JoshuaCole374
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Chapter 55: By Invitation Only
🕑 Added 2023-10-27 12:00:06 +0000 UTCDeepingShadows: Are you free?
“The hell?” Lena jabbed something into her mechanical keyboard. “Are you getting this from DS, too?”
“Yeah.”
Donica sure hadn’t opened with a softball question. Was I free? It’s a free country, they say. I didn’t have anything scheduled, mostly because I kept getting distracted instead of doing so. Lena wasn’t up to scouting and I wasn’t sure how I felt about going it alone again. And then there was the question of, was I free of Third Eye’s influence, mental or magical, to which the answer seemed to be a resounding no.
I rolled my shoulders and got to typing.
OldCampaigner: I can be. What’s up?
It’s kind of amazing how much information you can input to a Discord message, and how little of what you’re thinking it can convey.
Or, hell. Maybe Donica saw right through that line and knew all the shit that was running through my head.
DeepingShadows: I need someone to help me scout.
OldCampaigner: Are you talking about whatever it is you do for Erin’s dad, or a Third Eye thing?
DeepingShadows: Why would I possibly ask for your help scouting players?
Players? She’d mentioned DU before. So she was some kind of sports scout?
More to the point, why would she possibly ask for our help with anything?
In truth, I was just relieved she wasn’t messaging us to ask if something had happened to Erin. That had been about the only reason I could think of for Donica to want to interact with us.
Unfair. At the hospital, she’d made an effort to be friendly. I’d sort of assumed she was doing it for Erin’s sake, but maybe she really did want to mend fences.
OldCampaigner: You’ve got my curiosity.
DeepingShadows: Good. You can convince Ash. I’ll pick you up in 15.
I blinked. “Huh?”
OldCampaigner: I didn’t say I’d go with you, I just said I was curious.
No response. I glanced at Donica’s icon on Discord. Gray circle. I hovered over it even though I knew what the rollover text would say.
DeepingShadows is offline.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. To Lena, I said, “I hear I’m supposed to persuade you.”
Lena snorted. “She’s gonna be real disappointed when she drives over here and walks upstairs and I don’t even unlock the door.”
“If Donica wants to patch things up with us, we can at least hear her out. Hell. Maybe Erin found Fire and asked her to come pick you up so you could collect it.”
“I already said I don’t want her charity.” The way Lena’s shoulders stiffened told a different story.
“It’s up to you if you want to go with her or not,” I said. “I get it if you don’t really want to hang out with her. Or do any Third Eye shit.”
Lena rubbed her neck. “Right on both counts.”
“I’m still going to invite her in for coffee or something if she drives all the way over here.”
“You’re gonna spend our precious caffeine reserves on somebody who can probably afford a latte out every morning?” Lena spun herself back to face her computer. “Now I really need to find some paying work.”
I stood up and started to clean away some of the junk that had accumulated around the room. We’d kept better house in the last couple days, so it wasn’t the disaster we’d welcomed Miguel to, but a little extra tidying wouldn’t kill it. Or me.
I paused near Lena’s desk. “You’re really not interested?”
“If she tells me Erin’s out there standing watch over a Fire source,” Lena said, “I’ll swallow my pride and suck it up. But if she just wants somebody to group up with for a scouting trip? Hell no. You two should go.”
“I can’t believe you’d leave me alone with Donica.”
“Why, should I be worried?” She tossed her hair.
I tried not to notice how strained her grin looked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Worried she’ll bury me in an unmarked grave because I was five seconds late on the cooldown for my Q.”
“Five seconds would be basically forever.” Lena drummed her fingers on her desk. “No jury would convict her.”
As if to underscore her point, there was a knock at the door.
“Fifteen minutes, my ass,” I muttered. So much for picking up. Instead, I picked my way to the door and opened it.
Donica stood outside, wearing thick black jeans, a parka not a million miles off from mine but probably about that many dollars more expensive, and a pair of boots fit for a construction site. Compared to how she’d dressed at the hospital, this was either her casual Friday kit or she’d gone home and gotten changed before she messaged us.
“Hello, Cameron.” She glanced past me. “I assume Lena is here as well?”
“Hiya.” Lena waved, but didn’t hop down from her computer chair.
“Come on in.” I stepped back and beckoned Donica. “I’ll have to hear you out before I know if you’ve wasted your time, but you’re welcome to hang out if you want.”
“Thanks.” She almost made it sound like she’d consider the offer. She followed me inside and swept her gaze over the room. I thought she might remain frozen by the door, looking down her nose at our squalor, but after a moment, the ice broke and so did her smile. She strode over to Lena’s side of the room.
Lena spun her chair around, tensed like she expected an attack.
Instead, Donica stopped in front of one of the shelves. She reached out. “May I?”
“Nope,” Lena said.
Donica’s eyebrow raised.
Lena sighed. “Oh, go ahead.”
I thought Donica would pick something up, but she just adjusted the angle of the hammer on one of Lena’s old Overwatch Legos. Softly, she said, “You kept these, huh? Did you guys keep playing?”
“For a while,” I said. Duo queues were harsh, though.
“Good times?” Donica let go of the Lego. She frowned down at it. “I’m a better teammate than I used to be.”
Lena pressed her lips together and said nothing as loudly as possible.
I said, “No idea if we are, but I’ll give it a shot.”
