End Game: A Gamer Romance

by Swallow, Lisa

  “Aaron?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this where you’ve been for a month?”

  “Yeah.” Still no turning around.

  “Then, I think you need to leave. This isn’t healthy. Do you stay here every time you come to Perth?”

  He turns and rests against the bench, teaspoon in hand. “Apart from the weekend at yours. I couldn’t bring you here; I’d need to explain and had to stay disconnected, y’know.”

  I don’t know why I do, I almost don’t know how I can, but I move to Aaron and wrap arms around his shoulders, and hold him to me. Wordlessly, we stand in a strange embrace, comforting but wrong at the same time. We don’t know each other enough, but too well.

  Aaron places a large palm across the back of my head, holding it against his chest, and I inhale his familiar mixed scents, the ones I did when I slept with the tee he left behind in Perth last time.

  My heart cries out for this man, for wanting him and wanting to take his heart in my hand and hold on until it works again.

  I draw my head away, tiptoe and place my mouth on his. My hurt at his behaviour switched to hurt for him, and I may be out of line here but I want to show him how I feel. That I don’t want to be Thor and Sin. His mouth is soft, the same as I remember, surprised at first but not resistant. He pulls away, and his eyes search mine. I cringe as I wait for him to tell me no, to push me away. Instead, he seizes my face in both hands and kisses me with a ferocity I’ve never felt before. I can’t move, entirely overwhelmed by the passion flooding from him as his lips move against mine, brutal, hard.

  My fingers tangle into his hair and I push myself against him, desperate for the arms to surround me instead, the way he did last time we were together. I want nothing more than Aaron to hold me away from the world, and let me do the same for him.

  Our mouths move apart and we stare back at each other, stalemate between our minds. Too much online communication prevents truly seeing what we mean in each other’s eyes.

  “Come home with me,” I say. “Stay at mine until you go back to Sydney. I don’t want you to be alone.”

  He releases me and drags a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I don’t want to…”

  “What?”

  “Confuse things. More. I’m so fucking confused, Evie. The kiss. This. You. Why didn’t you tell me to fuck off?”

  I shrug. “Because I care. You’re a good man. You lied, but I understand why. Now I think you told yourself the truth too and that helps you. Helps everything.”

  “I could check into a hotel.”

  “When are you returning to Sydney?”

  “Tomorrow evening.”

  “You can sleep on our sofa for a night.” I sweep a gaze over him. “Maybe the floor. You might not fit on the sofa. Or stay with the guys. Tyler and Cole might be okay with you staying.”

  He nods. “Maybe not such a bad idea.”

  “Hang on. You—grab some things.” He blinks at me as I drag my phone from my pocket. “Hey, you know how bossy I can be.”

  I text Tyler. No response. I guess the movie finished and he’s continuing his night out. I try Cole. Nothing.

  One last person.

 

 

 

  There’s a pause for a couple of minutes

 

 

 

 

  I smile down at my phone. Go, Erin. Cole has Erin on the highest pedestal, as if her head is in the stars and he’ll never reach them.

  Aaron returns with a rucksack, an old baggage label printed PER attached to a handle. “Are they okay with me staying?”

  “Both guys are busy. Come back to mine.”

  32

  I’ve spent my time in situations with tension as thick as fog before, but nothing matches this. The awkwardness around each other the first time we met isn’t here, but the truth recently spilled creates something impenetrable. The kiss crossed the gulf momentarily, reawoke everything smothered by my anger with him.

  “I have an early day tomorrow. Back to the WAAnimeCon,” I explain as he drops the bag on the floor in the lounge. “I can sit up for a while but it’s already eleven.”

  Aaron lowers his frame into an armchair. “Sure, I understand.”

  Confused, chest tight, I dig out spare bedding and drop the duvet and pillow on the sofa. He stands and the obvious size difference confronts us both.

  “Maybe I’ll sleep on the floor behind the sofa,” he suggests. “Probably more comfortable.”

