“Making copies of those?”
“Not all of them, but a few key pieces to highlight your work. I’ll choose a few and get started and let you see. Then you’ll have them for marketing and promotion.” She stacked the pages she’d spread out and opened the flap on her light brown leather briefcase to slide them in.
Anxiety tumbled through Reese’s stomach. That was their only finished copy. Watching someone else handle it, take it away, made her edgy. She released a slow breath. She trusted Julie and knew Julie would get it right, just like Adam had. They were going to be a success.
“Nice to meet you, Adam. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other once things get moving along.” Julie pulled her gloves back on. “Want to grab a drink later?” she asked Reese.
“It’s Thursday.”
“Right. Geek night. I forgot. Give me a call this weekend and we’ll chat.” As she turned toward the door, she winked at Reese and mouthed, “He’s cute.”
Yeah, Reese already knew that. Too bad he didn’t feel the same.
After Julie left, Adam asked, “Geek night?”
Reese’s cheeks flamed. “Uh, yeah. That’s what she calls it. I meet with friends on Thursday nights.”
“I thought you always worked on Thursdays and that’s why you couldn’t meet about the comics. So what are you doing?” He sipped his coffee.
Reese bit down hard on her lip. She should be able to tell Adam. Of all the people she knew, he should understand. “We meet weekly to play a tabletop RPG.”
“So you’re a D&D girl.” She heard the smug smile in his voice.
“We don’t play Dungeons and Dragons. We play Hero’s Crusade.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s the same kind of game as D&D. We meet, we go on missions, we battle.” She reached for her bag and pulled out her notebook.
For the next two hours, they worked on story, occasionally being interrupted by customers looking for their favorite comics. Some stopped and listened to Adam and Reese discussing plot and characterization before asking for help. Others actually offered input. Useless input, but at least they were showing interest.
Reese glanced at the clock. “I need to get going.”
Adam looked at her and asked, “Game time?”
“Yeah.” She shoved her notebook into her bag. “If you’re not doing anything tonight, you could join us.”
As soon the words left her mouth, she regretted them. She shouldn’t assume he’d want to hang out with her more than what they needed to do for the book. Plus, her friends hated when outsiders showed up.
He seemed to weigh her invitation, which meant that she couldn’t rescind. The best she could hope for was that he wouldn’t want to.
“My mom will be here in a little bit to relieve me. Can you wait? I’ll follow in my car.”
Damn. How was she going to explain him to the guys? “Sure,” she answered with a tight-lipped smile.
As soon as he accepted Reese’s offer, Adam questioned it. Her face froze and he thought that maybe she didn’t really want him to come. Then why invite him? He didn’t even know why he’d accepted, other than he wanted to see a different side of Reese. They’d spent a bunch of time together, but he only got to know one side of her: the writer.
He knew the writer pretty well. She was controlling and demanding, yet scattered in her thought process. She was messy. It was the best way to describe her. He wanted to know if she was like that in every aspect of her life.
Before Reese had the chance to say or do anything else, his mom breezed through the door. Since he didn’t have classes on Thursdays, he’d started opening the store so she could have time off. She insisted that she close on those days, though. It was like she couldn’t be happy leaving the shop alone for an entire day.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, honey. Reese, it’s good to see you again. If you become any more of a fixture around here, I’ll have to put you to work.”
The offhand comment sparked something in Adam’s mind. Reese would be good here. She’d already proven it. She hadn’t mentioned anything about moving away from Chicago after graduating, so she might be a good fit to replace him. His mom would be in good hands and he would worry less.
Huh. It was a weird feeling to acknowledge that he would trust Reese with his mother. Well, at least the shop.
“You ready?” Reese asked.
“Yeah. See you tomorrow, Mom.” He grabbed his jacket and followed Reese out the door.
They drove down to the Lincoln Park area. They were near DePaul University and traffic was thick. Reese pulled into a small parking lot, but didn’t park. He pulled up alongside her.
She rolled down her window and said, “You can park here. They only have two guest spots. I know the neighborhood, so I’ll find something on the street.”
“No. That’s crazy. I’ll find metered parking.” Now he felt bad that not only was he intruding on her night with friends, but she’d lose out on free parking too.
“No.” She shook her head and waved. “Hold on. Let me call Lee and see if there’s another spot.”
She tapped away on her phone while they sat in their cars blocking the path for anyone else who might go by. “Awesome!” She yelled, “Take this spot. Lee has an assigned spot that he’s not using because his car’s in the shop.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” She rolled up her window and drove away, not giving him a chance to argue.
He pulled in and waited to see where she’d come from. A moment later, she was walking toward him carrying a grocery bag in addition to her usual one. He got out of the car and met her. He pointed to the plastic bag. “Should I have brought something?”
“Nah. This is just some chips and salsa. The guys will have pop. We take turns bringing food.”
She led the way to a three-story walk-up. The building was old, and it didn’t look like much had been updated, unlike many of the other buildings around them. Reese shoved through the exterior door and rang a bell. The buzzer sounded and she opened the interior door.
