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Miles pinched his nose. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Baby girl.” Damen knelt in front of me, his eyes twinkling in an alarming way. “When did you—”
I pointed at Finn, interrupting his question.
“ElvenEdgeLord69.” He buried his face in his hands. “That’s her handle. She has had a lot of free time.”
“She’sElvenEdgeLord69?” Brayden covered his mouth. “But he’s a legend! He’s one of the top ten players in the country. All this time I thought it wasyou.”
“Does itlooklike I have time to play video games?” Finn glared at him. “No, I just let her use my information for her account. She needed an outlet. I disabled chat and the microphones.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. What chats? What in the world was there to talk about in these games? The only objective was to go in and kill people. But as he pursed his lips, I waved my hand in the air. I probably wouldn’t like the answer anyway.
“Never mind. Listen, can we transfer my account to this system?” I asked. “I really miss my custom skins.” There were all manner of items I needed. Hopefully this edition had the same downloadable attachments. MyHello KittyVPAR was greatly missed. “ElvenEdgeLord69 has all the cool stuff.”
“Okay, you are all going to need to stop saying ‘ElvenEdgeLord69’.” Julian held out his hands. “How did you even come up with that handle?” he asked, looking at me. “Why the…” He hesitated only briefly. “Sixty-nine?”
Wasn’t itobvious? So many other players had gotten the reference. It was a number I’d seen often throughout my gaming career.
“The yin-yang symbol!” How could they not know this? Why did everyone—except Finn—seem so confused? “Think about it. They fit together so perfectly. And the bubble-part of the number holds the dot, and they wrap around each other…” My words trailed off at Julian’s look of confusion. “Do I need to draw it out for you?”
“No!” Julian sounded alarmed, and his eyes had widened almost comically. “Please don’t.”
Now I was confused, and my gaze narrowed on the others. Clearly, I was missing something. Perhaps I had been misled.
“Fine.” I pulled out my phone. “Just give me a moment.”
“No! Don’t Google it.” This time it was Damen who interrupted, pulling the phone out of my hands. He turned his narrowed gaze to Finn. “What did you do?”
“Don’t ask me!” Finn was staring at me in horror. “I had nothing to do with this one.”
“What is it?” I asked, my face was burning in embarrassment. I loathed the uncomfortable looks of pity on their faces. And my heart twisted painfully at the knowledge that I, surely, sounded so stupid to them right now.
“I had no idea it was this bad.” Bryce was rubbing his temples. “Someone should have warned me.”
“Warnedyou?” I rounded on him, my pulse roaring in my ears. The stress of the week pulled at me, and exhaustion shredded my final hold on restraint. Distantly, I caught Julian reaching for me. I saw his mouth move, but his words didn’t register.
“Why would anyone do that?” The words tore from me. “All of this is your fault!”
The moment seemed to freeze in time, my awareness shifted. There was only Bryce, pale—yet still slightly black and blue—staring at me with eyes that matched my own.
He was normally so annoying, so smug. But not anymore.
I witnessed the exact second his expression broke; when the first hint of real, genuine emotion—other than fury—filled his features.
Pain.
It was masked over within an instant, but I had seen it. My breath caught, and guilt washed over me.
What was I doing? I was the most horrible person in the world.
“Fine.” Bryce got to his feet, brushing off his jeans. He would no longer meet my eyes. “I’ll just get out of your way then.”
And before I could protest, he stalked from the room.
The heaviness in the room lifted, and I sucked in a breath. “I’m terrible.”
Julian wrapped his arms around me, and as I pressed my face into his chest, the comforting blanket of his presence washed over me.
