Page 22 of Twisted Minds

“You were?”

“Of course. I like you, Mark. I was worried you thought I stood you up.”

“Noah said I should surprise you. I was worried you’d think it was weird.”

“Your friend with no benefit?”

“My friend with friend-only benefits.” Hunter goes back to his pizza. “I mean it, there’s nothing between us.”

“I believe you.”

“Just like that?”

Hunter shrugs. “I don’t have any reason not to, right?” My gut twists. I’m not hungry anymore but force the rest of the pizza into my stomach. “Can you stay for a bit?”

“Yeah. I have no plans.”

“Great. Do you want to go outside? You can tell me about the game you’re making. I’m too beat to play a game, though, I’m sorry.”

While I want to do just that, it is getting cooler outside, and I hadn’t expected to stay here. “I don’t have a sweater.” I really need to buy a new one. Noah is not giving that one back. Not in one piece anyway.

“One sec.” Hunter gets up and leaves the room. I feel so out of place and weird despite Hunter easing my worries. My mind drifts to the broken glass on the floor. Is that what he has to live with every day? Friend or not, I can’t imagine it.

Hunter appears back in the kitchen with a navy-blue hoodie in hand, with the Hornets logo on the front and hockey sticks crossed behind it. “It’s mine from last year. It shrunk a bit so you can have it.” Taking the hoodie, I look at it with a smile.

“Russo.” I say mostly to myself.

“My last name. What’s yours?”

“It’s Perrson.” I pull on the sweater, biting my tongue to prevent the moan that bubbles up my throat. Fuck, it smells good. So musky and sweet. “You can keep it. It looks good on you.” Hunter walks to the sliding glass doors wearing socks, his gray sweats, and a different navy-blue hoodie with this year’s logo. Every year they hold a contest before the season for students to design the new sports logos.

Hunter sits on the bench seat while I take another chair across from him. He frowns. “What?”

“You’re just so far away.” He pouts.

“I’m right here.”

Hunter moves a little, making a bit of space for me on the love seat. He pats the spot next to him and I move, sitting beside him and turning to face him. “Tell me about your game,” he says.

Just like that? Okay, damn. Invisible hands take hold of my lungs, squeezing hard the way they do every time I talk about it.My father thinks it’s silly, and I have no one else to bounce ideas off anymore. Everyone around me thinks it’s a waste of time.

“Mark?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m just not used to talking about it.” Hunter reaches out, cupping my calf and squeezing it before gently pulling my feet across his lap. He squeezes and massages, waiting for me to gain some courage, and all the while his eyes are on me, watching and waiting. “I’ve always thought it would be really cool to be able to build your own world. Something universal. So, at the beginning of the game, you choose what world you’d like to play in—or build your own world, kind of like any other game where you build your own character. I love sci-fi, right? I want to play a sci-fi game. With aliens, right? So, I build that world, then I get to play in that world. If I like fantasy, I build a fantasy world. It’s an action RPG about survival, but the worlds will change. Maybe a dystopian world with a zombie outbreak, maybe something set on the moon, or in a jungle with wild animals. The goal would be many different options for game play. It’s a huge project. I’m just now trying to figure out if it would even be possible. It’ll be like a bunch of games in one.”

“Like a choose your own adventure.”

“Yes! Exactly. Instead, it’s like choose your own genre.”

“Wow, that’s really cool actually.”

Pride hits me square in the chest. “Right now, the story would be similar in all, but there are tons of settings and possibilities that would make the game interesting and unique. I think it would be cool.” Hunter smiles. “I haven’t quite figured it out yet. It’s in the planning stages. Last year I crammed classes so I can have an easier schedule these next few years to really work on it.”

“That’s really smart. I’d love to see it when you start to develop it.”

Developing it would be a dream, but I’m still in the planning stages—sketches, coding, planning. In the meantime, I’ll try toget work as a tester. This is happening. I am doing this. There’s nothing else I want to do with my life. This is what I’m meant to do.

Hunter continues to squeeze my calf gently. “Thank you for stopping by,” he says, and some of the weight from earlier seems to have disappeared. “It means a lot to me.”

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