CHAPTER 1
CALEB
Mom
Are you bringing a date to Carlie’s wedding?
Caleb.
Caleb.
I need to know. We’re turning in the final food order.
Son. Please respond.
I huff out a breath and close my eyes. My mom’s messages are popping up on my computer screen, distracting me—and making me regret my choice to set up a messaging system on my computer that links to my phone. It’s convenient when I’m working. Not so much when I’m in the middle of a game and my mom is texting.
“Give me just a second,” I say into my headset. “Urgent message I have to take care of.” My team onShadow Heroeswon’t question that, and I don’t have to mention that the so-called urgent message is about my sister’s wedding, and it’s from my mom. I’d ignore it, but she’ll call. And when I don’tanswer that, she’ll send my sister, Carlie, over to bug me. Carlie is spending quality quiet time with her fiancé right now. I don’t want to mess that up.
I tap into my messages app on another screen to respond, crossing my fingers that my quick response will placate her.
Caleb
Of course.
I can’t answer any differently. If I say no, my mom will bring a date for me. It’s no big deal. I’ll figure something out.
Mom
You can’t just bring a woman you met this morning at the coffee shop to your sister’s wedding.
Of course that’s what she would assume. I haven’t dated a lot the past couple years, so apparently Mom doubts my ability to have an actual relationship. I can hear the sigh in her voice. And maybe I was considering this very thing—well, it was actually a juice place where I picked up an order for Carlie to help her out, and the woman behind me thought it was pretty awesome I cared about my health and wasn’t too “macho” (her words) to get an organic juice, and I didn’t look like the “gym bros” (also her words) she usually saw in there.
She gave me her number.
And I maybe did a quick, no-biggie social media dive to check her out and, yes, make sure there were no red flags. Mom would probably approve of this woman. She runs a yoga gym in the neighborhood. Mom, who believes I can’t possibly be making a living wage working at my computer all the time, is big into finding me a wife who is the CEO of something. Or is a partnerat a law firm. Or a doctor. So she can support this cute IT habit I have.
“Cal?” a female voice says in my ear. “We’re ready to pick up the drop. We need cover. You back?”
My team has been working to get this intelligence in the game for three weeks. It’s a big deal. We can’t mess this up, or it will put our whole mission in jeopardy.
I won’t bother explaining this to Mom. She won’t understand that anything in a video game could be important. I don’t fault her. Mom has never playedShadow Heroesor anything like it. She doesn’t get that this is more than an onlineMonopolygame, and that my team has spent weeks strategizing on this mission.
“Give me five more minutes,” I tell Malia. She’s my favorite teammate. Super smart and a game developer. We’ve commiserated offline plenty of times about our families’ expectations for us and their misunderstandings of what we do. Malia works her dream job for a gaming company, but her family thinks she plays video games all day.
Caleb
Not a girl from the coffee shop.
I’ve known her for a while.
At this point, I’ll tell any lie to get Mom to stop texting me about this.
Mom
Are you dating someone?
Just like I could hear the sigh before, it’s easy to hear the jubilance now.