  “Sure.” I drag another duvet from the laundry room, as a makeshift, useless mattress. “Here.”

  “Mind if I sit up for a bit?” he asks.

  This is weird, like he’s a house guest and not my lover.

  Um. Yes, that’s exactly what he is, Evie.

  “Sure.”

  “And we can talk more tomorrow?”

  “Right.” I wrap my arms around my chest.

  Jesus, this feels like the morning after our first, forever branded in my mind, night together. Aaron stands, towering over me. “I’m not going to kiss you because I’m scared I won’t want to stop.”

  “Okay.”

  Look at me and my elegant, one word responses.

  “I’m just going to spend some Thorsday time.” He unzips his bag. “Demons to slay.”

  How many has he killed in his virtual world? And has he slain the demons in his real world yet? I watch as he pulls the laptop from his bag, and opens the lid as he sits.

  Not enough, because they’re still clinging to him.

  *

  Alone in my bedroom, I resist the temptation to log on myself, but to play my alternative character I level in secret on the days I can’t face Aaron online. Once I’ve processed everything that’s happened offline, I guess I’ll deal with our online relationship.

  I’m exhausted by the day, and fall into bed and dreams. My subconscious runs through my time in the vendor’s alley, the faces and people—and the panic. I have one of my common ‘naked in public’ dreams, which I long ago figured out was a metaphor for anxiety.

  And I dream of Aaron. Pictures of moped crashes, of the world filled with blinding red and pain. My eyes snap open at one sickening image and I’m set to climb out of bed and do something—draw, read, whatever. Sleep is fitful, and I panic I’ll sleep through my alarm in a few hours.

  There’s a gentle rap on the door and for a moment I’m sure I imagined it, until the noise comes again. I walk over and place my ear to the door. Giggling and low voices.

  “Evie?” says a voice close to the other side.

  Aaron.

  I pull down the handle and open to face the tired lines on Aaron’s face. He nods over his shoulder. “Your housemate and significant other came home and are doing things on the sofa I really shouldn’t, and don’t want to, hear.”

  I bite back a laugh at the sight of him with his duvet in his arms and pleading look. An exclamation from Erin indicates her and Cole are certainly not just friends anymore. Aaron grimaces. “Please can I sleep in here? I promise I’ll stay on the floor.”

  I pull Aaron by the arm into the room.

  And snicker. “Oh, man. Poor you. At least they didn’t switch the light on.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut. “Yep.”

  And we’re here again. The tension even the Fabled Felborne sword couldn’t slice, intensified by the down and dirty going on outside the room.

  What’s even less unhelpful? He’s shirtless, and my room may be dim but there’s no hiding that the body I once kissed and licked pretty much all over is half-revealed.

  “I put my jeans back on,” he says. “So you could control yourself.”

  “That obvious, huh?”

  Right now I’m glad that a) I wear flannel pyjamas of the distinctly
unsexy nature, and b) he isn’t naked.

  Aaron drops his duvet to the floor with a smile. “I know you’ve an early start, I won’t disturb you any further.”

  I’m torn between asking him to, and not. No, he’s out of my physical life again tomorrow, I don’t want more mind-blowing reasons to wish he wasn’t.

  Aaron lies on his back looking at me. “You okay?”

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “You’ve said plenty today. I’ve a lot more I want to say but don’t know how to.”

  I shuffle off the bed and onto the floor to sit next to Aaron, and he sits, propping himself up by his arms behind, muscles flexing as he does.

  We don’t speak, we both know what’s wrong, and how unless we’re together things could never be right.

  “The way you kissed me before,” I whisper. “That scrambled my head. Confused me.”

  “I shouldn’t have. Sorry, I want you so bloody much, but I think when you’ve had a chance to process this, you’ll agree we should stop this.”

  “No. I don’t agree,” I blurt. “Because I want you to stay in my life and not just in a game. I want Aaron, not Thor. Just tell me I can’t have you because you belong to her, and I’ll drop this. That’s the only thing I need to process.”

