Page 82 of Level Up
I walk him out of the house instead of going straight up to my apartment door from inside, because I don’t want to invite more inappropriate comments from my family, but I expect him to come up with me from the exterior door. He doesn’t.
“You can come in, you know,” I tell him as I hold the door open, though I can feel the bottom of my stomach dropping as I wait for the familiar sting of rejection.
“It’s pretty late, I should probably get back,” he says, seeming more awkward than he has all evening.
“But—I thought—We can do sexy stuff!” I blurt out, but I immediately regret it, both for the words themselves and the incredibly high volume at which they were spoken.
He laughs lightly. “Maybe some other time, okay?”
He leans in like he’s going to kiss me, but then he doesn’t, and it takes me a ridiculously long time to realize he’s waiting for me to kiss him first. Because that’s still my job, apparently. I’m tempted to just leave him hanging, out of spite, but mynerd-girl hornyass gives in way too easily.
It’s a sweet kiss—not even so much as church-tongue, à laWedding Singer—but it still reaches all the hidden spaces inside me that only he seems to unlock.
“Are you sure you don’t want to?” I ask quietly, and he smiles.
“I never said I don’t want to.”
“Then why?—”
“Goodnight, Audrey,” he adds, and gives me a gentle kiss on my cheek before taking a step back. “And we should start planning our speedrun soon.”
I blink at him in disbelief as he turns around with a wave and heads off towards the streetcar.
Why can’t real life romance be like in a video game? I could look up a wiki or walkthrough that tells me how to make all the right choices for the outcome I want—or better yet, use console commands to advance the quest line and save time.
~ set quest:18389damienromance stage:2857sexystuff
I’mgrateful when Victory and Pal agree to meet me for an Emergency Friend Support meeting the next day. We’re at the pub, because I think it will be easier to have this conversation with at least one pint in me first, and the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday is pretty quiet here.
I’d already told Victory about Damien, how he and I aredatingnow, how he’s technically myboyfriendnow, so I (correctly) assume that Pal has been updated as well. It wasn’t that long ago that I would have refused to let them come along for this, but now I’m eager to seek their advice as well as Victory’s.
“Meeting the fam didn’t go well?” Pal asks, apparently having been filled in on that part, too.
“No, that was actually fine,” I tell them. “Like, shockingly okay.”
“Your grandma and mom didn’t say anything inappropriate?” Victory asks, frowning in confusion.
“Oh, no, they absolutely did,” I assure her. “But it was fine.”
“So, what’s the problem, exactly?” Her tone is even and commanding, but not impatient.
I stumble over my words as I explain to both of them—in vague terms—how Damien had come back to my place earlier in the week and things…happened. But when I tried to invite him up for a repeat of said things—or whatever—he turned me down. Even though he’d said he wouldn’t.
“I thought you didn’t actually like sex,” Pal says. They aren’t judgmental about it, but I still feel a spike of shame. Not because I’m asexual and don’t like sex—because I’msupposedto be asexual and yet I wonder if I might like it anyway.
“I don’t really,” I say. “Or, I haven’t in the past. I don’t know. I’ve never evenwantedto, before.”
“What about—” Victory begins, though she cuts herself off, but I know why. She was going to ask about Cameron, but I still haven’t told Pal about all of that.
I shake my head. “Not even then.” I may have liked the idea of kissing him, at the time, but it didn’t occur to me to consider more than that. It wasn’t even a speck on the horizon of possibility.
“But Glasses knows this, right?” Pal asks. “That you haven’t been into that sort of thing before, I mean.”
“Maybe…”
They nod and pick up their nearly empty glass. “He’s probably trying to respect that,” they say. “Not rush you.”
“But it was my idea! I’m the one rushing!”