Donica addressed me, but looked to Lena. “Just you?”
“This is Third Eye shit, right?” Lena asked.
Donica nodded.
“Then I’m out,” Lena said. “I’ve been too in, and I need a break. Did Erin tell you about me?”
“She’s quite effusive about both of you,” Donica said. “Finding out you’re the one who introduced me to Third Eye certainly didn’t hurt. It’s cute, although I’d be lying if I claimed I didn’t worry about her relying on you.”
“Awesome,” I said. “You’re really selling me on the idea of teaming up with you.”
Donica raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying that you want her to pin her hopes on you?”
I’m sure I winced.
Lena saved me from answering. “If you’re done running us down for a minute, what I meant was, did she explain I don’t have a Reactant?”
“Ah.” Donica pursed her lips. “I figured as much when you refrained from showing off in your video. Which, while we’re on the subject... you know my instinct is to be a harsh critic, so when I say you did a great job, you know I mean it.”
That hit harder than I expected. I ducked my head and whispered, “Thanks.”
Lena mumbled something that could be interpreted the same way.
“It’s a shame, though,” Donica said. “I was hoping you could both back me up, since I don’t have a Reactant yet, either.”
“What do you need backup for?” I asked.
“There’s a place I want to check out, but if I go scouting alone, I’m basically turning myself into a pinata for whatever ass decides to invade me.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not fair. If I had a Reactant and no Erin begging me not to, maybe I’d be the ass.”
Lena gasped. “That’s just crazy talk!”
Donica smirked. “Have your tastes changed? I seem to recall that one of the few things we agreed on was the fun of Dark Souls PVP.”
“Well.” Lena climbed down off her chair. “I’m going to check the fridge for some food. You want anything?”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Donica said. “And don’t trouble yourself on my account. I was actually going to offer to treat you both.”
My eyebrows raised and I hated it. “I guess I don’t really understand why you came to us with this. Why don’t you go with Erin? Or at least some of her DU friends?”
“Sometimes it’s nice to deal with adults,” Donica said. “Bad enough I keep having to talk to teens for work. Erin’s one thing, she hasn’t really let herself be a kid for... a while.”
I’d have loved to pry about Erin, but I had just enough self-awareness to recognize that was nosy and kind of useless. Instead, I said, “Why us, though?”
“Because...” Donica set her jaw. “Because it was my fault. Our old team breaking up.”
“The whole group split?” I asked.
“I suppose they were all either better or worse friends than I thought,” she said. “After I kicked Lena and you quit, everybody started to realize I was being unreasonable. Either that, or your stupid memes were the glue holding us together.”
“Definitely the second one,” Lena called from the kitchen.
Donica surprised me: she laughed. “You have no idea how pissed I am that you found a Reactant by chasing a ‘We need to go deeper’ meme.”
I folded my arms and leaned back against the shelf. “Yeah, you sound furious.”
She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t stop smiling. “My point is, I wanted this to be a second chance.”
“For us to team up?”
“For us to be friends,” she said. “‘We’re still working to become that,’ you know?”
I didn’t.
My expression must’ve betrayed as much, because Donica said, “It’s something Erin posted in the Discord right after you joined. She wants her team to work to become friends. My experience scouting sports programs says that’s naïve. My experience trying to run a team says it’s not like my way worked any better.”
I rubbed my chin. Did I buy her explanation? Not totally. I didn’t believe Donica memorized every line in the Discord. This sounded too much like a prepared speech.
I was, however, ready to believe she’d written it because she genuinely did want to team up.
I glanced at Lena.
The microwave dinged and she pulled a cup of ramen out. “I’m still out.”
“That’s fair,” Donica said.
“Yup!” Lena twirled some noodles around a fork and blew on them. “Look, it was years ago. I don’t really give a shit about getting kicked. If you want to try sitting around braiding flower bracelets and singing Kumbaya – Cam’s probably super into that, since he was such a big fan of summer camp.”
I glared at her.
She grinned over her forkful of noodles. “I’m not super into it, but if you want to be friends, I’ll give it a shot. But not tonight.”
“Again, fair.” Donica spread her hands. “I realize I sprang this on the two of you out of the blue. I saw the opportunity and took it.”
“No worries,” I said. “It’s just bad luck you caught us when Lena was feeling burned out on Third Eye. We can at least offer you a coffee or –”
“You should go,” Lena said.
Donica and I both turned to her.
“You two should go,” she said. She jabbed her fork in our direction. “Find some cool shit. Tell me about it when you get back.”
I frowned. “You really don’t mind?”
She popped a bite of noodles in. Slowly, she shook her head. Even more slowly, she chewed.
If she really hadn’t minded, she would’ve said so before she started eating.
I sort of got it. She wasn’t okay with it, but she wanted to be.
Our lives had forced Lena and I to spend almost all our time together. I was one of the few people she was comfortable spending that time with. Maybe the only one, outside of her parents. How often had one or the other of us hung out with somebody else without the other around? We’d been homebodies before lockdown left us with nowhere else to go. After? We’d gotten in the habit of treating this apartment and each other as our whole world.
Maybe if we’d managed a better balance in our lives, we’d still be dating. Or more comfortable with the fact that we weren’t.
I turned to Donica and forced myself to smile. “In that case, how could I say no to scouting with a pro?”
