Dewey Belong Together

by Smartypants Romance

  “Max,” I panted, pulling back from her, my curiosity rearing its head. I didn’t want to take advantage of her in any way. "How long has it been since you've been with a man? Or have you ever …?"

  "Condoms are in my purse, and I'm on the pill. You still wanna talk?" she asked, grinding her pelvis against mine, creating sparks behind my eyelids and riotous joy in my nether regions. I opened my eyes and peeled her off me a little, so we could actually have a conversation.

  "Yeah, I do," I replied.

  She looked at me in surprise, like she thought pointing out the condoms would be enough for my morals to take a vacation. "Fine, but short version," she said, twining our feet together. "I'm not a blushing virgin. I've been sexually active since I was sixteen and went to college. I experimented a lot and enjoyed sex. Just nothing for the last ten years."

  "Ten years, Max? Yeah, I’m going to need the long version too,” I said, my eyes widening. It was hard to believe someone with as much confidence as Maximus_Damage had trouble finding partners. There was something else going on here. I wanted to discover what it was, to unlock every mystery around this woman.

  She untangled our feet and sat up. "Fine, but consider the mood killed," she said in a waspish tone.

  "Roger that," I replied, also rising to sitting. I bumped our shoulders together in a friendly manner, hoping it would spur her to talk.

  "You know, we could have skipped the tragic backstory part of the evening and jumped right to sexytimes. But no, you wanted exposition. Remember that when your balls turn cerulean.”

  She grabbed her jacket and hugged it to her chest, and I suddenly felt bad about wanting to hear her story, especially if she needed a freaking security blanket to tell it. I was about to stop her when she took in a big breath and began to speak.

  “Remember when I showed you my scar? Well, there are more under my shirt.”

  I nodded.

  “That was ten years ago. I was changing my tire and the one guy messed me up good, physically, but then there was all the mental crap that came from the aftermath.” She twisted at her shirt with her fingers, her discomfort evident. “Mostly being scared of people, of men. I'm sure you can psychoanalyze why I play as a man online after being victimized by them, and why I haven't let a man touch me in all that time. I also started to act differently, but folks in Green Valley were understanding and supportive. I wore baggier clothes, took the cataloging job at the library instead of working with children, stuff like that. People have been kind to me and cut me a lot of slack for not actively participating in things in town. Everyone remembers ‘poor Maxine Peters and those awful bruises.’ I never pressed charges, you know. I was scared of the gang, and even though one of the men eventually pulled the guy who was attacking me away, I still thought about retribution. The Wraiths were no joke back then."

  "You started to game after your attack," I stated, trying to repel the vision of her beautiful face covered in bruises that popped into my mind.

  "Well. I gamed a little in college, but yeah, I got serious after the attack. I wanted to feel in control, like there was a place I could win. So I devoted my time to becoming the best player I could be. And playing as a guy … after everything I told you about my initial experience gaming as a girl, right on the heels of the attack, I guess I felt safer and more confident when other people thought of me as a man." She made a face. "As a feminist, I can honestly say that interpretation doesn’t sit right with me, but it fits the best.”

  “It sounds to me like you had an incredibly traumatic physical experience involving men, and then when men started attacking you verbally online right after that, it was just too much. It doesn’t make you a bad feminist, or even a bad person that you—consciously or not—hid your gender.” I so wanted her to believe me, and I was in awe of her coping skills, to be honest. Some people would have crumbled altogether under the combined pressures she’d faced, but not her.

  “So wait, does this mean I’m forgiven?” she asked in earnest.

  “There was never anything to forgive, Max. I’m the one who assumed you were a guy. I never even thought to ask if you were anything else. Plus, you were under no obligation to share your gender with any of us.” As the words came out of my mouth, I knew them to be true.

  “That’s a pretty big departure from what you were saying yesterday.”

  “Maybe I’ve had some time to think about what you said,” I replied.

