“I’m…” Not fine at all. “Can you recommend me a hotel that’s not too far from the convention center? Or at least tell me what part of town I need to book in?”
“I thought you were staying with friends. What’s up?”
It wasn’t like I could say bad things about his colleagues, but I had to explain something. It was likely he’d hear aboutit anyway, and I’d rather he hear my version of the story too. “These friends I was going to meet… I only know them from the game. Like, I’ve never seen their faces and I only knew their screen names.”
“Are you in trouble? I can track down owners of IP addresses.” No wonder Megan and Landon adored him.
Yup, we were close enough I knew the people he was dating—we all gamed together when I was playing as Fallyn—but I had to come out here for strangers. The one with the sexy voice, and the one with controlling streak. “I’m fine, I promise. Not in any danger.” Unless the cops were on their way to evict me from this front porch. Was Elliot watching this on the doorbell cam? “Do you know who Puff69 and Archer are?”
Silence met me.
That wasn’t a good sign.
“I’m not allowed to answer that,” Nigel finally said.
Of course not. Because of privacy concerns and also because he worked with them.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m sitting on Elliot’s front porch right now, and he just slammed the door in my face. I didn’t know, hand to god. I had no idea I was…” Earhole fucking someone who possibly considered me his arch nemesis.
“I’ll talk to him,” Nigel said.
“No. No, no, no.” I didn’t want Nigel to get in trouble with his work. They’d already been mad enough when they found out I was going around them to bring bugs to him directly.
Which was a weird thing to get mad about, but people were touchy about me breaking their code. You’d think I snapped their dicks off with my bare hands, the way they reacted sometimes.
“You’re here to see him. He invited you.” Nigel sounded sympathetic but insistent. “You’re Demon Kittie? You didn’t tell me. He’s been swooning over meeting you for weeks.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the doorbell cam. Swooning? Over me? “A girl’s gotta have some secrets.”
“I’ll talk to him. Don’t go anywhere.” Nigel disconnected.
Like I said… My taste in men was just the worst.
2/
elliot
What was I supposed to do about the woman sitting on my porch?
The woman wearing the face of my arch nemesis, for longer than I’d been part of AcesPlayed. The petite, spunky, gorgeous woman who apparently also possessed an incredible mind.
I mean, I knew Fallyn was smart. It took brains to make the online show that she did. Brains. Balls. And a lot of sadism. I should respect that. But…
And she was the same woman Link and I had been voiceterbating with for months. It was impossible to ignore that smooth, sultry voice tinged with a British accent, even if I wanted to. Except the woman online was much sweeter, far less crass, than the woman who spoke with a cockney twang in the videos that annoyed me when they were mild and infuriated me most of the time.
But Fallyn was Demon Kittie. The most exquisite blend of bratty, submissive, and brilliant conversationalist…
Nope. This was a dream. Any minute now, I’d have to pee and wouldn’t be able to find a bathroom. Or someone would come after me with a fire ax. Or my dick would shrivel up and fall off. Or worst of all, every redundancy we had in place for the gamewould fail, the entire thing would vanish, and nearly six years’ worth of blood, sweat, and cum would be destroyed.
Worst nightmare, right there. Which must be why Fallyn was on my doorstep, claiming she was Demon Kittie.
And I couldn’t stop watching her through my doorbell cam, like some sort of proper creeper. Was it better or worse that I chose to leave the sound off? I didn’t want to hear who she was calling. I didn’t want to admit that I was an idiot to not recognize that Demon Kittie and Fallyn had the same voice.
My phone rang, and Nigel’s name appeared on the screen.
It was starting—things were breaking at work. The apocalypse mere days before our game’s official debut. “Hey,” I answered.
“Are you going to talk to her or sulk like a six-year-old?” Nigel asked.