Boy Meets Geek (9 page)

I smiled and typed out a response. A one handed response. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Oh I think all the spelling errors you’re suddenly making tells me everything I need to know baby,” he said.

I blushed. Damn it. Of all the times to throw proofreading out! “You’re very cocky.”

“And I think you love it that way.”

I bit my lip. He was absolutely right. He was cocky, arrogant, and sort of full of himself. And yet if he really looked the way he did in his picture, as good as he was at writing, I could understand why he was so cocky and confident. And it made me wonder why he’d be interested in a girl like me, but I pushed that thought down. That wasn’t something I was going to get into now. Not with that wonderful experience we just shared.

“So is there any point in finishing the dungeon?” I asked.

“Up to you,” he said. “I hear there’s some sweet gear at the end, and that fight with Whitebeard is supposed to be pretty gnarly!”

I grinned. “And here I thought you were just taking me down here to get me all alone,” I said.

“Well I was,” he said. “But this also happens to be one of my favorite dungeons. Also happens to be one of my favorite stories from Elassa.”

“Me too!” I said.

I couldn’t believe he knew about that story. Most people didn’t. It was from a short story that most people never gave a chance because it was a short when they felt like Sean Taylor should have been working on the next novel in the series, but as far as I was concerned they could all take their opinions and go to hell. Anything that man wrote was genius in my opinion.

“Really? You like it? Most people hate that story!”

“Anyone who hates an author for giving them something because they want something bigger is a selfish asshole in my opinion!” I said.

“I feel the same way,” he said. “Though I can’t really say that.”

“Why not? Just lay into people on Amazon or something!” I know I do from time to time when I’m pissed off.”

“I wish, but I can’t. Trust me on this one,” he said.

“Whatever. Yelling at people on the Internet is half the fun of being on the Internet!”

“Uh-huh. So we’re finishing the dungeon?”

“Sounds like a plan to me!”

“Can you give me maybe five minutes?”

I smiled as I realized exactly why he probably needed five minutes after that intense session. Hell, I felt like I needed a breather as well. Maybe some time to go back to my room and change my panties. My current pair were thoroughly soaked through and that was going to get uncomfortable here in a few minutes.

“Sure,” I said. “I could do with taking five.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said.

There was nothing quite as intense as what we experienced after that encounter. We still flirted hot and heavy though, and something had changed between us. Changed for the better. We chatted, but underneath all the flirtation there was something else. There was a warmth that seemed to have settled into the pit of my stomach. There was the knowledge that he wanted me. That he’d seen something he wanted and took it, and it had been so fucking hot! I’d never really been attracted to the bad boy stereotype before, but there was something about this guy that had me going wild in the best possible way.

And so we ended up staying awake until nearly twp in the morning chatting with each other and having a good time, visiting some of our favorite dungeons in the older parts of the game and going on what turned out to be one of the best dates ever, even if it was just in a videogame.

It was crazy, but I was starting to fall for my digital lover. That thought terrified me even as it filled me with warm fuzzies.

10: IRL?

It seemed like a rule of the universe. Something incredible happened between me and Conlan and then he disappeared for several days. Once again I found myself obsessively checking my phone whether I was in class or at work. Once again I was leaving Elassa chat up on my work computer and my home computer. I was constantly refreshing my friends list to see when he was last online. And every time the last time he was online ended up being the last time we chatted. The time we had that magical night where I’d let things go perhaps a little too far, but it’d been so wonderful that I didn’t care.

And then nothing. No contact whatsoever. No word from him, no messages, not even anything from his email even though he had mine thanks to me sending him my manuscript.

I told myself he was busy with work and he’d get in touch with me when he could. And yet there was still that gnawing sense of doubt, that worst-case scenario voice in the back of my head telling me there was no way a guy like that could possibly be interested in me long-term.

That voice grew more insistent as the week wore on with no contact. Almost to the point that it was screaming at me that I’d been ridiculous for thinking anything like a romance could blossom in a fucking video game of all things. He probably just told me what I wanted to hear, blowing smoke up my ass until he got what he wanted, and I’d played right into his hands.

It was a real pain in the ass having a brain that automatically jumped to the worst-case scenario no matter what the scenario happened to be, but it was something I’d learned to live with.

Needless to say after a week of stewing in that worst-case scenario mindset I was pleasantly surprised one evening when I was sitting at an inn in the middle of nowhere and I saw him come online.

My hands were immediately on the keyboard without thinking. And immediately I forced myself to sit still. Forced myself to not say anything.