  “Well, I’ve had a change of heart too. I don't want to be invisible anymore. No more Maxine the Mouse. I'm telling the guild that I'm a girl when we go back to playing. It's past time." She belched loudly, and I snickered, then my mood sobered.

  “You scared of what will happen? Not to stroke your ego or anything, but Maximus_Damage is a fairly well-known player. Some of that crap—the harassing messages at the very least—will probably start up again.”

  She nodded slowly, a sour look on her face.

  “Well, that’s what the block and report functions are for. I’ve got a thicker skin than I did back then, Wrath. I can handle it. And if people in the guild are put out, well they’ll have to build a bridge and get over it.” A beat of silence passed. “Man, why’d you have to kill the mood? I could have gotten laid,” she whined, lying back down and picking long blades of grass.

  “It’s okay. This isn’t exactly how I’d pictured our first time anyway.” The words were out of my mouth before I could think, and I felt Max freeze next to me. Realizing the implications all at once, I froze too, then released a nervous laugh that sounded like a hyena.

  “Our first time,” she said slowly. “Our first time? You thought about our first time enough that you knew how you wanted it to go? You thought about it before you came here!”

  I nodded miserably, waiting for her mind to take the next leap of logic.

  “You thought about us being together when you still thought I was a guy. Oh my god, and I attacked you with my mouth without even realizing that you might be gay. I’m sorry!” she said, sitting back up and patting me on the shoulder.

  “Wait, what? I’m not gay,” I replied, wanting that cleared up first. “But I suppose I was open to the idea. I mean, I thought I kind of was, but just for you. That’s part of what I was coming here to figure out, if I’m bi, or pansexual, or maybe even demisexual. I know I’ve never been attracted to another guy except for you—at least when I thought you were a guy. It’s complicated, okay? You being a guy made my life complicated.” Oh my god, what was I doing telling her all this? I was like the thing that couldn’t shut up.

  “How complicated are we talking here?” she asked, still stroking my arm, whether from sheer drunkenness or a legitimate desire to make me feel better, I didn’t know or care. It just felt good to have her touching me.

  “Complicated as in I’ve been in therapy since I was eighteen. My counselor’s name is Tom. When he finds out he’s been counseling me through the agony and ecstasy of being in lo—of liking a girl, he’s going to die laughing.”

  Suddenly, both of her arms were around me, and we sat there, cleaved together while she snuggled her head into my shoulder and patted my hair. “Holy flying fuck, Wrath. I sent you to therapy because you had a crush on me. That’s … I mean … I’m so sorry. I never would have concealed my gender if I thought it would confuse someone else. I can’t imagine someone liking me like that. So much that it hurt them.”

  “It was a privilege to be hurt by you,” I murmured into her hair, inhaling the coconut scent of her shampoo. “And I learned a lot about myself. Most of my time with Tom turned into dealing with other issues that came up anyway, so don’t apologize.”

  “No wonder you were gaping at me when I tried to shake your hand at the airport,” she snickered, which I blamed on the tequila. “You looked so shocked. You were waiting for some guy as dreamy as you are.”

  “I am not dreamy,” I countered, feeling about ten feet tall as she told me this. I had been so worried about her reaction to the revelation ab
out my sexuality that her compliment was like a soothing balm.

  “Mmm, yes you are, Jonathan. Kiss me, Jonathan. Please. I feel so—”

  She quickly turned her head and vomited on a patch of lawn perilously close to where she’d just been lying.

  Okay, time for bed. To sleep, that is. No way was anything else happening when she was this wasted, and I had seen that much of her stomach contents. We sure as hell weren’t going to be sleeping out here on the grass, and I heard the rumble of car engines, indicating that the party was breaking up. Time to take charge and make a plan. I only had one beer, so I felt good to drive but that meant wrangling the keys from Max. She was lying on her side, her eyes closed, her hands over her stomach. That’s when I remembered that I had our coats, and I fumbled through her pockets. Bingo! The keys to her beat-up Jeep in hand, I gently shook her shoulder.

