When I woke up, Cale was missing from my bed. I squinted at the clock to see it was nearly eleven in the morning. My head pounded from too much whiskey and less than three hours of sleep. On wobbly legs, I made my way to the sitting area for breakfast.

Salvo was the only one at the table. His eyes followed me as I sat. “What happened last night? Cale is already in-game and you look like you just came back from a weeklong bender.”

“No clue what’s up with Cale, other than he’s probably a little embarrassed over getting caught with a prostitute,” I said and bit into a sausage link, the grease burst into my mouth in a delicious geyser. If there was a better cure for a hangover than greasy food, I’d yet to find it. It also did wonders for the soul. Helped to relieve the constant nagging in my head called a conscience.

I had no intention of ever talking about what happened between the two of us that night. It’s not like it would ever happen again. I’d been the one who made that call. And I was perfectly okay with that. Right?

He rolled his eyes. “Is that what you’re calling yourself these days? A prostitute?”

“Why would you think I was talking about me? I was talking about Angel,” I said and gulped a hot sip of coffee.

“Liz,” his eyes met mine. “Explain to me why his dirty drawers are sitting on your couch over there if you didn’t sleep with him last night.”

“Shit,” I said and smacked my head against the tabletop. “You tell a single person and I’ll cut your balls off.”

He raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me. “What a beautiful and rock-solid foundation for your newfound relationship. Give me all the details.”

“Not a relationship. We fucked once and never again.” Knowing he wouldn’t let it go until he had some spicy detail, I added, “He’s got a big dick. There, are you happy?”

Salvo choked on a bite of scrambled eggs.

“What about you? How was your night?” I asked, figuring he’d been dying to wait his turn and more than happy to change the subject.

“I fucked a senator’s wife last night,” Salvo shrugged. “And the senator.” He popped a grape in his mouth and grinned. “Look, pictures,” he said excitedly and whipped his phone around, showing me more of a very conservative senator than I’d ever needed or wanted to see.

A few things happened at once when I got back into the world of Arcadia. The soothing female voice alerted me to a crap ton of unopened messages in my inbox. Mainly from people who I’m assuming watched my rankings match. Some headings weren’t exactly what I’d call polite. As usual, I left them all unread and moved on.

Then Angel messaged me, asking for some one-on-one time. As tempting as it may have been to use the opportunity to ask her if she had a dick, I politely declined. There was someone else I was looking for.

I wandered aimlessly around Lighthall City until I figured out how to use friend finder and found Cale at the smithy. He glanced up briefly at me and returned his focus on the blade he was busy hammering away at. The only sign he’d spotted me was a tightened jaw and glower.

So much for not making it weird.

“Not even going to say, hello?” I asked and crossed my arms. The heat of the forge already burning my eyes.

His reply came in bursts between strikes. “I’ll just… finish… this sword… and we’ll… go level.” He plunged the blade into a bath with a hiss and great clouds of steam. A dissatisfied grunt left him as he examined his work and he tossed the unfinished blade into a barrel with other half-finished armaments. “I’ve been thinking, we should just power through this shit. If we have a chance of finishing things, we need to max our levels so we’re not so weak. We need to go back to grinding quests. Dungeons are taking way too long.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I put my hands in my pockets and shifted uncomfortably from the balls of my feet to my toes a few times.

He looked me up and down. “That the look you got from the matches? It suits you.”

I brushed my fingers across the soft buzz cut on the side of my head, a gesture just as soothing here as on my actual scalp. “Look, about yesterday…” What was I even trying to say? This is the worst possible time to start something? Or something else?

“What about it?” he asked with an unreadable expression, but before I could say anything more, he added, “We should head over to Blister Plains and start collecting quests. We’ll be able to summon Salvo once he finishes up his alchemy grind.”

An hour went by of questing and almost no small talk. Anything we did say to each other was strictly game related. Mostly, it had to do with how shitty my tiny heals were, but according to him, I shouldn’t respec if I was enjoying myself. Also, he didn’t want to call in Angel, but insisted it was only because we didn’t need her.

I kept my mouth shut and humored him. Of course it had nothing to do with the awkwardness of being around two women he’d been intimate with in such a short amount of time. I’m also using the term Women very loosely. There was almost no doubt in my mind Angel was a dude.

