“So, let’s decide already. Italian or Mexican?” I asked.

She blew out a breath and rolled her eyes. “Just think about it. Give her some space. She may just come back to you if you back off and don’t push your agenda.”

Well, that advice sounded familiar. “Is this where you pull out your inspirational keychain with the picture of a butterfly and the saying that if you love something you should set it free?”

Her lips twisted into a dry smile. “Something like that.” She turned and walked out of the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”

I followed her out and we did enjoy a pleasant lunch—mostly talking about safe subjects. She never brought up Emilia or the tattoo again, at least. Like I said, Lindsay wasn’t dumb. But, unsolicited or not, her words kept rolling around in my mind. This was the reason Emilia had backed off—because she cared more about being a doctor, her original goal since she was a child, than she did about this new relationship full of unknowns.

In trying to secure her, I had pushed her away because I had arrogantly assumed that I was the number one priority. While at the same time telling her that she wasn’t the number one priority to me by refusing to move back East to be with her.

I was beginning to realize how ridiculously unfair I had been in that. The real question was, was it too late for me to fix it?

Chapter Thirteen

The next day was Sunday and I had very little to do in the morning. In this post-Emilia life, the weekends were turning out to be the worst. The loneliness threatened to rise up and suffocate me. Especially when I was trying my hardest to resist my old fallback—work. There was plenty to do, but today I wouldn’t allow it. I couldn’t fall into those old patterns again.

But it called to me like alcohol to a wino, like the baccarat table to a gambler. Just one hour, that voice would say. You can log in and get stuff done. It will be so productive. After an hour, you can log off. Or maybe just swing by the office and check on things.

But I’d prove to myself that I could resist—if just for today. No checking work e-mail. Because once I fell down that rabbit hole, it was a steep-ass climb back out again. And I had no desire at all to go hiking some godforsaken mountain trail to reclaim my inner self.

I allowed myself the concession that playing on DE would not be in complete violation of this Sunday work blackout. So I started up the game and logged on to my invisible Gamemaster account to see if the old group I used to play with was on. We often played together on Sunday mornings and I wondered if they were continuing the tradition.

I checked my friends list.

*Your friend, Eloisa, is online. Emilia.

*Your friend, Fragged, is online. Heath.

*Your friend, Persephone, is online. Kat.

They were all here. I checked their location. Golden Mountains Region. They were working on the big secret quest. I resisted the urge to run the commands to see if I could read their in-game texts to each other. They used voice, mostly, unless I was playing with them. I sat back with a sigh. Like the rest of the players of Dragon Epoch, my regular gaming group had erroneously concluded that the Golden Mountains quest chain actually started in the Golden Mountains region instead of where the very first clue actually hid, in plain sight of all.

I smiled deviously at the screen. It had been months since the launch of the expansion and no one was any closer to figuring out the damn thing than they had been when it had started. If people didn’t start getting clues to that thing soon, I was certain we’d have a riot on our hands—a massive player revolt. Maybe even a sit-in demonstration at DracoCon. Already there were sites that claimed that the quest was a myth or a hoax or hadn’t even been finished and implemented into the game yet. How wrong they were. The idea for that quest had sprung into my mind while dreaming up the original storyline for the game, years ago.

It had been something of a dream and a long-term goal of mine to develop the technology and game programming in order to implement it. I wasn’t about to give up those clues easily. Not even to the woman I loved.

I remembered her teasing me about it. My clues to her had all been genuine, but they’d been so vague as to be useless and she’d known it. I hit the command that would cloak my character from being seen—an ability that could only be used by employees of the company—and traveled to their location. I’m not sure what I wanted to accomplish, but as I sat there for ten minutes watching them beat the life out of an endless string of trolls, I decided I was bored. It would be more fun if I could play with them.

I wasn’t sure how Emilia would react, but at that point I didn’t care. They were my friends, too, and I deserved to spend a little time with them, even if Emilia had chosen to break up with me. I risked her thinking of it as creepy stalking, but I was determined not to keep the huge distance in the virtual world that I was currently maintaining in the real one.