  “Come on, time to get going, sweetheart,” I said, smiling as the affectionate term fell from my lips as naturally as breathing.

  “’M not sweet,” she replied, shoving at my hand. Okay, so maybe she was more of a crankypants right now. I stood and reached down, hauling her to her feet by lifting her under her armpits. Not the most graceful move, but it was all I had. She was determined to stay curled on that patch of grass, right next to where she blew chunks. Once she was standing, she looked at me sleepily, blinking slow like a cat.

  “I have a feeling this will be a slow process,” I said, putting an arm around her waist and leading us clumsily through the dark. I didn’t spare a glance at my watch, but I knew I was way late taking my meds. And I wasn’t going to get a full night’s rest at this rate, which really irked me. I also wondered if Maxine would remember any of our conversation in the morning. We shared a lot of intimacy tonight, and at least I felt relieved knowing that if I had to give her a play-by-play, she was way too chill to freak out.

  Chapter 10

  Maxine

  “Strategy and in-game mechanics will always be my first love.”

  ― Maximus_Damage

  I remembered every detail of my drunken conversation with Wrath the night before, and I was freaking out. While nursing a hell of a hangover, I might add. That basically summed up my morning—trying to act as normal as possible around Wrath while avoiding all talk of last night. We chipped in to make a glorious blueberry pancake breakfast and ate and made idle conversation about the game and our fellow guildies.

  Despite feeling like there were several vuvuzelas going off in my brain, I pondered the events of last night. I had introduced Wrath as one of my oldest friends that I had met online. It was almost not a lie. I felt like maybe Wrath and I could be friends for real if I let my guard down and we had some honest conversations about some of the more outrageous stunts he had performed against me in the game.

  Wrath had taken control last night to get us home safely, and as we slowly drove down the twisty mountain, I had been hyperconscious of the fact that I was sitting next to a man who was willing to overlook the fact that Maximus_Damage had a penis for the sake of my glowing personality. And since he’d been here, I’d shown him the trifecta of disdain: snark, sarcasm, and derision. Well, except for when I let him feel me up last night. Or had I tried to get him to do it and he refused? I winced at the memory of throwing myself at him. Why had I done that? Was it simply because I was horny and it had been so long, and Wrath was so damn pretty? Was I that shallow?

  Of course there was another interpretation, one that reared its ugly head. That I liked Wrath, enjoyed his company, and was also attracted to him. Ugh, of course I didn’t like Wrath! He was a jerk. Online he was a jerk, I corrected myself. Offline, he was doing well at beating down my defenses and being a decent companion at the same time.

  Like right now, I had expected him to make fun of me to no end for bodily throwing myself at him last night, but he was quiet. And that’s when I remembered another little facet of our conversation—our first time. Wrath hadn’t just had a crush on me. If I was right, he still had a big, raging, wild crush on me as he was still envisioning our first time together. Implying there would be more sexytimes to follow. So that’s why he was quiet; he was embarrassed too.

  I glanced at my Fitbit to get the time and realized that I had precious few minutes to initiate a conversation about this. Preparations were already underway out back, where my colleagues and fellow book club members, Naomi Winters and Finley Granger, along with Finley’s partner, Zeke Masters, were doing final checks and setup for Medieval Day, a festival I had planned for my friends and guildies.

  “So,” I began, floundering for the right words. “I think we should talk about last night. About what I did.”

  “About what you did,” Wrath said evenly.

  “Yeah. None of it was cool. I dragged you to a party, then left you with strangers so I could go get smashed on tequila, and then I quite literally threw myself on top of you. I don’t even know what to say. I don’t normally do stuff like that. Drink to that extent, I mean. I was so determined to come out of my shell this weekend and not expose you to Maxine the Walking Yawn.” I knew I sounded like I had rehearsed this speech in the mirror—which I had.

  “Nice recap. I was there, as you may recall. And I was the sober one, so I remember the works. You should also add that you never said a thing about staying out so late so I could have gone back to your house first to grab my bag. That wasn’t cool, Max.”