No, I wasn’t going to be the one to make the first move. I knew it was petty, especially considering he was probably just busy with work, but there it was. I couldn’t help myself. I was just a little irritated that I’d been left waiting for so long.

My chat window started blinking. I felt butterflies in my stomach as I saw that blink. So familiar, something I’d seen countless times since I started playing Tales of Elassa, and yet it was something that made my stomach twist ever since I’d met this man.

It was hard not to reach up and click that notification immediately, but I was still feeling annoyed. I knew it was irrational, I knew it wasn’t exactly fair to him, but I couldn’t help myself. I felt abandoned and annoyed at the crazy roller coaster of emotion I’d been on waiting for him to come back online. I knew objectively that was mostly my issue, that was mostly me and my tendency to read a worst-case scenario into absolutely everything, but I couldn’t help the way I felt.

My chat window dinged again. Another private message.

“Are you going to answer that thing?” Samantha asked.

I looked over my shoulder and she pulled her headphones off. I didn’t realize my speakers were that loud. Loud enough for her to hear through her expensive gaming headphones, at least. I blushed and muttered an apology as I turned back to my computer. As I reached up and clicked on that message.

“Hi!”

“Hello?”

“Are you there?”

“Is something wrong? Did I do something?”

I went from anger and annoyance to guilt in an instant. Like I said, a roller coaster of emotions. He was excited to see me and I’d been ignoring him. Obviously I’d pushed him into his own worst-case scenario when he saw me online and I didn’t answer him right away. And yet I was also still a little irritated that he just expected me to answer him right away. That he expected me to jump when he decided he had time for me.

I knew it wasn’t an entirely fair thought, but I never said my mind was entirely rational. If I was completely rational then I never would’ve done something crazy like fall for a guy that I only knew through a videogame in the first place!

Okay, that was enough guilt. Time to let him know I was here.

“Sorry,” I typed. “I was away from my computer.”

“Good! I was hoping I’d catch you online today!” he said.

I arched an eyebrow. He was certainly very excited to see me online. And his excitement was feeding back into me. It was making all the worries I’d had over the past week about him not wanting to see me anymore melt away.

“Really? Why?”

“Well I’m actually kind of excited and kind of nervous about what I’m about to ask…”

Now I was really curious. He goes away for a week, probably busy with work or whatever, and when he comes back he has something to ask me that has him nervous? Color me intrigued.

“You have my attention,” I said. “Go ahead…”

“I want to meet you.”

I blinked. That’s what he was so worked up about? That’s what had him hesitant to talk to me? That wasn’t a big deal! I almost wanted to laugh. Men could be so ridiculous sometimes.

“Well that’s not a problem!”

“Really? I didn’t expect you to say yes so quickly!”

“Sure! Where do you want to meet? One of the dungeons? One of the inns? We could go and hang out in one of the elf zones, get away from human territory for a while if you’d like,” I said. “I’m getting kind of tired of human territory anyways.”

There was a pause. A definite hesitation. Something about that hesitation told me I’d just said something wrong. What could I possibly…

Oh.

No. He couldn’t possibly mean…

“I didn’t mean meet in game,” he said.

Well yes, it looked like he certainly could mean that. I blinked. He wanted to meet me? We’d only known each other for a couple of weeks. Sure it had been a whirlwind couple of weeks, but I was still hesitant.

It’s not like I’d never met people I knew from the Internet. Sure there were crazies out there, but we lived in a world where most dating started online and most of the moral panic about ax-murdering Internet predators had died down, and yet something about this whole situation, something about how he was jumping to meeting me in person so quickly, gave me pause. It had me wondering once more if this was all a setup for something sinister. It had at the worst-case scenario part of my brain kicking into overdrive almost immediately.

I hated it. I’m pretty sure the creative side of my brain that came up with all of my favorite stories, that helped me when I was writing my novel, was also the part that went into gear when I was spinning out a worst-case scenario. It was both a blessing and a curse being creative like that.

I looked back to the screen. “I don’t know…”

“I figured you’d be a little hesitant,” he said. “But hear me out. I was thinking we could meet at Elassa Con next week!”

I blinked. Elassa Con? The idea of going to the convention alone was enough to set my heart racing. The idea of going to the convention and also meeting Conlan at the same time set my pulse going so quickly that if a doctor were to examine me at that exact moment they probably would’ve diagnosed me with hypertension and put me on medication.

