Don't Hate the Player

by Alexis Nedd

  “Oh,” I say. “That might be a bad idea.”

  “I bet Fury wouldn’t be happy.”

  “If Byunki could see me now, I think he’d transform into Klio and decapitate me, so yeah. Next week would be worse. Would Unity be mad?”

  Jake breathes in deep. “Maybe. Probably. They kind of know I know you.”

  He had one job.

  “Jake! I asked you not to tell anyone!”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I told them I knew you before I ran into you, though. I haven’t told them your name or anything, and they don’t know about this.” He starts gesturing something between himself and me, then seems to second-guess whatever idea he’s trying to convey and not very smoothly pretends he was trying to grab his coffee from the cupholder. “We all saw you onstage when you played Vulcan and . . .”

  “And what?” Jake telling his team he knew me before I asked him isn’t as bad as I thought. It’s not the greatest, but it’s not as bad.

  “And I’d already told them about you. Before we even heard about the competition or got to the tournament. I was surprised to see you and told them you were the girl I was talking about.”

  “Why were you talking about me before the tournament?”

  Jake’s hand flies to the back of his head. I find it substantially less cute than I did in our previous conversation.

  “They’re my best friends, Em,” he begins quietly. He doesn’t want to say whatever he’s about to say. “When I transferred to Hillford West and I saw you on the first day, they were the first people I told. I was excited to see you, I guess. I thought we were going to be friends.”

  What is it about Jake that makes me feel like a huge jerk for assuming the worst of him? He’s not the only person to surprise me with hidden depths in the past week, but for some reason he’s the only one who makes me actually want to question what a cynic I can be.

  To be clear, I feel fully justified in being a cynic. Between my first time on GLO, Connor, my mom, and everyone else in my life that wants a piece of everything I can give them, I haven’t met that many people who won’t punish me for slipping up and trusting the wrong person. Or doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong words, acting the wrong way. My walls are here for a reason. Jake just keeps popping up inside them with zero effort, which raises some serious questions about the integrity of my defenses.

  “So when you told them you knew me . . .”

  “They only know you as K-O-D. It was a jokey codename, really stupid.”

  “Knights of Darkness?”

  Jake looks at me like I just sneezed out a tiny, nostril-sized unicorn. The look of disbelief on his face should make me feel worse, but it pleases me to know I can surprise him too sometimes.

  “Knights of Darkness. You remember,” he confirms. The smile on his face is so beautiful it melts away any anger I felt thinking he’d already betrayed me to Unity.

  You really think his smile is beautiful? a voice in my head asks. The voice sounds exactly like Penny.

  “I wonder if our high score is still there. It’s been, what”—I do the mental math in my head quickly—“five years?”

  “It’s still there. We’re not number two anymore, but we’re on the leaderboard. Like, eight or something.”

  I sputter with indignation. “Who the hell stole our spot? Jake, we have to—we gotta—What the hell is that noise?”

  There’s a beeping coming from my dashboard. When I look down to check it, an indicator light is on. I don’t need to check what it is, because two seconds after the beeping starts, I have my answer. My car’s trunk pops open and starts flapping in the breeze as I make a hectic turn onto a highway off-ramp.

  “The trunk!” Jake exclaims. Yes, thank you. I saw it too.

  “I’ll get it, I’ll get it,” I reply. “Just give me a second to find somewhere to pull over.” We’re about twenty minutes from the arena, on a smaller road that still has a decently wide shoulder. I remember to put my emergency lights on before pulling over (rather smoothly, I might add).

  “Let me help,” Jake says and swings out of the car before I have a chance to tell him this is clearly a one-woman job. I don’t remember putting anything in my trunk this morning, so I must have closed it over the strap on my field hockey bag or something equally innocuous. I hop out to join Jake, careful to walk around the side of the car that isn’t flanked by the right lane.

  “You have a bag or something; it kept the trunk door open,” Jake says when I catch up to him.

  “Let me move some stuff around so it doesn’t get stuck again. You can get back in the car, it’s fine.”

  “Nah, I’ll stay out here with you. Feels weird sitting in there by myself.”

