Page 47 of Don't Hate the Player
“Why are we even toggled for player-versus-player combat?” I ask. It’s too late to undo the PVP choice now, but I’m seriously regretting thinking I would need any further distraction when I have Jake on the mic.
“I dunno. I figured you would, and if you needed a healer I wanted to be there.”
That’s exactly what I thought he’d say. I don’t understand where Jake gets that selfless impulse from.
“See, that’s nice. I can’t see you blow anything up when you’re that nice.”
“Don’t think that,” Jake says so quietly I almost don’t hear him on the mic. “I’ve ruined things for people before. A while ago I told someone something I shouldn’t have, and I learned not to do that anymore.”
That’s not a great sign. Not a bad sign, either, if he really learned his lesson the hard way. “What did you tell? Was it aboutGLO?”
“Nah, something else. I don’t want to talk about it. I keep my mouth shut now, so it’s kind of better that no one listens to me.”
“I’m listening.”
Jake sighs again into his mic. “You are. Which, by the way, is totally nuts. Just from a personal standpoint, for me.”
“Me too.” Wait, that didn’t come out right. “Not nuts that I’m listening, just nuts that we’re, like, talking like this. I don’t get to talk to anyone like this.”
“You don’t have heart-to-hearts with random guys in front of towering monuments to Space Catholicism?” Jake jokes.
“No, I do that all the time, obviously. Totally normal Wednesday. Don’t let me keep you up, though,” I say. “See you on Saturday?”
“You still want to risk it? It’s okay if you don’t.”
“I do.” Of course I do.
“Okay, tell you what. You bring the car; I buy you a matcha latte. Just the biggest . . . grande-est . . . green tea thing you’ve ever seen. I’ll dump half of it all over myself, just how you like it.”
“Jake!” If I laugh any harder, Iwillwake up my parents no matter how far their bedroom is from mine. “I have to get to bed. I’m delirious. Sorry.”
I can almost hear his smile through the microphone, the same smile he gave me in front of his apartment when he said it was super cool not being my friend again. It makes me smile too.
“Em, you gotta stop saying sorry.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Team Unity Chat, Friday
BobTheeQ: I’m going to keep it real with you. That was balls.
shineedancer: I messed up the countdown, my bad
MUDD: and their Klaudio burned me out
BobTheeQ: Jake, you stayed alive. Where were you?
JHoops: I whipped their carrigan into the lake to short out his mech special
JHoops: by the time he was in ki and muddy blinked out
BobTheeQ: We can’t let this happen tomorrow. We were on fire last week, what happened?
JHoops: muddy’s balor was literally on fire just now if that helps
MUDD: can you not
BobTheeQ: In less than twenty-four hours, we play Beast Mode. If we beat them, we get a shot at Fury. With the way we’re playing tonight Beast is going to eat us alive.
