Chapter 1

It was almost a perfect relationship. I'd met Jason at a CD release party for a local band. He was doing a review of the band for his college newspaper and I was just bored on a Friday night. As it turned out, neither one of us paid much attention to the music after a few songs, since we were busy dancing a little too close and making each other laugh. He ended up buying the CD to finish his review.

"Very unprofessional," he would say later, trying to look serious before breaking out into a smile. "But it was the best twelve bucks I ever spent."

We went out for coffee or dinner three times the following week, then four times the next week. After a month he had given me the key to his apartment and I had a toothbrush sitting beside his in the little plastic holder. We spent all the time we possibly could together: meeting up for obscenely late lunches or early dinners, hanging out in the lobby of my dorm, getting together before classes started in the mornings. Simply put, we could not get enough of each other.

I knew he liked video games, of course. He talked about it sometimes, generally stopping himself before delving too deep into sheer geekery, but no more often than I talked about photography or movies. What I didn't realize was that, unlike my camera or the movie theater, his video games ran on some sort of schedule. Once summer break rolled around, however, I found myself educated in the finer points of online gaming.

"What do you mean you can't go out because you have to play?" I asked the first time he turned down my invitation to go see a new art exhibit. "The game will still be there tomorrow."

"That's not the way raiding works," he explained, patently. "See, we all get together at the same time, then we go do a quest together. But it takes ten people to do, and I'm kind of important. My guild doesn't have another healer, not a good one anyway. The art museum will still be there tomorrow, though, so how about we go check it out in the morning and then grab lunch at that Italian place you like?"

Well, how could I turn down an offer like that? I called up my best girl friend and we had a night out instead, singing karaoke and drinking silly girl drinks until the wee hours of the morning. She dropped me off at his apartment around 3am, and I tiptoed up the stairs, scared of waking him. I took my shoes off, made sure not to jingle the keys, and pushed the door open as slowly as I could to prevent any squeaks. Once I was inside, however, I saw the blue glow coming from the bedroom and realized all my precautions had been for nothing.

"Are you still raiding?" I asked, poking my head around the door frame.

"Man, fuck you," he replied without looking around. There was no heat in his voice, but the response was still kind of shocking.

"It was just a question!" I said, maybe a little more loudly than was called for.

His head jerked toward me and he yanked his headphones off. "Hey, baby, I didn't hear you come in. Have a good time out with Allison?"

"I take it that the 'fuck you' wasn't for me, then? And yes, I had a pretty good time. Still can't sing, and still can't get drunk off of cosmos."

"Oh, shit, no, the 'fuck you' was for Shade." He looked embarrassed. "He was being a total ninja just to screw with me."

I studied him for a second, one eyebrow raised. He opened his mouth to explain further, but I held up one hand to stop him. "Don't want to know. All I want is for you to tell your ninja friend goodnight, shut that thing down, and be prepared to fuck me senseless by the time I get back from brushing my teeth. K?"

"Ok," he replied. Smart man.

The next day, true to his word, we went out to the museum and the Italian place on Main Street. Granted, we didn't do it early, as neither of us were quite ready to get out of bed until after noon. When we did finally get out of bed, we made it as far as the shower before getting distracted again. A couple of hours later we managed to make it out the door properly.

"So, ok," I said as we were walking around the museum. "This video game thing, with the raiding times and attendance requirements and stuff. How come I didn't know about this until just now? I mean, it sounds like you've been doing this for a while, right?"

"Yeah, I've been playing for two years," he answered. "But it slows down during the school year to once a week, and you had band practice on Wednesday and an early class on Thursday so it never ended up being an issue for me to raid on Wednesdays."

Thinking on it, I remembered that he had mentioned staying up late playing games sometimes when we met for lunch on Thursdays. "Ah, so that's why you don't have any classes until late on Thursdays, isn't it?"

He nodded, looking a little sheepish. "Yeah, kinda silly to plan my class schedule around a video game, huh?"

"Nah. If you can get away with it, why not? It's college, we're allowed to have a little fun, right? After all, I refuse to have early classes on Mondays, just to extend my weekends a little more."

"And since I did the same thing next semester, that gives us more time together," he pointed out.

"I know," I said, reaching up on tiptoes to give him a kiss. "Which is going to lead to lots of late Sunday nights, I'm sure."

We kissed and giggled in front of the Impressionist exhibit until two middle school boys walked up behind us and started making wet smacking sounds. He blushed, much to my amusement, and I turned around and winked at the kids. I think I was the only one in the room not dying of embarrassment at that point.

Later, he brought up the game again. "So, remember how I said that raiding picked up more during the summer?"

"Ye-es?"

"Well, we're not hardcore or anything, but we do raid three times a week. I should probably show up for two of them, but I'm not really picky about which ones."

It was difficult not to pout, as I'd envisioned us spending the entire summer doing nothing but laying around naked and going to do fun things. Still, I reminded myself, I wasn't a big fan of the sort of guy that made me the entire focus of his life. A couple of nights of video games wasn't much compared to classes in the fall and spring.

"Which nights do you get to pick from?" I asked.

"Monday and Wednesday are our night raids, but they also do a Saturday afternoon raid, too."

"Uh, I'm thinking my vote is for Saturday to be the one you don't do," I said. "I like my Saturday afternoons with you."

"Ok, I'll let them know that I'm good for the Monday and Wednesday raids. They go pretty late," he added, apologetically. "I mean, you're welcome to come over and cook yourself dinner or watch TV or whatever while I'm playing, I just won't have a lot of time to talk between 8 o'clock and midnight."

I made a big show of slumping and pouting. "I suppose I'll deal somehow," I sighed, dramatically.

"I'll make it up to you?" he said, patting my back and trying not to laugh at me.

"Oh, yes," I said. "Yes, you will. Repeatedly."

We fell into a comfortable routine over the next couple of weeks, one that accommodated his gaming schedule. All in all it wasn't that bad, though I did end up attending a few concerts and movies by myself. Most of the time, though, raid nights found me curled up on his couch with a bowl of popcorn and a book, listening to him curse and speak in code.