Solace (7 page)

But Shane didn’t consider himself a halfway decent person.

“Do you play?” Aaron suddenly asked, the question bearing down on the invasive silence that had spread between them. A silence even Buttercup had seemed to feel, as she’d tensed at his side.

Shane followed Aaron’s gaze back into the house and found the object of his interest. A smirk touched his lips. He folded up that strike of lust and tucked it neatly away, striding over to the desk where his laptop sat, open.

“What, this? I just thought the art looked cool.”

“Oh,” Aaron said, his disappointment obvious.

Shane’s lips twitched, and this time Aaron seemed to catch on.

“So you do play.”

“Hell yeah I play. I saved for months to buy a laptop that could handle it.”

He gripped the mouse that rested beside the laptop, and pulled up an application. The login screen for Shield and Sanctuary came up.

“I got into it right after I enlisted,” he said.

Back before he’d been deployed. Back when the military was just the easiest option to figure out what the fuck he wanted to do with his life.

“Do you play?”

“Since launch,” Aaron admitted in a quiet tone that gave Shane the impression that he was probably ribbed about it often.

Strike one thing off the list of things he would tease Aaron about.

He took a seat, and his fingers lit across the keyboard as he entered his login information. A
Connecting to Server…
message appeared, and Shane leaned back in the chair, draping his arm over it. He looked up at Aaron.

“Shit, you must have a pretty solid account.”

“Server full of max level characters.”

Shane whistled appreciatively. Some of his buddies had given him shit over how obsessed he’d become with S&S, but Shane hadn’t given much of a shit. He’d had every reason to log in and escape. Especially overseas.

“Which server?”

“Feral Woods,” Aaron said.

“No shit? That’s where some of mine are.”

They talked about the game for what must have been a good twenty minutes. Shane sat in his chair, working the mouse, and Aaron leaned close to see what he was doing. Maybe it was silly, but he felt a certain amount of pride in showing off the characters he’d leveled and the shit he’d done, and he probably could have listened to Aaron talk about his own time with the game for the rest of the night.

But at some point during Aaron’s description, the conversation took a turn.

“I started playing MMOs when I was in junior high. I always found it a lot easier to talk to people in game than…” He paused, seeming to realize he’d said more than he wanted to say. But quietly, he finished the thought. “Than I ever did in person.”

Shane could understand that. He’d never had a problem talking to people. At least, not before he was deployed. He would have gone up to anyone. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

Things were easier in game. They just were.

“I logged the most hours in Afghanistan. When I got done with work for the day, I’d come back to my bunk and just play until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. I guess it… I don’t know. It was a good way to…”

“Not think about everything else?” Aaron supplied.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

His main character in Shield and Sanctuary was still a soldier. Well. A warrior. But when he killed “people,” they respawned. When he “died,” he respawned, too.

He didn’t have to worry about how he was going to get through the next day. He didn’t have to worry about what he’d do if the enemy showed up at their doorstep.

The soldiers who’d given him shit for playing had the same thing. They all did. If a soldier didn’t have a way to escape, he just shored up completely.

Shane had gotten close to that point. And he’d probably swung the pendulum too far the other way, too, playing for hours and hours just to keep that shit as far away from his consciousness as possible.

“If you ever need help leveling one of those alts, I can run you through some dungeons,” Aaron said, interrupting his thoughts before they could take a darker turn.

“Nah, man, I wouldn’t ask you to do that. But hit me up sometime and maybe we can knock out some quests.”

He picked up the pen he kept on that same desk and tore off the top sheet where he’d scrawled a list of components he still needed to make the armor he wanted for his paladin.

On the clean sheet, he wrote down his handle: A way for Aaron to reach him when he was online. He offered it up to Aaron, and the man took it. Soft fingers just brushed Shane’s, and he felt a little shiver of heat race up his arm from the point of contact.

Aaron must have felt it too, because he was blushing again.

“Thanks. I’ll do that.”

And Shane genuinely hoped he did.

A
s soon as
Aaron stepped through the door of his small apartment, he knew what his destination was going to be.

It wasn’t all that different from any other Saturday, only instead of going out for a walk, he’d come from Shane’s place after arriving bright and early to help him and Buttercup make a good chunk of progress in their obedience training.

He kicked off his shoes, nudging them neatly into place with his toes before padding into the kitchen. Washing out the coffee pot, he filled it back up with clean, filtered water and started the coffee maker with three scoops of dark roast—extra caffeinated.

While it brewed, he changed out of his pressed shirt and pants into older, baggier clothes; just an old t-shirt and a broken-in pair of jeans. Leaning over his computer desk, he launched the client for Shield and Sanctuary and entered his login credentials.

Then, after fetching his cup and making some toast, he sat down with every intention of just spending the day doing whatever he pleased in game.

By this point, he felt he’d earned it. He’d played only a handful of hours since starting Shane and Buttercup’s training, and while he didn’t regret it at all, it was nice to have a day to himself where he could unwind.

As he waited for his character to load into the game world, though, he found himself thinking about his “client.”

Shane was so good-natured about some things. He acted like nothing ever bothered him. But Aaron had seen a few glimpses of Shane that proved otherwise.

He wished he’d open up. Even just a little. And, Aaron had to admit, he didn’t just wish that because he was his trainer. He found himself wanting to
know
Shane.

He opened up his friends list, hoping Shane would be around. But he wasn’t. He hadn’t been since they’d first talked about it two weeks ago, and Aaron couldn’t help but wonder if Shane had just given him a bogus name to keep his privacy.

