for Wrath, noticing the pleasing scent that wafted from him. Well, there’s another stereotype he didn’t fit. People tended to think hardcore gamers had abhorrent personal hygiene, but this certainly didn't apply to Wrath. His scent evoked sandalwood, cut grass, and sunshine. It made me want to snuggle him and breathe in that delicious, manly smell over and over. The jerk. Of course he would just happen to smell like catnip for my ovaries. Before I had a full grasp on my bearings, Wrath had steamed ahead of me to the check-in desk and performed a transformation spell right before my eyes because he was suddenly oozing charm.
“Hello, ma’am,” he said, tipping his head at old Mrs. Potter as though he was tipping a hat. “My name is Jonathan Owen, and I was scheduled to be a guest in your beautiful home this weekend. I’m friends with this little lady here.” He gestured to me, and I realized he had avoided using my name because he had no clue what it was. “Now, she’s run into a spot of trouble involving a gentleman suitor, and I’d feel a lot better about things if I could stay with her while I’m in town. A bit of a nasty guy, if you catch my drift. I hope you’ll understand and accept the cancellation fees for the block of rooms. My other friends couldn’t make it. There was a death in the family, bless ’em.”
A death in the … now who was the lying liar who lied?! Jonathan Owen, that's who, the big hypocrite. The big hypocrite with the big shoulders, currently leaning against the check-in desk, his T-shirt tightening over his back. Jonathan Owen, Jonathan … hmm. I mulled it over and decided I liked the name. At some point I had better tell him my real name too.
"Oh, goodness me!" Mrs. Potter said, actually clutching at her pearls. I hoped we wouldn't need to whip out the smelling salts if she took on a full case of the vapors. "Of course, such a strapping lad as yourself must stay with her if her safety is in jeopardy. Maxine, dear, I didn’t know you had men buzzing around you. It’s about time, you know, if you want to have children. You're not getting any younger, and your poor momma, well she'd love to have some sweet young thing to spoil. Let's only worry about the cancellation fee for one room. I don't feel right about taking the full amount when there's been a death and you're in a spot of bother. Though I daresay the trouble isn’t from this gentleman."
I inwardly bristled at the jab about my age, and the failure on my part to provide grandchildren. My family fell somewhere in the middle of the Green Valley hierarchy, I would say. My mother had come from money, but she married my father, a humble sheriff's deputy, and they built a life here. Until it all fell apart. My mother suffered from agoraphobia ever since my father's death, but people remembered her and occasionally dropped by with a casserole or for a visit. It was one of the things I loved about living in Green Valley. People gave a damn about their neighbors.
Wrath had been in town for all of ten minutes and had already swindled old Mrs. Potter out of a cancellation fee that was rightfully hers, plus he had planted the seed of me being some kind of secret hussy. Mrs. Potter was in the church choir, and every single member would be hearing about my supposed dating life at their next rehearsal. Knowing it would be both fruitless and rude to protest her generosity, I elbowed Wrath out of the way and paid the cancellation fee. I thanked Mrs. Potter profusely, discreetly asking her if she liked bananas and wondering if I could get the guild to pay for one of Jennifer Winston's banana cakes.
"A death in the family?!" I said to Wrath as we walked back to the Jeep. "How creative of you." I seethed.
Wrath shrugged but had the decency to look sheepish. "I was thinking on my feet," he said defensively. "Look, how was I supposed to know she wouldn't take the full amount of money she was owed? I was just trying to cancel the reservation and leave your good name intact. I wasn't trying to fleece her."
I threw my hands up in the air. "And yet you did it so well! From now on, I do the talking, okay?"
"Aye, aye, captain," he replied with a mock salute. I eyed him suspiciously and shook my head. Wrath tended to get mouthy at inappropriate times—we’ll call what happened back there Exhibit A. I could
barely remember a raid party where he hadn’t picked an argument with someone. A raid was when twenty-five or more guildies grouped together to take on an otherwise undefeatable enemy in the game. Like any social event, it had rules, both implicit and explicit. When all the rules were followed, the fight was like a dance and I was the choreographer, providing the instructions and strategy in advance and then listening as they were implemented by a fellow officer over voice chat.