  Can’t say I mind the company as long as it’s freely offered. I start shuffling stuff around in my truck. There are a couple of five-subject notebooks, a bunch of books from sophomore year that I never took out (Jake could probably use a few of those, now that I think about it), and the offending hockey bag with its thick plastic strap. I don’t like field hockey enough to forgive the bag for being annoying; if I had my way, I’d chuck the thing into the Schuylkill and be done with it. I’m still rummaging when Jake taps me on the shoulder.

  “Em, someone’s pulling up.”

  Great, a Good Samaritan. Does he want my field hockey bag? He can have it.

  When I turn around to see who our would-be rescuer is, I spot a tall, good-looking black guy with a shaved head, a Volvo, and—now that he’s out of his car and walking toward us—an uncomfortably familiar shirt. Blue cross. Black shield.

  “Is that—”

  “Bob. That’s Bob,” Jake says nervously.

  “Bob’s cool, though, right? He won’t mind that I’m driving you?”

  Jake looks from me to Bob and back at me. “I mean we’ll find out.”

  I’m gonna go ahead and say that Bob minds that I’m driving Jake today. Once he gets close enough to identify both of us, his eyebrows shoot up toward a hairline that does not exist, and he stops in his tracks.

  “Jake, what’s going on?” Bob shouts over the roar of traffic.

  Under his breath, I hear Jake mutter the word “language.” Who is he, Captain America? I feel like this isn’t going well already, so I step up and try to introduce myself.

  “Hey, you’re Bob, right? I’m Emilia.” Shoot. He didn’t know my name before, but he sure does now. Here’s hoping Bob’s as good a guy as his teammate is.

  “I know who you are,” he snaps. I’m not sure I deserve that tone, but if Bob is anything like Byunki, I’m not interested in taking his flavor of shit before I even get to the arena. “You’re one of Byunki’s. KNOX, Team Fury. Did he put you up to this?”

  Jake intervenes before I can ask Bob what “this” is. “No. She’s just giving me a ride so I don’t have to take the bus.” He waits a moment before seemingly deciding to go balls out on the truth. “She also gave me a ride back from the arena last weekend.”

  I admire his desire to come clean, but his timing could be a lot better. My trunk is still open, and there are cars whipping by us on the highway. I tell myself it’s the setting that’s making me nervous or the fact that Jake and I have been caught red-handed doing . . . nothing, honestly.

  Problem is that with Jake, doing nothing has increasingly begun to feel like doing something. Something I shouldn’t be doing. From the look on Bob’s face, it’s something Jake shouldn’t be doing either.

  “You neglected to mention that to the team, or to me,” Bob says with fury, ironically, in his voice. I thought Bob was supposed to be nice. Wasn’t Bob Unity’s dad or whatever?

  I steal a glance over at Jake, and the confusion on his face points instead to this kind of vitriol being massively out of character for Dad-Bob.

  “I know. I’m sorry. Em was being nice, and I didn’t want you guys to worry about me.”

  “I wasn’t worried about you because I thought you were smarter than this,” Bob says and has the gall to point t
o me when he says this. Excuse me, I’m right here. I’m a her, not a this.

  “Hey—” I begin. I’m not going to let this bald-ass rando talk to me or Jake like that. I’m beginning to think all tanks are assholes. Thank god Jake’s a healer.

  Before I can get a word in, Bob cuts me off. “I’ll ask again. Did Byunki put you up to this? Did he tell you to go for Jake after Round One or before we even showed up at the tournament?”

  Yo. I do not like Bob. I look over at Jake again, hoping he’ll defend me, and to his credit, he tries. Whatever he wants to say is mostly a sputtering mess, but I can make out his catchphrase. More of a catchword, really.

  “S-sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But Em’s not—”

  “Jake, it’s not your fault,” Bob says, rubbing his temples. Byunki didn’t tell me to mess with Unity before Round 2, but I definitely got under their skin entirely on accident. “Byunki probably—Ugh. Can you get in my car, please? I’d be more comfortable if I could talk to you alone, and we’re going to be late.”