When we turned in another round of quests, I equipped a new pair of gloves I’d gotten as a reward with higher armor rating and dexterity. The appearance gifted to me by Misha vanished. The mohawk grew into a waist length cascade of purple and the jeans morphed back into leather. I held my breath and put the old gloves back on, but the magic was gone. The long hair stayed put and no piercings returned.

Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.

Finally, once Salvo joined us with his poisons and health potions restocked, we fell into a rhythm. We slaughtered a few camps of gnolls, rescued lost piglets, found an ancient sewing pattern and prevented a lesser pit lord from being summoned. And all before lunch.

By the time we entered The Gnarled Gnome, the three of us were level 25; halfway to max level. We made our way to the only available table; it was small, round, and directly next to an amplifier for the live band on stage. Collectively we turned the music volume down in our settings to hear our conversation, though we stuck to group voice chat instead of general local chat.

It seemed like a lot of people started doing that lately.

There was a sea of silent conversations happening around us, complete with nods and laughter without the joke or punchline. Facial expressions devoid of external explanations. If it hadn’t been for the band and a single table of rowdy drunken dwarves, the place would have been silent.

We ordered burgers and fries. After a quick internal debate, I added a chocolate milkshake to my order. It didn’t really matter what you ate in the game. It was all the same paste going in your body out there in the real world. One good thing about eating in-game, I guess. I could eat all the disgusting greasy food I wanted without worry.

While we waited for our food, Cale played with his game menus and Salvo busied himself twirling a dagger on his fingertip.

It wasn’t until the nasty little goblin showed up with our food that anyone spoke.

“Now that you two are fucking, are you moving into Liz’s room?” Salvo asked and bit off a large bite of his burger. The juices dripped down his crimson chin.

Cale choked on a fry and glanced at me. “I thought we weren’t talking about that, but no. I’ve been told it was a onetime thing.”

Salvo rolled his eyes. “Sure, onetime thing. We’ll ignore that I’ve watched the two of you for a few years now and know better.”

“It’s fine if Salvo really wants a room to himself,” I said to Cale and shrugged. “I mean, if you’re good with it.” I picked at my burger, avoiding eye contact to hide how hopeful I’d become at the prospect.

“I can manage that,” he said and grinned.

I frowned, still not trusting the ability to hide my emotions. “Is that really what you want? Kinda got the feeling you were regretting it all day.”

“Seriously, Liz?” Salvo asked and choked back an amused bark of laughter. “He’s had a boner for you since the day you met. Now, if you two don’t mind, I’m going to join my new doubles partner for some practice.” He finished the rest of his food in a few large bites, patted his stomach with a satisfied belch, and left.

I felt a little hurt at being replaced, but mostly relieved. PvP was fun and all, but just not my thing. Too hectic with too much tea bagging.

Finally alone, Cale and I switched to a private chat. He scooched closer, taking my hand. He traced his fingers along my palm and we locked eyes. Even in the virtual world, his touch created tiny explosions of delight on my flesh and I shivered. “I don’t regret what happened. Not at all. Liz, I’m in lo-”

A gnome, not just any but the same fucking gnome that ran me over my second day in the game, approached our table. “Hey, Roadkill, saw your match. Those paladins kicked your ass.” I could finally read his name tag. No surprise, it read N00bKill3r.

Cale’s shoulders slouched, and he mumbled something under his breath.

I shot him an apologetic look before returning my attention to the tiny bastard with my fists clenched. “Make your point or fuck off.”

The gnome ignored my annoyance and looked around him before speaking. “I wanted to ask about the match that happened after. Were you there?”

I nodded. “In the stands at least.”

“It’s true then? I mean, I saw footage last night. But today, I can’t find it anywhere. Started to think I’d imagined the whole thing.” Something in our reactions must have answered his question and N00bKill3r paled. His beady little eyes widened in horror.

In our private chat, Cale said, “They’re scrubbing it already.”

“Yeah,” I replied in private. “I’m going to deny it and I think you should too. It’s shitty, but we don’t know how far they’re willing to go to cover this up. Who’s more important right now? Viv or this asshole that nearly ran me over with his motorcycle?”