Adam continued to follow her up the stairs. When they got to the third floor, a door on their right opened, but no one greeted them. They took off their coats and hung them on an already overburdened coatrack.
He looked around the apartment. It was nothing special. A futon sat in the corner with a table smashed against it. They obviously had rearranged furniture to accommodate the table that three guys were sitting around.
“Hey, everyone. This is Adam.” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder at him. She put chips and salsa on the kitchen counter.
Adam stepped forward.
Reese pointed to one guy. “This is Lee. It’s his apartment.” Adam nodded at him. She moved to the guy on his left. “This is Chris. Where’s Kim?”
Chris toyed with the dice in front of him. “She had a final to study for.”
Reese looked at Adam over her shoulder. “Kim is the only other girl who plays. Now I’m outnumbered.” She turned to the last guy, who was setting up a folder in front of himself. “This is Frankie.”
“Are you playing?” Frankie asked.
Nothing like being friendly. “I’m not sure. I just came to hang out with Reese.”
“He can play an NPC for the night. That’s okay, right, Frankie?”
Adam nudged her shoulder. “NPC?”
“Non-player character. It’s a character that he can create for just tonight’s mission.”
“He doesn’t even know what he’s doing, Reese. Who the hell did you bring?”
Reese reached behind her and tugged on Adam’s sleeve. “He’s a friend who wanted to check out the game.” She pushed Adam toward the seat beside Chris and she sat between Adam and Frankie.
“Stop being a dick,” Lee said.
“Whatever.” Frankie set some papers behind his screen.
Adam leaned over and whispered, “I’m really okay just watching. I don’t want to mess up your game.”
Frankie was scribbling away behind his cardboard screen. Reese, Lee, and Chris all started talking about where they had left off last week, and Reese kept breaking off to offer Adam insight and explanation. It all sounded very complicated. The more he listened, the more he believed this had been a colossal mistake.
And then they started to play.
Frankie looked at him and said, “You can be a dwarf who is searching for the magic potion to save his village.”
“A dwarf?”
“Yeah.”
Reese snickered.
“What are you?” he asked her.
“An elfin archer.”
He could see her as an elf. Not much better than a dwarf. He looked at Lee.
“I’m a knight.”
Chris said, “I’m a sorcerer.”
“Why can’t I be a knight?”
“Because you’re just playing today. Knights play important ongoing roles,” Frankie answered. “Let’s start.”
As Frankie explained the mission for the night, Adam focused on what he needed to do. It seemed simple enough. Roll the dice to determine what happened. He could follow this.
Frankie continued, “You enter the cave and discover no light source. What do you do?”
Reese’s eyebrows nearly joined. “How big is the mouth to this cave?”
Frankie shrugged. “Six.”
“What does it smell like?”
Frankie narrowed his eyes. “Bat shit.”
Reese opened her mouth to argue, but Chris spoke quickly, as if he knew the question-and-answer session would keep going. “I’ll cast a spell to create an orb of light.”
“Your light has just awakened the ogre. Prepare to battle.”
Reese, Lee, and Chris argued over a battle plan.
Adam spoke up. “How about you guys distract him and I’ll sneak around him. Ogres are huge, right? And I’m a little guy.”
All three of them stared at him like he was nuts. But Frankie spoke. “No, I called for a battle. They can’t pretend.”
“Okay. You guys battle and I’ll wiggle my little ass by to collect the precious stones we need from the other end of the cave.”
Lee said, “I draw my broad sword.”
Reese added, “I have my arrows ready.”
They each rolled their dice and then Reese slid hers over to Adam again. He rolled a five.
Frankie laughed. “You just fell into a pit.”
“But we defeated the ogre,” Reese said.
“He didn’t complete his part of the mission,” Frankie said, pointing at Adam.
Adam asked, “How deep is the pit?”
“Eight feet.”
Frankie wanted him out of the picture. Adam knew there was something going on there. Lee and Chris didn’t seem bothered by his presence, but Frankie was a different story.
“So we rescue him,” Reese said. She winked at Lee. Seriously, a flirtatious wink. “Lower me down, would you?”
Frankie wanted to argue with the unorthodox plan. It was like he had a picture of how things were supposed to go and if someone deviated from his concept, he got pissed off.
It took three tries, but they rescued him. The game went on, and over the next couple of hours, Frankie had tried to kill Adam no fewer than four times. He’d only completed his mission to find the potion because Reese had been looking out for him.
Adam waited by the door as Reese said her good-byes so he could walk out with her. Over the course of the night, he’d seen another side to her, but what he found interesting was that she was the writer everywhere. Even here, her purpose was to build story. She had fun and got caught up in the details, details that had been lacking in the first written story she’d given him.
She gave Lee a huge hug and whispered something to him. Adam felt like a voyeur, but at the same time, he wanted to be close enough to eavesdrop. What did she have to say to Lee that she couldn’t say loud enough for everyone to hear? She hugged Chris too, but it was shorter, and when she pulled away, she told him to wish Kim good luck on her final. When she turned to Frankie, she just nodded and said good-bye.