  One more look at Jake tells me that this battle, if I can even call it that, is lost. I’m overwhelmed, Jake looks on the verge of tears, and I think Bob might literally be the devil.

  “It’s okay, Jake,” I say quietly. We have our answer as to whether or not this was bad. “I’ll see you . . . there, I guess.”

  Jake slips into the passenger side of Bob’s car, and anyone watching from the highway would be well within their rights to assume this is some kind of hostage trade. I’m waiting for Bob to toss me a suitcase full of hundred-dollar bills when he gets in his own car, slams the door, and glares at me through the windshield.

  Fine, dude, fine. It’s not fine, but I don’t know what else to do. I punch my hockey bag toward the back of the trunk, hit the button to close it, and carefully stalk back to my seat. Just go, both of you.

  When Bob peels out of the shoulder, I get a last glimpse of Jake through the passenger side window. “I’m sorry,” he mouths. I can’t blame him for saying it this time. I’m sorry too.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Team Unity Chat, Saturday, Round 2

  ElementalP: hellooooo is anyone here?? I’m in the parking lot and i need someone to help me carry all this stuff

  MUDD: i thought ki was driving in with you

  ElementalP: she is but she got *back pain*

  shineedancer: it’s boob pain. you can tell him it’s new boob pain.

  ElementalP: are you here muddy? Come help pls

  MUDD: ugh i just sat down i’m in the green room. Idk why bob thinks we need to decorate. it’s stupid.

  [BobTheeQ has entered the chat]

  MUDD: i mean yeah wow decorating the green room so helpful totally makes sense i’ll be right over

  BobTheeQ: stay in the parking lot we’re almost there

  ElementalP: uh who are you and what did you do with Bob

  ElementalP: my captain always punctuates and capitalizes

  BobTheeQ: it’s jake i’m typing for bob he’s driving

  MUDD: bob gave you a ride? lookit you, prince of unity over here. Bob never offered me a ride but thats super cool

  BobTheeQ: bob says he has curtains in the trunk and a bunch of other stuff he wants to know what you have

  ElementalP: some posters, a footstool, christmas lights

  shineedancer: my stuff is a secret you’ll see

  MUDD: i brought nothin but these skillz

  BobTheeQ: Quelle surprise.

  ElementalP: French? that’s gotta be Bob. Y’all parked?

  BobTheeQ: We are in parking lot C. Jake and I can bring our stuff in. Muddy, help the girls, we’ll meet in the green room.

  shineedancer: soon to be . . . ​the blue room

  BobTheeQ: How are we feeling today? We’re rested, we ate?

  MUDD: they put free red bulls in our room. i’ve had three so far

  MUDD: is it bad that i’m perceiving minutes as colors

  ElementalP: this wouldn’t happen if you behaved yourself

  BobTheeQ: Ki, can you please get Muddy a croissant on your way in?

  shineedancer: no i want to find out what color right now is

  MUDD: kind of mustard-y

  MUDD: wait now it’s black

  shineedancer: one croissant coming up

  ElementalP: is Jake still with you?

  BobTheeQ: I’m not letting him out of my sight.

  ElementalP: . . . ok?

  BobTheeQ: Just get to the green room as soon as Muddy shows up to help you. We need to be on time today.

  BobTheeQ: There’s something I have to tell you before the matches start. Today could change everything.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Emilia, Saturday, Round 2

  SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT about Byunki this morning, and I don’t care. On any other day his transformation from a walking rage comic into the chipper, positively bubbly dude standing in front of the Team Fury green room’s whiteboard would be a welcome and delightful mystery. Not so much today. All I can think about is Jake.

  While Byunki is chattering about Team Chronic, I’m seeing Jake death marching to Bob’s car with barely a backward look at me. Jake’s face through the window, mouthing, “I’m sorry.” Jake being in trouble with his friends because I was selfish enough to take up time he didn’t have, Jake immediately changing from the funny, sleepy boy who doesn’t need me to explain anything about myself into the competitor whose teammates see me as a viper waiting to strike. Jake’s smile when he saw I remembered Knights of Darkness after all these years.

  “KNOX, are you getting this?”