Wrath liked to step on other people’s feet rather than do the Viennese waltz.
"Max," he began when we were back on the road.
That was as far as I let him get. I was as angry as an armadillo stuck in a screen door, and I did not want to hear more of his voice at the moment. I held up a hand in his direction, and he quieted instantly and looked contrite. I flicked the stereo on, and we drove, this time neither of us singing. I felt humiliated, but mostly I felt stupid. How had I trusted Wrath to know how to behave in public when he didn't know how to behave in-game? Some people said the game was like a mirror for life. If you were kind in the game, generous, giving of your time and skills and all that, chances are you were that sort of person. Well, here I was, figuratively chained to someone who had shown me over and over in-game that they were a douche of the highest order. Was that a real reflection of who Wrath was as Jonathan? I didn’t have enough data to decide, but it was looking that way. I thought of that easy charm and repartee he had demonstrated with Mrs. Potter and wondered why it was never directed at me. But then, that was like an in-game interaction as well, wasn't it?
I detoured on the way to my place to the Piggly Wiggly so we could buy some extra groceries since I’d have one more mouth to feed and my supplies were running low. I grabbed a cart and asked Wrath to get enough snacks or things he liked to last a few days and excused myself to the restroom. Ducking into the bright, clean bathroom, I grabbed my cell out of my carpetbag of a purse—seriously, there might be a lamp and a potted plant in there somewhere—and dialed Lois in New York City. After two rings, during which I chewed on my finger nervously, she picked up.
“Max? What’s wrong? Aren’t you supposed to be entertaining half a dozen nerds right now?”
“Oh, so just because you quit gaming you’re allowed to call us nerds now?” I teased, already feeling on firmer ground at the sound of her voice. Peily—or Lois, I should say—and I met ten years ago in Guilds of the Ages when I still played as a girl. She was another girl gamer I could talk to, and we formed a tight bond. I was sad when she didn’t join League of Magecraft with me, but getting married, working, having a kid, and getting divorced didn’t give her a lot of solo recreation time. We stayed in touch though, and she enjoyed hearing about my guild.
“Seriously though, what’s up? Can I help? Lose anyone to boredom yet?” Lois’s voice pulled me from my spiraling thoughts.
“No, it’s worse than that,” I moaned. “They didn’t come! Three of them bailed at the last minute. And the only one to show up? Wrath! And he did some kind of mind wizardry to me because he logicized his way into staying at my house—in my gaming room!” I was huffing a little bit by this point, my breathing going ragged as I felt anxiety sweep through me. I hadn’t let myself feel anything but a simmering anger or bitterness since the airport, my previous excitement for the weekend already stripped away. But now that I was with a safe person, my real feelings were bubbling up.
I wasn’t pissed, I was scared. At least I wasn’t scared of having a stranger come to stay—I didn’t really consider Wrath a stranger. We talked every day, and hordes of people knew he was coming to see me, so that stray serial killer thought earlier really had no merit. I was scared because I didn’t know how to behave around him, and a little scared that he might be offended that I hadn’t told him I was a girl before now. I hated unintentionally offending or hurting people.
“How’d he sweet talk his way in there?” Lois replied, both curiosity and mirth in her voice. She loved to hear about anything that could be deemed a misadventure.
“He Jedi mind tricked me, Lois! That’s the only explanation. And he lied to old Mrs. Potter. If Mom ever finds out about that, I’ll never hear the end of it.” I let out a long, deep breath, trying to calm down. “I just wanted to do something fun with some of my friends from the guild. Show them around, have some laughs. I knew Wrath was coming but I didn’t know there would be no buffer between us whatsoever.”
Boy, how I had counted on there being a buffer. Carebear in particular was someone I had been looking forward to meeting, and she would have thwarted any tension in the group with her cheery outlook and mothering ways.
“What you have to do is let go of the idea of what kind of weekend you were going to have, accept what’s happened, and make the best of it. That’s the Max I know. You hate him? So what? He might not hate you, and who knows, he could be decent company if you give him a chance.”
