“We thought we’d lost you to the big city,” Dave said, rounding the corner.
“You did,” Lincoln said. “I found a group of younger, better-looking gamers.”
“We all knew that would happen eventually,” Dave said, clapping Lincoln on the back and leading him into house. “This game has gotten entirely too chaotic-evil without you. We tried to kill off your character last week to punish you for abandoning us, but Christine wouldn’t let us, so we left you in a pit instead. Possibly a snake-filled pit. You’ll have to work that out with Larry, he’s the Dungeon Master this week.”
“We just started playing,” Christine said. “You should’ve called, we would’ve waited for you.”
“You should have called,” Troy said from the dining room table. “I wouldn’t have had to ride my bike twelve miles to get here.”
“Troy, I said I’d pick you up,” Larry said. Larry was a little older than the rest of them, in his early thirties, an Air Force captain with a family and some secret job involving artificial intelligence.
“Your car smells like juice boxes,” Troy said.
“Do you have any idea what you smell like?” Larry asked.
“It’s sandalwood,” Troy said.
“You smell like a Pier One store with body odor,” Lincoln said, finding his spot in the corner.
They’d saved it for him. Dave handed him a slice of pizza.
“It’s a masculine scent,” Troy said.
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” Lincoln said. That made Rick laugh. Rick was pale and thin and never wore anything other than black. He even wore pieces of black cloth and leather tied around his wrists.
If not for Rick, Lincoln would have been the Shy One in the group.
Lincoln looked around the table, wondering where that left him.
If Dave was the Intense One, and Christine was the Girl …And Larry was the Serious One (and the Intimidating One and the One Most Likely to Be on a Black Ops Team) …If Rick was the Shy One, and Troy was the Weird One, and Teddy, a surgical resident who looked like the dad in Back to the Future—Teddy might actually be the Nerdy One …
Then who was Lincoln?
All the adjectives that came to his head (lost, stunted, mother-living) brought him down.
Tonight it was enough to be one of them. To be someplace where he always had a spot at the table, where everybody already knew that he didn’t like olives on his pizza, and they always looked happy to see him.
When Lincoln realized he was rewriting the theme song to Cheers, he decided to stop thinking and just play.
THE GAME WENT on for seven hours. Everyone made rescuing Lincoln’s character—a lawful-good dwarf named ’Smov the Ninekiller—the first order of business. They defeated a nefarious wind witch.
They ordered more pizza. Dave and Christine’s three-year-old fell asleep on the floor, watching Toy Story.
Lincoln stayed after the game ended and everyone else went home. Dave opened a window, and the three of them sat on couches, breathing cool, clean air and listening to Christine’s wind chimes.
“You know what we should do now?” Dave said, rubbing his 2:00 a.m. stubble.
“What?” Lincoln said.
“Axis and Allies.”
Christine threw a pillow at him. “God, no.”
Dave caught it. “Lincoln wants to play Axis and Allies. I can see it in his eyes …”
“I think Lincoln wants to tell us what he’s been doing with himself lately.” Christine smiled warmly at Lincoln. Everything about her was warm and soft and welcoming.
They’d kissed once, in college, in his dorm room, before Christine had started dating Dave. Lincoln had offered to help her study for a physics final. Christine didn’t need to take physics; she wanted to be an English teacher. But she told Lincoln that she didn’t want to live in a world she didn’t understand, that she didn’t want a faith-based relationship with things like centrifugal force and gravity. As she said it, she kicked off her sandals and sat Indian-style on his bed. She had long, wavy, wheaty hair that never looked brushed.
Christine told Lincoln that he explained everything so much better than her physics professor, a stern man with a Slavic accent who acted offended every time she asked a stupid question. Lincoln told her that her questions weren’t stupid, and she hugged him. That’s when he kissed her. It was like kissing a warm bath.
“That was nice,” Christine said when he pulled away. He couldn’t tell whether she wanted him to kiss her again. She was smiling. She looked happy, but that didn’t mean anything. She always looked happy …
“Do you feel ready for your test?” he asked.