  He sits forward and chews a lip as he focuses on me through the dim. “I belong to confusion.”

  “Profound.”

  He laughs. “Pain in the ass.”

  “It would be so much easier to tell you to walk away,” I whisper.

  “And I thoroughly expect you to.”

  Tears threaten, the day’s physical and emotional exhaustion catching up. “But I don’t think I can, and I don’t know why.”

  Aaron sits forward and pulls me towards him. “I’ve been a flaky, dishonest jerk, why wouldn’t you?”

  I cup his cheek with my palm. “Agreed. But despite that, something about you won’t leave me. And now I understand more about why… that makes things harder.”

  “Because you think I still love Jessica?”

  “No, because you fought to be what she needed and sacrificed some of yourself at the same time. I worry you won’t be able to let go.”

  “I let go because of you,” he whispers. “I’d locked down the part of myself that could be free to love someone because I didn’t feel I deserved to be happy. When you made me happy, everything felt wrong.”

  “And now?”

  “Everybody deserves to be happy. I can’t live my life in the shadows.”

  “Or behind a keyboard.”

  He laughs softly. “Or that.”

  The room falls silent for a few moments and the tension washes over me. I should sleep, but I can’t.

  “Come here, unicorn girl,” he says in a soft voice. Aaron pulls me onto his lap and places hard hands against either side of my waist. He slides them along my back and looks up. “I’m here because of you. I walked away because you shone a torch into the shadows, even though you probably never knew. I hid everything from you, and then realised I couldn’t. Is it too late?”

  I touch his lips. “I don’t know.”

  “I understand.” Aaron takes my hand in his, tiny against his broad palm. He traces the palm, brow tugged together as he does. “One more thing I need you to know.”

  My stomach clenches. Oh, no. More secrets? “Right.”

  His earnest blue eyes meet mine. “I fell in love with you. I refused to acknowledge it for months, but right from the moment I saw you as Evie, not Sinestre, I knew. Each moment I spent with you, the more I felt I already knew you.”

  “The first time?”

  “Yeah. Then how I felt when I saw you talking to Marshall. I wanted to take you and protect you from assholes like him. Something stabbed at my heart. After years, I felt something. Was already happening before I met you.” He laughs. “I seriously used to wait for you to log on so I could hear your voice, listen to you talk about your day with your mates and I craved to be with you. Is that weird?”

  “Um.” I wrinkle my nose. “No, because I used to do the same. You have one hell of a sexy voice, Aaron.”

  “I’m glad I wasn’t a disappointment when we met.”

  “Oh no. No way. But falling for you and you disappearing every time bloody hurt. You snuck away with a piece of me each time.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So you should be!” I laugh in an attempt to lighten the moment but all I can hear is Aaron telling me he loves me. Do I love him? I don’t know. How can I open up to him when he keeps hurting me by walking away?

  “I need to trust you before I can love you,” I say in quiet voice. “But if I didn’t feel something, I would’ve kicked your ass out of here.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  The physical need that takes over when I’m with Aaron is tempered by a different need, one to believe what he’s saying and be what he says I am.

  “And just because you told me you loved me, I’m not having sex with you tonight,” I inform him. “I have a busy day tomorrow.”

  Aaron laughs at me. “Pragmatic lady.” His hands slip under the printed top and lightly brush my skin. “I don’t think I want to let you go yet, though.”

  “Same.”

  He moves, lips approaching mine, and his words play around with my thoughts and self-control. This time I do mean it— I need this between us to be more before I give myself over to him again. Because this time I wouldn’t only give him my body, but another piece of my heart I don’t want to lose.

  33

  Second day at the Con, selling my wares, I expected to relax. The surroundings match yesterday, I’m confident I know how to deal with most transactions, and can proudly mark some items as ‘sold out’, but one major thing’s different.

  Aaron’s with me.