“Hey,” N00bKill3r said while pushing my shoulder. “Don’t ignore me when I’m talking to you. The static guy happened, right? You saw it happen, say something. The company is trying to cover this whole thing up.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said in general chat, maybe a little too loud, but I wanted my voice to carry. The commotion in the still tavern was already drawing a crowd.

His budding hysterics reminded me of a Hitchcock character.

In my late teens, I went through a phase where I watched everything of his available on the web. The reactions some of the characters had when they questioned the basis of their reality always felt over-dramatic, but as the gnome lingered, I realized how on the nose it truly was.

N00bKill3r raked his stubby cocktail sausage fingers through his hair and gawked at us. “Why aren’t you speaking up? You know something. Why don’t you say something?”

He turned and faced the rest of the bystanders. “Who else knows about this? Someone needs to be held accountable.”

A few of the drunken dwarves cheered him on, though I couldn’t be sure whether they were agreeing with him so much as they were attempting to incite a riot. The rest of the eyes and faces of those around him were full of fear.

“Shut your trap,” a female human rogue named LilyBell3 yelled from her table. “I’ve watched three people banned already doing the same shit. Some of us are happy keeping our heads down so we can stay in Arcadia.”

“Holy shit,” I said in private. “Are they more afraid of losing Arcadia than they are their own lives?”

Cale frowned but nodded. “The proper term for that would be addicts.”

“No,” N00bKill3r cried out and pulled at his hair. “I heard people are dying when they're attacked by this thing that Eternia is covering up. Do you hear me? Eternia Entertainment is covering up-” Before he could finish the sentence, his little avatar blinked from existence.

“I warned him,” LilyBell3 said and rolled her eyes.

The band started back up with a three count once they seemed sure the drama was over.

Angrily, the nasty little server goblin stood on the bar and spat a wad of green goo on the floor. “Next round is on the house.” His voice carried to each corner of the tavern, despite the general lack of enthusiasm.

The dwarves cheered loudly and clanked their steins, roaring with laughter about another free round courtesy of the crazies.

“Let’s go,” I said, grabbing Cale’s hand and pulling. The Gnarled Gnome Tavern lost the charm it had the first I’d been there. Instead, it felt like an opium den full of junkies getting their fix and waiting for their turn to die.

Yes, it was hypocritical of me to judge them. We weren’t leaving to log off. We were leaving to grind up more levels.

Cale led me to a mining camp on the edge of the Blister Plains. There, we grabbed the available quests and started circling through the area.

We positioned ourselves outside the first camp, which had three of our goals in one. We’d need to collect nine blisterwort blossoms to give to a devilkin for his lady love, kill twelve rogue engineers, and collect a schematic for an experimental bomb that was sure to end the world.

Cale cast a damaging holy spell on an orc engineer with goggles and patchwork armor. It didn’t do much in the way of damage but got their attention at least. Normally, whatever it hit would run towards him ready for battle.

This time, the bright golden flare only caused the orcish engineer to equip a strange steam-powered device, and he shot back with a large nail the size of a railroad tie. It bounced off Cale’s shield with a shower of sparks and a metallic ting.

“Crap, pull back. We need to find his range to get him moving out of the camp before it’s safe to engage,” Cale said while walking backwards.

Sure enough, the engineer moved away from the camp to stay in firing range. Once he was far enough from the rest of his friends, we flanked him. Cale struck the orc with the pommel of his sword to daze him.

From behind, I went in for the kill, my teeth sunk into the back of his neck and bit down, snapping his vertebrae with the force.

“You know, I’m getting a better idea why more people don’t play melee druids,” Cale said.

I grinned up at him with my blood-caked kitty cat muzzle. “Why’s that?” I asked, as innocently as possible.

We had to use the tedious pull and back up method for nearly all our kills in the camp, outside of a few stragglers that were easy enough to pick off. By the time we’d looted the schematic off of the sixteenth kill, the lack of sleep from the night prior was getting to me.

I watched in a dreamlike state as something in the space behind Cale shifted, pulsed, and pushed. My overly fatigued brain fought to understand what it was processing and only when a static sword ripped through the empty space did I finally snap into action.