Adam held her coat out for her to slide into. “All set?”
“Yep.”
They walked in silence down the flights of stairs. At the bottom, before going out into the cold, she said, “I should apologize.”
“For what?”
“Frankie.” She heaved out a sigh. “I really thought it’d be okay by now. He’s my ex-boyfriend.”
That explained a whole lot about how his night had gone.
Reese pulled her gloves on. “It’s been a long time, and we’ve continued to play the game every week. I’ve known these guys for years, and I didn’t want to leave the group because of my failed relationship with him.”
“I’m guessing you’ve never brought another guy to the game, though.”
“No. And I should’ve thought of that. I figured we’d be okay since you and I aren’t . . . I mean, we’re friends. It’s not like I’d ask my new boyfriend to hang out with my ex. But Frankie’s Frankie.”
“I had fun anyway.” He held the exterior door open for her.
“You did?”
“Yeah.” It was true. “I didn’t think I would, but watching you create a story on the fly like that was pretty amazing.”
Her cheeks were pink and he didn’t know if it was the cold or if she was blushing, but it was cute.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot,” she said.
“Lyrid’s origin, well, Alexis’s story. How much of that is autobiographical?”
They’d walked past his car and were nearly at hers. She bit her lip, but when her eyes met his, they were clear and sure.
“If you want to talk, get in the car. It takes forever for this beast to warm up.” She unlocked the doors and climbed in. He got in on the other side and waited.
She started the engine and stared out the windshield at the brick building in front of them. “How’d you know?”
“There was a lot of emotion when Alexis heard her parents fighting. The fear she felt came across the page too realistically.”
“Maybe I’m just that good of a writer.”
He chuckled. “I wasn’t implying that you’re not. It was a lucky guess then.”
“My dad beat my mom. I used to hear them fighting. He always had certain expectations for the house, my mom, me. If something wasn’t just right, she paid the price. So that part was real. Being struck by a meteorite and having the power to kill my dad? Not so much. When I was ten, my mom left him and took me with her. I haven’t seen him since.”
Adam was speechless. Although he’d suspected, he hadn’t really thought about what having this conversation would be like. He went with his gut. “That’s really shitty.”
She turned to look at him with a slight smile on her face. “Yeah, it was.”
He reached out and brushed her hair back over her shoulder away from her face. He needed to touch her, make sure she was okay now. Her smile widened, but her eyes were still sad. The air around them charged with tension.
Something in her car made a loud rattling noise. He stared at the dash like it might explode.
“Don’t worry. That’s just the heater letting me know it’s okay to drive now.”
“Thanks for telling me about your dad.”
“Thanks for asking.”
As if that took any effort. Pulling away from her now, though, did take effort. He popped the door open and stepped out. “See you this weekend? We can work at my apartment if you want. My roommate will be working late.”
“Sure. See you then.”
He closed the door and jogged back to his car, unsure of what he was thinking. Hanging out with her friends, making her ex jealous and getting off on it, and asking personal
details was not a way to steer clear of complicated relationships. But something about Reese kept drawing him in. He just didn’t know what to do about it.
Chapter 7
Reese had spent the last few days working furiously on rewriting her first comic so that she and Adam would have something to work on Saturday night. She’d been uneasy since their last conversation in her car. While she didn’t keep it a secret, she rarely talked about her dad.
Knowing that Adam had figured it out based on the comic should’ve made her feel better. It meant that she’d done something right with the story. However, there was always the fear that Adam would look at her differently now. They’d become friends and she didn’t want to strain that.
Of course, inviting him to hang out with her ex-boyfriend hadn’t been the smartest move. Frankie had been an asshole all night. Maybe it was time for her to move on and find a new group to play with, but she really hated the idea of walking away from Lee, Chris, and Kim. They’d become her friends as much as they were Frankie’s. That was probably the worst part of a breakup—deciding who got the friends. And with Frankie, so much of their lives had been intertwined: school, work, play.
Finishing the anthology and publishing it would be a definite sign of moving on. It was something that was completely separate from anything she’d done with Frankie. Adam’s ability to handle all the artwork made it that much sweeter.
She listened to her phone give her directions to Adam’s house. As she drove through the residential neighborhood, she immediately felt out of place. This was the kind of neighborhood she’d dreamed of living in when she was younger. After a string of crappy one-bedroom apartments with her mom, anything started to look good, but this neighborhood held a mix of single-family homes and two- and three-flat apartments. A light dusting of snow that had fallen earlier that day coated the lawns, making everything more picturesque.
This was a different kind of jealousy than she had when she went to visit Lee. His apartment was young, urban professional. It was about being part of city life, walking to the store and easy access to the beach. Adam’s neighborhood was more family-oriented, as evidenced by the number of minivans lining the street. She could imagine the trees being full of leaves in the summer, providing shade as kids ran through sprinklers.
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