“Hey!” I turn my mic on. “Welcome back.”
“There’s our girl,” Waffle chuckles. “Missed you. Sorry, we’ve been so busy.”
“Yeah, life sucks sometimes.” Grim sighs dramatically.
“What are you talking about?” Waffle snorts. “Your life is fucking amazing, and you know it. Stop acting like it’s a hardship.”
My brows pull together. How does Waffle know about Grim's life? I thought we didn’t talk about our outside lives?
“Okay, yeah, you’re right. But work takes up so much of our time, how are we going to spend time with our Princess?” Grim playfully whines. His husky voice and longing tone cause a shiver to run down my spine.
Hearing him call me their Princess has me biting my lip.
“Hey, Death. You there, man?” Waffle asks. “I see you’re online.”
Instead of answering through the mic, he texts back in the chat.
FatalDe@thWish: Yeah, I’m here. Sorry, can’t go on mic. Gone for work, using my laptop.
“Ahhh. Shitty. That's okay. Ready to kick ass?” Grim asks.
“Yup.” I smile. “Ready.”
For the next hour, we work together on raids, leveling up by winning races and stacking up our inventory. I forgot how much work this game could be.
It’s been years since we’ve played this game. My laptop wasn’t powerful enough to run the graphics, so it always lagged. Anytime I was able to play with the guys, we’d jump into random games.
It turns out that they have been playing together as a team inTwisted Valley,and now they are pretty high in rankings. Not going to lie, it kind of hurts to know that they’ve continued on without me.
Gaming’s something we did together for years. It wasourthing, and now they do it without me.
I can’t be too upset, though, because they’ve abandoned their game to start up a new one with me.
It’s the little things that keep me holding on.
It’s stupid and pathetic. I know I need to pull myself out of this silly little fantasy and move on, grow up.
But it’s moments like this, when I feel helpless and unsure where to go in life, that they’re here for me. They make me laugh and take my mind off all my worries. They are the escape I rely on.
You can’t escape life forever, Addison. Time to grow up and be an adult.
“That was crazy! Did you see that guy? Fucker tried to blow me up with a fucking bazooka!” Waffle shouts.
“Thanks for the save, Princess,” Grim cheers as I run the guy over with my car.
“I got your back.” My leg is bouncing as we race back to our base. “But I think we should lock everything up and be done for the night. I’d hate to lose all our progress.”
“Yeah,” Grim sighs. “Probably for the best. We gotta get up early for work anyway.”
My brows pull together. Did he just saywe? How does he know Waffle’s work schedule?
Once everything is saved, we log out of the game but stay in the group chat.
Leaning back in my chair, I stare at the screen, eyeing the guys’ gamer tags while I chew on my lower lip.
“You okay, Princess?” Grim asks.
“Huh?” I blink, his voice like a soothing blanket over my body, pulling me from my worrying thoughts. “Oh.” I laugh. “It’s nothing.”
