Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88447 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88447 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
I sat back in my computer chair, trying to hide my smile. “Seriously, it’s okay. I’m not dumb. I know how to protect myself in cyberspace.”
The tension slowly left his body as he nodded. “Fine, but if someone bothers you, I want you to tell me, baby bear. Promise me you will.”
I rolled my eyes. “If someone gives me more shit than I can handle, I’ll let you know, Daddy Bear.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
His voice lowered slightly, that subtle growl that came out sometimes shivering along my nerves. “Now, you ready to kick some ass, Slayla?”
Laughing, I settled into my comfy chair, pausing to lean down and pet Vali. “Whoa, whoa. Slow down, cowboy. The only ass you’re going to be kicking is doodle bugs for the first couple levels.”
He groaned, and I swear if it was possible for a badass to pout, he was pouting. “Can’t you just power level me? You know, like, fast forward me through all the crap. I was reading online that you can get a high-level friend to help basically slam you through to the final tier.”
“Nope. That ‘crap’ is stuff you have to learn on your own, but I will keep other players from killing you while you lay waste to the bug population.”
“Fine,” he grumbled. “Let’s go kill some doodle bugs.”
One Year Later
I tried to keep the disappointment off my face as Mark said, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to cancel our plans. I have a work thing I have to do overseas. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I said with a note of false cheeriness in my voice. “I understand.”
And I did, to a point. I knew Mark worked hard, and that his job was very demanding. He’d disappear for weeks at a time, with only an email and phone call here and there to let me know he was alive. His job with the Cordova Corporation paid really well, so I understood why he worked the crazy hours that he did. It certainly afforded him a plush lifestyle. A couple times, when we’d talked, he’d been in some beautiful exotic location. Like the time we’d chatted when he was in Paris. He took me for a walk through the city, via his phone’s video camera, and I swear it felt like I was there with him.
I could see the regret in his eyes, so I tried to let my disappointment go. “Maybe we can try to meet up again when you get back?”
“Sure thing, baby bear.”
Two Years Later
My voice cracked as I said, “Let me guess, you’re canceling on me again?”
Mark rubbed his dark, silver flecked beard, something he’d grown after I mentioned I found beards sexy on men. “I’m sorry, Layla, I—”
“I know, I know. You have to do your job.”
“Yeah,” he said in a tired voice, the lines around his pale eyes deeper than usual. “I’ll make it up to you, I’ll—”
Unable to stand anymore of his feeble excuses, I said, “Right. I’ve gotta go.”
After I took off my headphones and closed the chat program, I sat back in my computer chair and stared at the fairy lights strung around my computer room walls. Tears trailed down my cheeks, and I brushed them aside with a weary sigh. I should be used to the disappointment of Mark canceling on me by now, but each time it was a blow to my soul.
The worst thing in the world had to be loving someone and not having them love you back.
I’d gone through it with my mother and now with Mark. I believed he had feelings for me, that he cared about me, but for some reason he refused to act on them. We were both single, and my agoraphobia was improving by leaps and bounds. I could now go to the store at seven o’clock at night. True, it wasn’t as busy as say a Saturday morning, but there were more people there than during my old shopping time of 2 am. And I was trying to make eye contact with people, and not walk around with my shoulders hunched as if I expected a blow. At least not all the time.
I was getting better, and it frustrated me that the one man I wanted to see my improvement, that I wanted to be proud of me, kept blowing me off. Hell, did he even want to be my friend? With the way he avoided being with me physically, it made me wonder. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he had some kind of secret life that he tried to hide from me. Like a wife and kids tucked away in the suburbs. Joy, his once temporary roommate and now my friend, said that Mark didn’t have a woman or many friends in his life. And that he didn’t even really date or seem interested in anyone, male or female, outside of me. He worked, he gamed with me, and that was about it.