Page 36 of The Revenge Game

For god’s sake.

I stand and head to his workspace. Glancing over his shoulder, I see he’s up to the legendary Dragon’s Lair Level Eleven. Shit. This level takes hours unless you use the shortcuts.

“You need to go through that tunnel to the left of the jewel room,” I say.

Xander squints at me. “What?”

The help desk phone starts shrilling incessantly.

“Here.” I reach for Xander’s keyboard and quickly type in the speed-running code I created at MIT when I was obsessed with Dragon’s Sphere.

The sound of a thousand virtual fireworks explodes from his computer as his character materializes in the treasure room, theLevel Completebanner unfurling across his screen in shimmering gold text.

“There. Done. Now, can you please go and fix Accounting’s printer?”

I leave Xander staring at his screen as I rush to answer the phone that’s still ringing.

“Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on?”

“Hello, it’s Dave from Sales. And yes, I tried turning my computer off, but now it won’t turn back on.”

“I’ll be right up,” I promise.

I turn to where Xander is sitting at his computer, still blinking in astonishment at his screen.

“Can you please go fix the printer?” I’m almost pleading now.

“Sure.” He lumbers to his feet. “I’ll do it right now.”

Oh, thank god. Maybe I should have tried helping him with Dragon’s Sphere earlier.

My stomach clenches as I head up the stairs to the sales department.

Each step brings me closer to Justin’s domain, and my brain is back to helpfully replaying details from Saturday night—his laugh, his stupid perfect face lighting up when he talked about his cats, how his couch tried to swallow me while we watched British comedy clips.

I stayed at his place until after ten, caught in this strange twilight zone where Justin Morris, my old high school tormentor, kept finding excuses to show me just one more clip he thought would make me laugh.

Somehow, the memory of him on Saturday night unsettles me more than any memory from high school.

Back then, I knew exactly who he was.

Now? I’m not so sure.

When I reach the sales department, I can almost smell the testosterone. Every surface seems to be covered in sports equipment catalogs and someone’s set up a dart board with their competitors’ logos as targets.

Shit. This is giving me high school flashbacks. The way the sales guys call out to each other across their cubicles is like watching the popular table in the cafeteria all over again.

I half expect to see a locker materialize between the desks, ready for someone to shove me into it.

Justin is nowhere to be seen. The tension drains from my body, but it’s quickly replaced by my confusion about whether I’m relieved or disappointed.

It sucks how Justin’s presence or absence still affects me so much.

I keep my head down and head to Dave’s cubicle. It doesn’t take long to discover that his computer is suffering from a classic case of driver rebellion. Three commands and a strategic system refresh later, his screen blinks back to life.

And despite my impulse to leave the sales department as quickly as possible, I can’t help noticing his laptop is running slower than a snail in quicksand.

“Do you mind if I optimize a few things to make your computer run faster?” I ask.