Page 14 of Gamers' Omega

“Sweet!” I chirped. “How’d you score that?”

Beck’s cheeks turned pink. “It’s… kind of my job. I run a game blog, post video reviews, and freelance for a couple magazines. I don’t always get review copies, but several companies will give them to me.”

“It’s the perfect job for him,” Tony said with a grin.

Beck chuckled. “It is, but it’s still a lot of work.”

“You didn’t see his office that night of the storm, did you?” Tony asked.

I shook my head.

“You should see it,” Freddie cut in. “He’s got this huge lighting rig setup so that he can take good photos and look good on video.”

“Actually,” Ian said, swallowing a bite of pizza, “you should come over tomorrow after the normal game night and play this one with us.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Hmm?”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Freddie said. He motioned to the cards in his other hand and a line of small tokens on the table in front of him. “This game is supposedly up to six players, but the resources feel a bit thin at four. It could be a fun challenge with more people, or frustrating.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Don’t you have people you’ve gamed with longer?”

“I would appreciate it if you came,” Beck said softly. “A lot of others don’t like Pico being out, and social time is critical for birds. I hate keeping him caged any more than necessary, and you seemed ok with him.”

I smiled at the memory of Pico falling asleep on my shoulder when I’d stayed at their place.

What could I say? The little thing was cute as hell.

“I take it that’s a yes?” Ian said with a grin.

I laughed. “Ok. I’ll come over after game night tomorrow.”

“Sweet!” Ian replied. “Just know, I’m taking all y’all down.”

I burst into laughter. “You’re on.”

∞∞∞

Pico ran across the table, scattering lines of stat tokens, and climbed up onto my hand.

“Hey Pico,” I said, moving cards to my other hand before he could nibble on them.

He started bopping his little head. “Pico bird is in the house tonight…” he declared, slightly off tempo from the song the words parodied.

I chuckled. “Is that new?”

Ian nodded. “Beck’s spent the past month or so working with him to learn that. He’s only started saying it clearly the past few days.”

“Good job Pico!” I told him. Then I glanced up at Beck. “Do you have a treat or something I need to reward him with?”

Beck stood, walked over to the cage area, and picked up a container. He brought it over and poured a small pile of tiny colorful pellets between myself and Freddie.

“That’s his regular food, but we save millet for special occasions. He’ll appreciate it though.”

“Ok.”

I set my cards down and picked up one of the seed-sized pellets. I held it out to Pico, who chirped as he plucked it from between my fingers and started crunching it.

Once my hand had a light dusting of pellet powder, Pico decided to climb up my shirt to my shoulder. Within a minute he was grinding his beak, which Beck had told me was a sign that he was a content bird.