Page 39 of Dance with Me on New Year's Eve

I shook off the thought and opened the chat window eagerly.

CastGamer55:When you get online, take a look at this template I made for the player sketches we started last time.

SawyerRox4:Hi!

CastGamer55:Good evening.

SawyerRox4:Wow, the template is great! This will really help us.

CastGamer55:You said you were having trouble seeing how all the info fits together, so I hoped this would help.

He did that for me? I felt something warm and fuzzy float through me. Maybe it was the wine.

SawyerRox4:Thank you, really appreciate it

CastGamer55:You’re welcome.

SawyerRox4:So where do we start?

CastGamer55:I figured we’d try to discuss and come to agreement on some basics and then divide up the profiles to work on later.

CastGamer55:To begin with, we should finalize the names. Or at least agree on what we’ll use for now in the template.

SawyerRox4:In my notes, we already decided on seven of them.

CastGamer55:Yes, so we need three more. I made a list of suggestions we could start with.

SawyerRox4:OK, shoot

CastGamer55:For the character we’re modeling after Abbey, I was thinking about Valentina. Thoughts?

SawyerRox4:Ilovethat!

CastGamer55:And just so we have some normal-sounding names in the mix, I was going to propose James, since you’re such a big Sawyer fan. And Andrew for the medic guy. We can think of more interesting last names for them—

SawyerRox4:Yes to James. No to Andrew.

CastGamer55:OK. We could also use it as a last name. Like James Andrews or Valentina Andrews.

SawyerRox4:No Andrew in any form, please.

CastGamer55:Oh, OK. You just don’t like that name?

SawyerRox4:I don’t.

CastGamer55:Should I ask why?

SawyerRox4:Oh no, that isn’tyourname, is it? If so, I’m so sorry…

CastGamer55:LOL, no.

Wow, that was the first time he’d ever laughed in the chat. Not that I could tell if he was really laughing, but I’d never seen him write “lol” or “haha” or any typical text slang.

CastGamer55:Makes me wonder if we should exchange real names.

What? Did he just … no. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready for that. I couldn’t even explain why. I knew he wasn’t a stalker or catfisher or other dangerous person. I couldn’t explain how I knew, but I just did. Yet … I didn’t want to know too much. Distance seemed kind of essential, for reasons I didn’t care to examine.

I’d just politely say no. But maybe I should revealsomething else.

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