Page 48 of Structure of Love

“Having dealt with Cooper, I have an idea of how belligerent he was.”

“Oh, that he was for sure.” Zar rolled his eyes. “I had to remind myself I’m an adult several times because I wanted to dump him in a ditch somewhere.”

“How is it that so much of adulting is not doing the tempting thing?” Riggs complained.

I snorted. Yeah, that sounded about right.

Zar grinned. “Logan’s in agreement there. I swear, becoming an adult is learning how to not say the wrong thing in a tempting moment. And remembering to put the laundry in the dryer. I didn’t get the adulting thing figured out until I was, like, twenty-seven or so.”

Asher snorted and rolled his eyes. “I’m still figuring out the adulting thing, thank you.”

I offered Asher knuckles, which he bumped, grinning. I felt that to my soul.

“Y’know,” Riggs said, “Tolkien described the hobbits as not being adults until they were thirty-five or so. I think the man was onto something.”

Cohen sniggered. “Speaking as the oldest person at this table, he was absolutely right.”

I heard someone approach and turned slightly, spying Gage coming in. “There you are.”

“Here I am,” he agreed, leaning in to smack a kiss on my mouth. “Making friends?”

“Indeed.”

With Gage’s arrival, it seemed all players were ready and accounted for. Gage loaded up on beer and goodies before takingthe seat next to mine. I was thankful, because again, it had been a hot minute since I’d played, so I wasn’t sure what to do when. Not that I was in play just yet. Riggs was pulling our characters together and having us introduce our characters to one another.

Between us rolling, I saw Asher and Zar being cute. Asher kept picking up one of Zar’s hands and playing with his fingers.

Zar, after about a minute of this, regarded his boyfriend with exasperation. “I can’t be your fidget toy.”

“Yes, you can!” Asher said with a winning smile.

Riggs cut in, “Cute couple to the side of me, what’s your passive perception?”

“Uh…” Asher had to look at his character sheet. “Fourteen, why?”

“Roll survival.”

“Fuck, this better not be an ambush.” Asher rolled. “That’s a fifteen on the die?”

“Okay. So congrats, you’ve found a person. He looks kind of rough, huge dragonborn, red skinned. What are you doing?”

That was my character! Riggs had pulled me into the one-shot. Awesome.

Asher blinked. “Hi, random stranger. Want some water?”

“Sure, I’ll take some. I’m trying to get to a certain place, uh…” Shit, I’d written down the dungeon’s name somewhere…ah, there it was. “Temple of the Forsaken. You heard of it?”

“Yeah, heading that direction! Come along.”

I looked to Riggs. “I guess I’m going with him?”

“DnD is all about having friends nonconsensually,” he said, eyes twinkling with laughter. “So you’re going, good, and that means everyone has met. Okay, I’m going to speed you up a little. You’re now at the mouth of the cave. What are you doing?”

“Should we roll initiative?” Cohen looked cautious.

Uh, was Riggs the type to roll combat right from the outset?

“I’ll tell you when you’re facing an enemy, but I would get into some kind of marching order.”