“Oh, shit. Log out, now,” I said, and his eyes widened.

An arm shot out from the tear created by the sword, weaving its fingers into Cale’s long elven ponytail; pulling his head backwards and exposing his neck.

Cale pulled a dagger and swung it blindly behind his back. The edge glanced off the shifting two-tone armor.

“Shit.” I said and pounced without thinking, clamping my jaws around the arm. The bones snapped under the bite and with a quick thrash of my head, separated from the static man’s body. I spat it out with more than a little satisfaction.

There was a pained shout from the other side, and the hole closed.

“Go, now,” I said and hit disconnect.

When the pod opened, I was covered in sweat and shivering. The lid hadn’t risen completely before I stumbled out, stubbing my toe on the way.

Did he make it out okay? Fuck, please let him make it out okay.

So, maybe I was coming down with more than a slight case of feelings for him. Because the thought of losing him hurt a little more than I cared to admit. Enough to let the crazy thoughts in. The ones that told me I should have known better. Hadn’t years of watching old horror movies taught me anything? You never have sex while a killer is on the loose.

“Cale?” I yelled and ran through my suite in the dark, not bothering with lights, knowing the layout well enough by then. I passed through the doorways between our areas with no response. An edge of panic gnawed at a corner of my mind.

Did the static asshole come back after I logged out? “Dammit, answer me. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Cale finally said, and turned on the lights in the sitting area. “We both got out. We’re safe.” It wasn’t clear if he was reassuring me or himself, but it didn’t matter. When he held out his arms, I rushed into his warm embrace. He pressed my head against his chest, his heart still racing, and sighed.

“First thing we do when we get back to Arcadia is go to a barber. How do you feel about us both going bald?”

He snorted and rested his chin on my head. “I’ll shave, doesn’t matter. Keep your avatar the same, I like it the way you have it.”

“You just like the cans, don’t lie,” I said, grinning up at him. “Those won’t get shaved off.”

A crease formed on his forehead as his expression grew more serious. “Shouldn’t we be asking if it’s a good idea to keep going back?”

“No, not unless we can get as much information from the outside, I don’t see many options.”

“Liz, it’s not safe. We should walk away while we can. I know I said I couldn’t live with the nightmares if we didn’t do anything before, but they’ll be a whole lot worse if something happens to you.”

I pulled out of his grasp enough to look him in the face. “I can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t. If you’d seen the way Mark reacted in the hospital…” I let the rest of the sentence hang in the air and shook my head. Then a thought crept up from the back of my mind, washing away some of the hopelessness. “As long as he doesn’t get the drop on us, we can hurt him. I bit off his fucking arm.”

“I think you’re enjoying the wrong aspects of the game, but it’s good to know.” He looked around the suite he shared with Salvo. “Do you still want me to move my stuff in with you?”

“Not if you keep questioning it like you’re changing your mind,” I said and raised an eyebrow at him. “Grab what you need now and we’ll get the rest tomorrow, I want to get in bed as soon as possible.”

“I’m still wound pretty tight from earlier. Not sure sleep’ll be happening anytime soon.”

“I didn’t say anything about sleeping,” I said and winked. Thanks to the design on the haptic suit, it was easier to let him know exactly what I was talking about with a stroke or two.

A groan of understanding left his throat and our mouths met.

Horny, impatient and enough adrenaline running through our systems to fuel a gangbang, we decided his laptop was the only thing we might need until the morning. When our bedroom door closed, we’d already pulled off our suits, his computer discarded on the other bed.

An hour later, we held each other amidst the tangled mess of sheets until his breathing grew heavy.

As I fought against my own weariness, my mind wandered to all the potential outcomes, both good and bad. Ideally, we’d save Viv and go on to our adult lives. Maybe I’d move in with Cale, let Salvo make use of my reserved studio apartment lodgings. But, no matter how good the rest of the fantasy was, the thought of spending the rest of my life at Vegas Land still didn’t sit right.

Beside me, Cale let out a light snore and nuzzled in closer; his index finger twitched against my nipple. The worst outcome had to do with him and everything I had to lose.

As I drifted off to sleep, I cursed at myself for how stupid I’d been for getting attached.