I fought down that quickening of my pulse though. There was no way this was going to happen. There was no way I was going to be able to make it to Elassa Con, no matter how exciting the prospect of going to one of the biggest conventions of the year and meeting my mysterious online “friend” at the same time might be.

“I really can’t afford that,” I said. “I’m kind of a poor college student. It’s not like people in an MFA program are really loaded with money…”

“What if I told you I could take care of your tickets?”

I laughed. A laugh that caused movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see Samantha turning, raising an eyebrow.

I turned back to the screen. “Sure! You just pay for plane tickets and a hotel room for me and my roommate so I can make sure I have someone with me in case you turn out to be an ax murderer and we’ll call it a deal!”

I figured that would be the end of it. That would be all it took for him to admit he was just joking around, though I didn’t think it was a very funny joke and it was making me seriously question his judgment. As much as I would’ve loved going to Elassa Con, as much as I would love to meet him assuming he was actually the guy he seemed to be, there wasn’t a chance he was going to foot the bill for all of that. Not for me and Samantha. No guy was that into me. In my limited experience no guy who played Tales of Elassa would be so loaded that he could blow that much money on what would amount to a first date, for that matter.

“Yeah, that’s not going to work out,” he said.

I smiled even as I fought down disappointment. I knew it. Then my eyes went wide as I read the next words that popped up in the chat window.

“If you can’t swing the plane tickets then I’ll probably also need to get both of you tickets to the convention,” he said. “How’s that sound?”

I blinked. “Okay, that’s enough. This isn’t funny anymore.”

“Who said I was joking?”

“Well obviously you have to be joking. You’re not going to pay for me and my roommate to fly out and go to that convention.”

“Why not?”

Why not indeed? It was a perfectly reasonable question on its face that was absolutely ridiculous when examined closely. Why would some random guy pay for a girl he just met to fly out to one of the biggest conventions in the country so he could meet her? Why would he pay the added cost for my roommate just in case he was an ax murderer? For that matter, probably the most important reason even though it was the reason I was least likely to admit to, why would he do all of this for me? I wasn’t anything special despite the way he gushed over me. Despite the way we’d gotten along. Despite our whirlwind online romance.

I knew I shouldn’t be listening to that quiet voice in the back of my head, and yet it was so insistent. It made so much sense in this case. If a guy was going to do all of this just to meet me then there had to be some catch. There had to be something wrong with the situation. Whether that was that he was a crazy murderer or something else I didn’t know, but I just couldn’t believe that this sort of thing was happening to me. This is the sort of thing that happened in a cheesy romance is, not in my life!

“I’m dead serious Maia,” he said. “All you have to do is say yes.”

“This isn’t a joke?” I asked.

“No joke. I want to see you. I want to fly you out to the convention. I think it would be the perfect time for us to meet. All you have to do is say yes.”

I still didn’t quite believe it. Only he seemed so certain. So sincere. If this was a joke he was certainly dedicated to it, but something told me that he wasn’t telling a lie even if I hardly believed it. And yet even as that ever present quiet voice of self doubt was whispering that this couldn’t possibly be true there was another part of me that was jumping for joy and desperately hoping this was true. I realized that I desperately wanted to meet him in person.

I hadn’t felt this way about a guy in a long time. It didn’t matter to me that our romance essentially took place on a computer screen. It felt real to me, and that’s all that mattered. Now all I needed was to meet him in person and see if it was real in the real world, as they said in-game.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“Don’t think about it too long,” he said. “It gets more expensive to get you out here every minute you wait.”

I chuckled. “But you don’t even know where I live.”

“Doesn’t matter. This is Elassa Con. The longer we wait, the harder it’s going to be to get a ticket into Indianapolis. And it’s going to get really hard to find a place to stay.”

I rolled my eyes. He was laying it on pretty thick. I wasn’t sure what to think. Surely if this was a joke he would’ve given it up earlier. Surely he wouldn’t still be going along with it, unless this was part of some sick joke and he’d been playing me all along. Unless this was his endgame. I’d known some pretty terrible people in my time online, and this definitely wouldn’t be the worst thing I’d heard about someone doing to somebody else.

And yet there was a voice that was louder than my nagging self doubt for a change telling me this was the real deal. There was a voice that was dueling with my inner pessimist and telling me to go for it.

I really needed to talk this over with someone. And there was only one someone I could think of to talk over something like this.

I looked over my shoulder. It looked like Samantha was in the middle of a raid, but we had a roommate protocol for that. “Samantha, I’m calling an emergency meeting!”