I snickered. “Oh, trust me, he hates me. Wrath has always hated me, you know that.” And here it comes, like clockwork. Lois and her wild theory.
She had this crazy idea that Wrath actually liked me, and his annoying the hell out of me at every available opportunity was his misguided way of trying to get my attention. I had dismissed this theory because Wrath thought I was a guy, and I had seen him join in the guy talk enough in the guild chat to know that he was definitely interested in women.
Now, I was enlightened enough to know that it was possible for someone to be attracted to people of any gender or biological sex, so his history with women didn’t preclude him from being interested in a guy. Plus, he had shut down homophobic talk a few times. Had he been personally offended? I recalled, after one such an incident, the perpetrator of such dastardly language called Wrath gay and Wrath had replied that he wasn’t into dudes but he also wasn't a jerk, which was why he wanted the idiot to shut up. That was cool of him, and I was glad that douche had been given a public dressing down before I had the pleasure of booting him from the guild.
But if he wasn’t into dudes, that pretty much shut down Lois’s theory about a secret crush, didn’t it? I didn't let myself contemplate for too long what he thought, now that he knew I was a woman.
“You know I don’t agree with that, Max. I think he likes you—like, a lot—and doesn’t know how to show his feelings. Some of the stunts he’s pulled sound an awful lot like peacocking.”
I visualized an elegant bird blasting its tail feathers upward, kind of like that scene in Jurassic Park where the dilophosaurus reveals itself to be venomous. That was a much more fitting image.
“Okay, we are not going down that road again,” I said, glancing at my Fitbit to see the time. “We can discuss your little theory once the weekend is over, hmm?”
“Sure thing. Are you going to be okay, Max?” she asked, concern filling her voice. “You know I would fly down there in an instant if I didn’t have Elsa to look out for. But as she is my spawn, I gotta put her first.”
“Yeah, yeah, love you too,” I replied, smiling. We hung up, and I filled my lungs with some deep, calming breaths, then headed back out to find Wrath with a half full cart of mostly veggies and practical meal choices. I was surprised, expecting a pile of junk. I nodded in approval at his choices, and we checked out.
The drive home was a bit livelier, with me turning on the sound system again and Wrath immediately jumping in on vocals. Not to be outdone, I proved I knew as many Beatles lyrics as he did.
We finally pulled up to my modest, two-bedroom cottage near the outskirts of town. It was not in the greatest shape, but I did my best to make it feel homey. Fall had been in the air for a while, so my flower gardens were no longer in bloom. On the front step, I had two bright pumpkins brought to me by one of my colleagues and member of my monthly book club, Naomi Winters. Folks said she was a witch—like the kind that flew around on a broom—and she had suffered for that idiocy. The trees around the house had turned wondrous shades of orange and yellow, and while the yard might need raking in some people’s op
inions (and I’m not saying my nosy neighbor Mrs. Howser’s name, but I’m thinking it), all in all, things were looking suitable for company.
Wrath jumped out of Stiles and I hadn’t even brought the Jeep to a full stop-and-lurch. Before I could protest, he’d grabbed his own bag and lugged it toward the house. He did at least fall in step behind me and had the courtesy to say, "Nice place."
I unlocked the front door, and we were instantly greeted by my twin black cats, She-Ra and Catra. I had read online that black cats were less likely to be adopted and also more likely to encounter violence in their lives due to superstition. My grandma had been the most superstitious woman in the South—which was really saying something—but thankfully my own head was free of such thinking. When I found the pair at the local cat rescue, it was love at first sight. I made sure to keep them inside and away from any harm, especially around Halloween.
Catra and She-Ra rubbed against our ankles, and we fought against their affection as we struggled to take off our shoes and hang up our jackets without tripping. And damn, there were those tattoo sleeves I’d spotted at the airport and those perfect arms and shoulders. Wrath reached down to give scritches to both cats around their ears, making baby-talk noises at them while doing so, which made him more attractive. Stupid hot Wrath and his stupid hot body and face and voice and hair.
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