It made no sense. Aaron had seen his characters and remembered at least one of their names. It was just his mind spinning irrational tales again. They obviously just kept missing each other.

Aaron sighed and pulled on his headset, ready to just immerse himself in the game.

But the moment he went to teleport to the questing area, he was assailed by messages from his guild.

They wanted him to come and heal in a raid they were doing, but, unlike in real life, Aaron had no problem saying no in game.

It was easy for him to tune out guild chat and pick up the quests he wanted to complete for the day. It was easy for him to go through the soothing, familiar motions of doing tasks.

But then a notification chimed in his headset and his world momentarily stopped. That was Shane’s handle. He’d finally logged on.

Aaron hovered his mouse pointer over the name. One click and he could send Shane a private message. It wouldn’t have to be anything crazy. Just a simple “Hey, want to quest?” But even that felt abrupt.

Aaron started to type out something else.

But that made him sound like a creeper. He deleted it.

Not any better.

He’d finally settled on just “Hey” when a message appeared in his chat box. It was from Shane.

Aaron stared at the screen, that rough ball of anxiety tangling in his gut once more. Nothing good ever started with those words. And for once, he wished he was speaking to Shane face to face instead of sitting behind his computer screen. It would be a lot easier to read his emotion that way.

He hoped it was. But he also hoped there was just some minor issue that could be solved quickly. He wasn’t sure he was going to get either of his wishes.

Aaron let out a soft sigh of relief. At least Buttercup was okay. But that relief quickly faded as his mind ran through every other possible scenario.

Aaron froze, his fingers poised above the keyboard. He read the message again, and then a third time, just to be sure he’d read it right.

A notebook. He could only mean one notebook. He wouldn’t mention it otherwise. But that was impossible. Aaron had brought his observation notebook home with him.

Sliding his chair away from the desk, he found his backpack on the bed. He sifted through it, coming up with treats and papers.

But no notebook.

Cold dread dumped into his veins, and he slowly made his way back to the computer. No chance of just disconnecting now. Shane would talk to him tomorrow at the very latest. And he owed the man a straightforward answer.

Aaron considered his options. He could lie and tell Shane it was just for his own records; a way to help himself become a better trainer. But the idea of lying to Shane made him feel ill. He couldn’t do it to the man’s face. He wouldn’t do it here.

Aaron picked over every word, deleting and retyping until he was satisfied. In contrast, Shane’s reply came in lightning fast.

Again Aaron struggled to build the perfect string of sentences. If they were face to face, he would stammer out a weak defense and follow it with an apology. He wouldn’t do that now.

But Shane’s messages kept coming through.

A part of Aaron wanted to hide; to step away from his computer and take time to puzzle out the best possible response, one that wouldn’t anger Shane any further.

But another part of him was red and agitated, riled into a long-stewing anger. And that part of him was what set his fingers back to the keys.

He’d told Shane they’d need to move on to more specific training if he was going to be of any help whatsoever. He’d waited for Shane to open up in his own time. But whenever Aaron asked, Shane just distracted him, seeming to think he wouldn’t notice.

Oh, he’d noticed.

He’d noticed every one of Shane’s flirtatious lines. He’d noticed the lazy tilt of his smile that was definitely premeditated. He’d noticed the way Shane leaned in that much closer, spoke that much deeper when he was doing it.

He’d noticed, and he’d played those moments back at night when he was alone in his bed. Only, in his fantasies, they had a different outcome.

Instead of Aaron flustering and backing away or trying to redirect Shane’s flirtations, he was confident and assertive in what he wanted. He flirted back. He let Shane know that he was interested.

And oh, the things he’d imagined Shane doing to him.

He knew the reality of the situation. Shane was probably just very good at charismatic misdirection. It would never go anywhere.

Conversations like this one made Aaron almost glad of that, though. He couldn’t imagine what this talk would be like if any of the scenarios in his fantasies had played out.

Aaron stared at the screen, but he hadn’t received any new messages from Shane. Not the entire time his mind had wandered. He checked his friends list again to be sure Shane was still online, then drew in a breath.

He sent the message, then immediately fired off another.

Well. At least Shane was still there; still getting his messages. Aaron closed his eyes and sighed before sending a response.

No response. Ten minutes passed, and again Aaron checked to make sure Shane was still online. He was.

All right then.

He forced himself to go back to questing, trying to push this inevitable confrontation to the back of his mind. It was tomorrow’s problem.

He didn’t manage well. For a while he was able to focus, but he kept getting sidetracked, his mind veering him off the path of least resistance and back to the matter at hand.

And then, over an hour later, the chime of an incoming message rang through his headset.

Aaron blinked at the screen. He stopped in the middle of a hostile area, his character getting beat on by a monster that could kill him in just a few more hits. He didn’t even notice when the death screen came up.

Aaron sat back in his chair, his lips parted. He didn’t dare respond.

God, he couldn’t even imagine.

Aaron was almost afraid to breathe, as if the very sound would send Shane skittering away. But that was ridiculous. Shane couldn’t see or hear him, and he really couldn’t imagine Shane skittering.

When Shane didn’t say anything else, Aaron agonized over a response. Nothing he typed seemed adequate. “I’m sorry” felt like putting a flimsy Band-Aid over a gushing wound. “I can help you” might not be the truth. He really didn’t know if he could help Shane.

Taking in a deep breath he decided, once again, to tell the truth.

Aaron found himself biting his nails as he waited for Shane’s response.

Aaron decided to respond truthfully:

Shane’s answer appeared a moment later.

Aaron didn’t hope for more than what Shane had already given him.

But Shane surprised him again.