Page 3 of Game On

Since I was a hockey player, people assumed I wanted every single woman I laid eyes on. But who wanted to be the stereotypical athlete who banged the nanny? A lot of these women weren’t my type, anyway. They were gorgeous, sure, but I liked my women a little nerdy.

I changed for bed and composed another email to the agency, telling them again that I was interested in a seasoned nanny. I needed to find someone reliable. And no more puck bunnies.

I lay in my bed and pulled out my phone to charge for the night. I saw a text from Blaise.

BLAISE: How’d the new one work out?

I sent him three angry face emojis in response.

My phone beeped with another reply.

BLAISE: BRO!! Want me to ask V to watch him next time?

ME: Maybe. I gotta figure something out.

BLAISE: We got you.

I was grateful for Blaise and his girlfriend, Veronica. Blaise had even offered to let me move in with them, but I didn’t want to put him out. He and V had just moved in together, and he let it slip they were expecting their first child already. I didn’t want to cramp their style, and I felt guilty when V rearranged her work schedule to watch Liam for me.

I grabbed my game controller and turned on my game console. There was one way for me to ease the stress right now — playing Dragonspire. I put on my headset so the noise of the game wouldn’t wake Liam.

My teammates loved playing the latest sports video game, but that was boring. I loved a good role-playing game, or RPG, as we called it in the gaming world. I had been playing Dragonspire, a fantasy-style multiplayer online game since I was sixteen. If a game had dragons and elves in it, I was in. I didn’t have a guild, and most hardcore gamers called me a ‘casual,’ but I had people I played with regularly.

Like FlowerChild183.

If I was being honest with myself, she was probably my best friend. Even if I didn’t know her real name. Or what she looked like. We had been playing together since I was in high school. When I was nervous about getting drafted into the league, she talked me down. Although I lied and said it was a college admissions interview, but her advice had been helpful all the same.

She disappeared last year, and it was rare to see her online lately. I didn’t have room to talk since I only had a few spare minutes between all my hockey and parental duties. When I found the time to do a quest, I always searched to see if she was online.

To my surprise, her gamertag popped up on my friends list when I signed on, indicating she was online.

I shot her a message.

GINGERPOWER33: Yo, Flower! Dragonspire?

FLOWERCHILD183: Ginge! I could do a dungeon crawl. You need a wood elf archer?

GINGERPOWER33: Hell yeah, girl! I’m logging in. Switch to voice chat?

FLOWERCHILD183: On it!

I logged into the game and saw a notification pop up that said, ‘FlowerChild183 wants to group.’ I logged into the voice chat. “Hey, girl, long time no game!”

“Ha! Could say the same about you.”

“I travel a lot for work. It’s been busy. How have you been?”

She sighed. “Ugh. Long story, had a baby, got married, and then divorced.”

That story sounded eerily familiar, but I couldn’t place why. Did she tell me that before? I felt like I would have remembered that, and I couldn’t remember the last time we gamed together.

“Whoa, I get that. I have custody of my nephew. Single parent life’s rough! You got time to play tonight? I need to relieve stress and kill some dragons.”

“I have time for one dungeon,” she said.

“Works for me!”

She did only have time for one dungeon crawl, and when she logged off, I couldn’t help but think that her voice sounded familiar to me. Which was weird. Of course it sounded familiar — I’d had her voice in my headset for years.