I shrugged. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Liar.”

I didn’t say anything for a minute, checked the setting on my gun. I think I was most disturbed by the fact that she didn’t seem to care. But I’d seen that look on her face and I knew what it had meant.

“Yeah, they were hot. Maybe I should ask one of them out. Or maybe more than one. They seem willing to share.”

Silence. I chanced a glance at her and she seemed to be staring off into space. She turned toward me, then jerked her gun up and aimed past me. “Duck!” she screamed and shot out the doorway at the player who had just appeared there. Orange paint splattered his midsection.

I brought my gun around and pointed it at him. He raised his hands. “I’m dead. Back to base.”

I stood up and watched him go, limping to the doorway and glancing around to make sure he’d been alone. He was.

“I noticed you didn’t shoot him in the balls. Maybe because the interns didn’t flirt with him?”

She waved her gun menacingly. “No more talking about the interns or I’ll undo my good deed as medic.”

I rubbed at the vicinity of the soreness, blatantly adjusting myself. “Just because you don’t want to use those parts anymore doesn’t mean someone else isn’t interested.”

The smile immediately dropped off her face.

“We should get you out of here and back to headquarters,” she said. She reached into her shirt and pulled out the folded-up portion of the map. “Should I give this to you?”

I took the map from her. It was warm and damp with her perspiration. “You know that part in Return of the Jedi where Han and Leia are trying to break into the bunker and Leia’s injured, but she ends up covering for Han? This is kind of like that.”

“Except Leia didn’t shoot Han in the nuts,” she said. “Besides, you are the one who’s injured, so wouldn’t that make you Leia and me Han?”

“Well, you are like Han in that you shoot first and ask questions later.”

“I don’t recall Han Solo blowing anyone’s balls off.”

I laughed. “Let’s go back to headquarters. I need to check in and see if we’ve made any progress on the enemy’s map. I think I can walk now.”

The game had dragged on and because of what we thought would make an awesome scenario, we ran into a stalemate instead. Blizzard’s guys called it first, fortunately. After much deliberation—we had more map pieces than they did, after all—we decided to call a draw. It wasn’t the great victory we’d been anticipating, but at least we weren’t humiliated by them, either.

As we were packing up our equipment, I went over and thanked Heath for his excellent leadership on the sniper team. But he was distracted with a text on his phone.

He finally jerked a head in my direction. “Oh, hey man, sorry. I’m kind of annoyed because this game went so late and Connor left me a text message wanting to get together.”

I thought about that for a moment and immediately saw an opportunity. Things had been easier, more open between me and Emilia today. And if I played this right, I might be able to angle more time with her tonight.

“Why not just clean up from here and go meet him somewhere?” I asked.

Heath made a face. “Can’t. Gotta run Mia home and I’m sure she wants to go to the dinner with everyone first.”

I tilted my head, considering—as if I hadn’t already anticipated exactly what he had just told me. “Well, I’ve got this, then. Why not just let her go to the dinner and I’ll give her a ride home?”

Heath eyed me for a minute, so I pulled out my phone and looked at it to make this all look more casual instead of orchestrated. I was pretty sure he was on to me despite my act.

“Would Mia be okay with that?” Heath said.

I shrugged. “I dunno…ask her.”

Heath nodded and went to talk to Emilia who, apparently, was okay with it.

Heath took off. We finished packing up, showered and changed in the locker rooms. Afterward, we ate at a local restaurant, a massive joint dinner where the teams got to mingle and razz each other. Much fun was had by all. Or at least I hoped so. The employees had been worked pretty hard in preparation for DracoCon and would be worked even harder until the convention was over. I hoped they’d enjoyed this brief respite. Either way, all the hard work would be done before the holidays, to the relief of everyone involved.

Emilia was quiet most of the way to Heath’s apartment—I refused to think of that place as her home. And I was also thinking that this little plan of mine might end up being a bust until she finally started talking.