Page 96 of Level Up
The sidewalk glistensbeneath my feet, under the streetlights in this early-November drizzle, and I pull my jacket closed to keep out the water as best I can. It’s not a long walk to the bar from the streetcar, but the weather makes it less than pleasant.
Although Pal has been singing theAdventure Timetheme song the whole way here, which does have a spirit-lifting effect. I think they like that we’re all goingoutout tonight, instead of just grabbing a mid-afternoon pint, but Victory and I are a bit more hesitant.
I’m by far the most awkward of the three of us as we step inside, as I’m immediately struck with the urge to go home and curl up on my couch already. I try to scan the place for Damien and his roommates, but there’s so much going on, I don’t even know where to look. At least not until Malcolm stands up at a table towards the back and catches my attention by being the tallest thing—human or otherwise—in the room.
He waves us over and calls my name—Adorable Audrey, actually—and now he’s caught everyone’s attention. I steelmyself and head towards the back, but only because bolting out of here seems rude.
Malcolm is still standing by the time we reach the table, and he greets me with an enormous hug, once I shrug off my jacket—turns out he’s a good hugger, but my face gets awkwardly smushed against his collarbone, even though he’s bent down, because he’s justso tall. He’s a bit less forward with my other friends, though no less welcoming.
“Good to see you both again,” he says to them with a grin. He turns slightly so that he’s partially facing the table with all the others as well. “I’ll do the introductions, because you’re all socially inept.”
He points at each person around the table and shares their name and pronouns, but the only one I don’t recognize is the woman next to the chair he just vacated. Unsurprisingly, he introduces her as Evan, and I get why he’s obsessed with her; the two of them are dressed sort of like they just came from a Renaissance Faire or something, although they are both wearing matching royal blue nail polish that is much more modern. She has the most gorgeous dark hair cascading over her shoulders, and even sitting down I can tell that she’s quite curvy. It’s impossible not to tell, in that dress.
I greet Damien’s other roommates, Elliot and Nathan, whom I only met briefly before now. Elliot seems a lot like Damien, in some ways, but way more shy and awkward—if that’s possible—and Nathan seems very rigid, like he needs things to bejust so. He keeps twisting his glass on the table every time he sets it down, making sure it’s facing in just the right way. I honestly don’t know how someone like him lives with Malcolm, but apparently, they’ve all been making it work for years.
“Audrey, it’s so good to finally meet you,” Evan says to me across the table once we’ve ordered our drinks and taken our seats. “Malcolm has told me so much about you.”
“Has he, now?” Damien says, narrowing his eyes at his roommate.
“All good things,” Evan assures him with a laugh.
“Yeah,” Malcolm says, looking over at Damien as well. “I told her that Audrey’s the reason you’ve had to take so many long showers lately?—”
Evan pinches his arm—rather viciously—and smiles at me. “Ignore him.”
“Um, ow!” Malcolm protests, rubbing the spot on his arm.
I lower my head, embarrassed, but when I glance over at my friends, Victory is giving me a sympathetic smile and Pal is waggling their eyebrows at me. This was a terrible idea.
I don’t dare glance at Damien on my other side; I get the impression that Malcolm’s joke was mostly supposed to embarrass Damien, but it also implies that he and I aren’t…
But that’s not my fault. We’ve been getting together almost every night that I don’t have a stream for the past two weeks, but we don’t ever… Well,hedoesn’t… But I…
I’ve offered. Sort of. Very awkwardly and uncertainly. But instead, it seems he’s been going home and having long showers. Which is his choice, I guess, but I’m worried he thinks I’ll be bad at…that stuff. And given the past criticism I’ve received in that department, I don’t blame him.
“You’re intoThe Stones of Ayor, right?” Evan asks me, breezing past the awkwardness at the table like it’s nothing.
“Uh, yeah,” I reply hesitantly. “Are you?”
“I played the second game back when it first came out.” She laughs gently. “I played it that whole summer, on break from university, actually. But I still haven’t gotten around to finishing the third one. And now there’s a fourth? One day, I swear.”
She was in university when the second game came out? That was fourteen years ago. She must be at least my sister’sage—early thirties, mid-thirties?—but she doesn’t look it. Though I suppose she does seem more mature than anyone else at the table—which isn’t saying much.
“You spend too much time working,” Malcolm says to her, leaning his shoulder against hers. “You need more time for fun stuff.”
“You’re my fun stuff,” she says, giving him a patronizing pat on the arm. She wrinkles her nose when she realizes how that sounds and then bursts out laughing. “I think that was, as the kids say,cringe.”
Pal snorts and Evan smiles at them, completely unfazed. “She’s too good for you, man,” they say to Malcolm, who just shrugs like,I know.
“Speaking ofStones,” Malcolm adds, like he just remembered something. He looks between me and Damien. “How did the joint stream go last night? I’m sorry I wasn’t available to be a mod.”
“Yeah, that was my fault,” Evan says. “Sorry.”
“It was a lot of fun,” I tell him. We ended up doing the Swindlers Syndicate in the third game, like Damien suggested, but it was way more mellow than a main quest speedrun.
“It was blessedly uneventful, because Link didn’t show up,” Damien adds with a laugh. “I think we scared him off.”
“Link?” Victory asks. “LikeTheLegend of Zelda, Link?”