  He sits alongside, sometimes quiet, choosing the right moments to involve himself if the stall gets busy. Otherwise he chats to me about the events revolving around us, brings food and drink. And spends a lot of time with his hand on my knee.

  Erin attempted a shocked lecture over Aaron spending the night in my bed, and when I explained the reason he had to leave sleeping on the lounge room floor, her lecture abruptly stopped. Sure, he could’ve slept on my bedroom floor, but that didn’t happen.

  I steal a look at him as I notice two passing girls double-taking and whispering. Despite the lack of sleep last night, he’s brighter than yesterday, skin less pallid. His sad aura has lifted and I like to hope in some way that’s me. Or at least him talking to me about the situation.

  “Shame you didn’t have your Paladin costume with you,” I say as a customer walks away. “Although you get as much attention wearing that?”

  I point at his woollen hat, mine he borrowed this morning. Bright pink with daisies adorning the band and a prancing unicorn with rainbows patched on the front. Despite the bizarreness, his features sharpen under the style. “A bit different to your usual fashion choice, although you stand out as much.”

  He grins and pulls off the hat, hair mussed beneath, and I find myself smoothing it down before thinking. He watches as I do, and a chest-constricting moment passes. Is he about to kiss me?

  “Oh, hey! Watcha doing here?”

  I look up to Tyler and Cole, laden with bags. “Hey, guys,” replies Aaron with a smile.

  “Thought you were headed home today?” Tyler asks stiffly.

  “Tonight.”

  I look down and chew my lip. Tonight.

  “You gonna be around online more?” continues Tyler. “We miss you.”

  Aaron laughs. “Naw, you guys… so sweet.”

  “Although Evie doesn’t,” continues Tyler. I frown. “She’s stepped up to damage dealer again. You come back, you might push her out and she’ll be pissed off this time.”

  “Tyler, really? Firstly, this is the only time you’ve seen Aaron for weeks, and secondly, do we immediately need to talk about raiding?”

 
“The team is coming together nicely; I just need to know if Aaron wants in so I know where to fit him.”

  Aaron’s surprise at Tyler’s sudden intense reaction matches mine. “I understand, man. I’ve been away. I’m back to normal next week. Take me or leave me, I can go elsewhere.”

  Tyler narrows his eyes. “I’m worried Sin might go elsewhere if you upset her again.”

  I pull my head back at Tyler’s confrontational style. The two guys with him chat, not listening to this weird conversation. “Are you just talking about the game?” I ask him.

  Tyler’s eyes remain fixed on Aaron and I click what’s happening. Is Tyler standing up for me in some weird, protective way? I’ve never complained to him about how Aaron made me feel, and I’d never guess Tyler was intuitive because… well, because he isn’t.

  “Do you know how important end game is right now? We’re points away from being the first guild on the server to complete Felborne Hold. The Scarlet Knights guild are this freaking close to beating us.” He holds his fingers millimetres apart. “I can’t have the team fucked up again. I can’t have Evie walking away from the guild because somebody else is unreliable.”

  Scrap that notion. This is all about the game.

  “People’s lives interfere sometimes, Tyler,” I cajole. “I don’t think Aaron has chosen to go through what he has the last few weeks.”

  “Leave it,” Aaron warns. “My private life stays private. Thanks.”

  Tyler looks around him for a moment, eyes flicking in his head as he thinks. He moves around the table and leans closer to me.

  “Don’t let him fuck things up, Evie.”

  I tip my head in surprise. “Nobody screws around with me, remember? Otherwise I don’t heal them.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t end up having to heal yourself. We can ditch him.”

  I expect Aaron to watch the conversation, ask what we’re talking about, but he’s distracted by a pretty girl blushing as he guides her towards my artwork folders.

  “Thanks for the concern, Tyler,” I say and place my hand on his. “I’ll be a-okay.”

  He chews inside his cheek and looks between us. “We’re gonna do this. I’m gonna be the one walking around with the Kingmaker title before the Scarlet bloody Knights.”