  “Your bag? What, like a man purse?”

  “My medical bag, okay? You have secrets, great, well so do I, and one of them is I can’t be late with my medication or go without decent sleep. And because of you, I have done both. So forgive me if I’m feeling ungenerous, but I feel like a piece of roadkill right now, and it’s not from booze.”

  I felt like someone walked over my grave. “Oh my god, Wrath. Do I need to take you to the clinic? Are you going to be okay? Any pain?”

  He let out a small noise of frustration. “You don’t need to baby me because I’m on a bunch of medication. I’m not in pain, I’m just a bit messed up right now, and I need to get my meds in me ASAP now that I’ve eaten.”

  “Okay. I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but I really am so, so sorry. I thought you would have a good time last night, so I didn’t ask you if you needed anything before we went up the mountain and …”

  “Stop rambling, please,” Wrath interrupted. “I get it. You’re sorry, you didn’t know. I think it’s best if we don’t talk anymore right now. Can we turn on some music and get these dishes done?”

  “No, go take your pills. I’ll clear everything up,” I replied, shaken at his words. My breakfast suddenly felt like a huge lump of guilt in the pit of my stomach.

  Chapter 11

  Jonathan

  “You know, I bet if we hit up that line of goblins just right, we could drag them into town for some mayhem.”

  ― Wrath

  By the time we had arrived back at Chez Max last night, my legs were shaking and my heart was racing. I was dizzy, and my head felt strange. This is why I’d stayed on my medications faithfully for seven years—I felt like crap when I went off them. No matter how bad the side effects were, nothing was like missing a dose. Which was why I never did.

  “I saw your legs shaking,” she said as I got up from the table. “Do you need something sweet to drink? Some juice? My mom gets hypoglycemic and needs sugar when that happens.”

  I rolled my eyes but decided to let her coddle me a little, mostly because it would make her feel better, and I cared very deeply about her and her feelings.

  “It’s not my blood sugar,” I replied. “I need a glass of juice or water, you can do that for me if you like. I’ll take my pills, rest for an hour and be fine. Does that jive with whatever you have planned for the day?”

  “Absolutely. And it’s not a big swan through town today; we’re staying here for the afternoon. I have something planned that I think you’ll like.” She chewed on her lower lip, her anxious tell.

  I thought about
how those lips felt against mine last night and instantly banished the image. She had been drunk. It wasn’t right to fantasize about the kiss that set me on fire. Max opened the door and stepped to the side so I could go ahead of her. I hustled to my bedroom, where I sat on the bed and got my med bag from the bedside table. It contained five pill bottles and a little tray I could pour them into. Two meds for severe anxiety—Max never knew how scared I'd been yesterday when I saw those horses, and she never would—and three meds for bipolar disorder.

  I'd started manifesting symptoms of the disorder when I was around eighteen, after my father died and I'd started gaming. I'd have a short temper or say something nasty I didn't mean, but couldn't seem to hold it in. I was tired and could sleep for days, and then other times it was like someone had dialed me up all the way and I couldn't sleep. I’d forget to eat or shower, forget everything but what I was focused on. And I mean laser focused. I would go from feeling despondent and angry to excited and full of energy. Carrie Fisher, one of my idols—because hello, General Organa—said that living with bipolar disorder was like having your brain “go very fast or very sad. Or both. Those are fun days.” And she was right.

  Luckily, I was already seeing Tom, and over time he recognized my symptoms for what they were and got me in with a psychiatrist to put me on meds. At first it was a lot of trial and error, trying to find the ones that worked and didn't make me worse than the disorder on its own. And I discovered that no medication made all of the symptoms go away all the time. Then after a few years, my meds failed, and I had to start over with new ones. Unfortunately, during one such medication trial I played Magecraft for twelve hours straight, during which I bashed Max to every officer in our guild. I was paranoid that I’d lose her if she became an officer. Not that I had her at that point, but you can't logic with bipolar when it wants you to believe something is true.