  Byunki, Team Fury, and Guardians League Online. These are the things I need to be thinking about. I blink to refocus my eyes and look up at the whiteboard.

  “I am,” I lie, and try my hardest to match Ivan’s, Han-Jun’s, and Erik’s contemplative expressions. Byunki must have had a double shot in his coffee this morning—he’s scribbling rapid-fire notes across the bottom three quarters of the board and not even noticing that his sleeve is rubbing half of the letters off every time he moves to draw a new diagram.

  Consequently, almost none of what he’s writing makes sense to anyone but him, but I studied Chronic well enough to fill in the blanks with my own knowledge.

  “Who do you think Ivan should prep as his secondary character in case he has to swap?” Byunki directs the question at me again. This morning may have been sheer interpersonal hell, but my heart rate picks up at the thought that Byunki is in a good enough mood to ask for my opinion on strategy. That, or the sugar bomb waiting in the bottom of the coffee Jake “stirred” has finally hit my bloodstream.

  And I’m thinking about Jake again. Right when Byunki needs me to literally get my head in the game.

  “Um, if Ivan gets the swap slot, and he should totally get the swap spot, he should prep, um . . .”

  That thing I do every day, the clean mind-sweep that pushes my real life away when I’m playing GLO and vice versa, is nonoperational this morning. I’m trying to restart it by key smashing every trigger in my brain, but instead of a blissful, focused reboot, I keep seeing and hearing the human error message that is Jake.

  This is my fault, I think, when I should be thinking about how Chronic is a particularly tough nut to crack. Who should get the swap spot? Come on, think.

  I should have let him hate me after the ice cream. He still wouldn’t have told. Why did I have to make sure he didn’t hate me? Each team gets one character swap after the clock goes off. The swap slot must be preassigned before the countdown and should in most circumstances go to the most versatile DPS. That means Ivan in this case. We’ll have to match his character to whatever tank Chronic is most likely to play.

  Is Unity going to kick Jake off the team? Did I take all of this from him?

  Byunki made me do the numbers on the likelihood of Chronic playing a tank one of Ivan’s better characters has a chance against, and it’s high they’ll pick Reigh or Grendel—the hero or the monster. V
ANE’s used to playing Morrigan, but Morrigan’s ghost type only has an advantage over heroes.

  I should have ghosted Jake after Round 1.

  If they go for Grendel, Ivan needs to hulk up and play Jubilee, the only monster DPS in the game. He can handle it. I just have to keep Pharaoh steady and do my job. Once we’re safely in Round 3, I have two more weeks to keep it together, and this tournament will be over. My carriage will turn back into a pumpkin, and I can go back to . . . ​my life, I guess. I’ll keep playing GLO for fun and look back on this month as a brief, shining moment of glory when I got to do exactly what I wanted to do. And I do it so damn well.

  “Ivan should stick Jubilee in his swap spot. Han and Erik will be fine with their main healers since Chronic focuses on strong defense around the payload, and we’ll need a monster if Chronic plays Grendel,” I say. With my computations complete, I feel more like Siri than Emilia or KNOX. “They’ll probably go with Grendel because they know you play Klio. Fire characters are weak to monster, and they might try to turn this into a tankfight. If we were trying to catch them out, we could give you the swap to play as a hero tank, but I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “Good.” Byunki sounds pleased. “Exactly what I was thinking too.” He takes a second look at me and nods to himself, like he’s confirming the results of some assessment I didn’t know I was taking. “That’s really good,” he says again and turns back to the board.

  Great, dope. Can we play now? I’ve almost regained my grip on the sweet spot of concentration I need to get through today, and any further hiccups will knock it right out of my hands.

  Hiccups like one of the arena handlers knocking on the door of the green room forty minutes early and letting himself in.

  “Team Fury?” The handler checks his keyboard. Uh, yeah, that’s us, man. Why is he coming into our green room if he’s not specifically looking for us? Whatever it is, he seems happy to be interrupting us—this random guy is grinning wider than anyone should be capable of this early in the morning (okay, it’s like 8:15; I’ve just had a long week).