‘That was Caleb banging his head against the table on your behalf,’ Cutter said cheerfully. ‘He thinks you’re beyond help.’
‘Don’t listen to them, healer. I think you’re sweet.’
‘Story of his life,’ muttered Caleb. ‘I don’t know why people think that. He’s not that sweet.’
‘Let him own sweet,’ said Cutter. ‘He sure as hell doesn’t do suave.’
It probably wouldn’t do to whimper. Maybe if he just stopped
healing
them they could all die. New plan.
Good
plan.
‘So, Zoey. We’re going to smoke this next lizard for you now, and get through the gate and take out the sniper who sits beyond it. Feel free to quiz us about Eli on the way. Whatever you want to know. You’ve got to be a little bit curious by now.’
‘Just a bit. Hair color?’ she asked.
‘Black?’ Caleb didn’t sound sure. ‘Mostly black. Or really dark brown.’
‘Skin tone?’
‘What’s she talking about?’ This from Cutter.
‘Just pick a paint color.’
‘Walnut?’
‘Peanut.’
‘I’m not a peanut, Zoey. Don’t listen to them. I’m six-two and taller than them both.’
‘By a
hair
.’
‘By a
fraction of a hair
.’
‘They haven’t quite come to terms with it.’
Zoey giggled, even as she took a big hit from the lizard. Caleb went into stealth mode and circled around behind it. ‘Eye color?’ she asked.
‘Grey,’ said Cutter.
‘Seriously?’ She sounded skeptical. ‘Grey eyes are pretty rare.’
‘Dove grey, black lashes, no lie.’ Cutter was on a roll, but he wasn’t lying. ‘Eli got our mother’s eyes. People get lost in his eyes on a regular basis. Not that he notices. He’s too busy trying not to be a geek.’
Cutter stunned the lizard with a spell, Caleb cut its throat and Zoey wasted no time taking the lead through the gate, drawing fire and absorbing it. Eli stood back, behind the fighting line and started feeding her more health. Only way to get through the gate was to trust his companions to know what they were doing.
‘We should find an Inn after this and let the newlyweds get a room.’ said Caleb. ‘Who’s with me?’
‘Aye,’ agreed Cutter.
‘Are they playing boatyard pirates now?’ Zoey sounded ever so slightly incredulous. ‘They are, aren’t they?’
Eli sighed. ‘You’re going to be doing something else on Friday nights from now on, aren’t you?’
‘I’m going to be drinking more, for sure.’
‘Hey, Cutter…’ said Caleb and then stopped. Silence followed. They were either having a silent conversation that Eli didn’t have antennae for or they were texting each other. Neither was good news.
‘Hey, Zoey?’ This from Cutter, using his smoothest
I’m now going to persuade you to do something truly idiotic
voice. ‘What are you doing next weekend?’
‘No!’ Eli could stand against his brothers when he had to. ‘No hitting on the Zoey wife! Go and get a real girl.’
‘But she is a real girl.’
Always with the facts. ‘You need a different real girl. This one’s mine. I
like
my Friday afternoon play dates.’
‘Possessive,’ murmured Caleb. ‘Maybe he is a Jackson after all.’
And now Zoey had his full name. Not that it mattered. It was just… there were rules about this stuff. Unwritten and unpoliced, but within the world of online gaming, real names and addresses were rarely exchanged. He’d liked the anonymity. This one little hour where he wasn’t Eli Jackson the youngest, the quiet one, the one who’d known loss and darkness and grief.
‘Eli, what are
you
doing next weekend?’ Cutter said with exaggerated patience. ‘Cause
that’s
where I’m going with this. You need to get out more with friends. Zoey’s a friend—’
‘I am. I’m loyal and true,’ she cut in. ‘No one could ask for a better friend. Eli, can I shoot them?’ Zoey didn’t wait for his reply, she just started gunning for his brothers.
Caleb let out a whoop, Cutter fired back.
And it was on.
Two minutes later Caleb and Cutter were dead and his lady wife was laughing her ass off.
That noise, right there, was half the reason Eli played.
‘I’m getting a clue as to why he abandons us every Friday afternoon to go play on his computer,’ muttered Caleb.
‘Yeah, I’m getting it too. We should leave them to it, this being their big wedding night and all.’
A message popped up on Eli’s screen from Caleb.
Can you imagine a wedding night with a costume designer?
‘No! No one imagine a damn thing!’
‘What?’ asked Zoey.
He’d spoken aloud. Caleb snorted as Eli tried desperately to take his own advice. ‘Nothing. Just… my brothers were just leaving. Now. To go start a party somewhere
else
.’
‘Nice to meet you, Zoey.’
‘Yeah, good game.’
Oh,
now
they turned into gentlemen. Eli waited until he could hear them outside before he attempted damage control. Zoey was being uncharacteristically quiet. Maybe she’d left too.
‘Zoey, do you have brothers?’
‘I have a sister. A loving and supportive sister. If I had brothers like yours I’d be in jail, because they’d be dead.’
‘I won’t do that to you again.’
‘Nah, it was fun. You realize that I’m now more curious about you than ever, right?’
‘I, er…’ Hadn’t realized that, no.
‘However, seeing as you neither asked questions earlier, nor offered information unless pressed, I’m going to cut you a break and give you back your privacy.’
‘What did you want to know?’
‘Anything, Eli. Whatever you feel inclined to share.’ Her voice had softened. ‘Ready for another game?’
‘Yeah, I—yeah.’
Five minutes later, mid-battle and surrounded by newbies, Eli volunteered more information. ‘I like sunrise better than sunset.’
‘I like sunshine better than rain.’
‘I like shucking oysters better than I like shelling peas.’
‘I like eating both… though possibly not together.’ She sounded distracted, probably something to do with the dozens of tiny critters trying to eat
her
. ‘I like chocolate more than I like flowers.’
‘Never eaten flowers,’ he said, and drew a breath and offered up something a little more personal. ‘I like Friday afternoons.’ It was as close as he was going to get to telling her how much he enjoyed it when they played.
‘I like them too,’ she offered finally, after a pause that seemed to last forever.
It wasn’t much, this ragged banter that he offered up to Zoey, formerly Fuzzy, but it was the most he’d offered any woman in years.
It was a start.
[E
li could be
stubborn when he wanted to be. Eli could be the stubbornest of them all.
‘No.’ He bellowed the word so that Caleb could hear him above the racket they were making. ‘I am not going to a gaming convention and sharing a hotel room with a woman
I don’t know
.’
‘What do you mean you don’t know her? You’ve been talking to her online for years.’
He and Caleb were knocking out a section of eastern wall in preparation for the floor-to-ceiling windows to go in. If they set the windows back from the wall by a door span or two Eli would have himself an outdoor deck area as well. Somewhere to greet the sunrise that he’d told Zoey he liked better than sunset. Never mind that he
did
like beginnings better than endings. Telling the Zoey wife this riveting fact was something he aimed to forget.
He’d been aiming to bury the memory of last night’s game beneath a mountain of cursing and several layers of sweat. He’d almost succeeded. And then Caleb had opened his big mouth and talked about Eli and Zoey meeting in person. Eli had been saying no ever since. ‘Besides, Fuzzy’ll never agree to it. It’s insane.’
‘But she
has
agreed to it.’ Caleb reached in his back pocket for his phone. ‘That’s the beauty of it. A message came in from her about an hour ago. She says she’ll take the couch. She thinks I’m you, by the way.’
‘
She what?
’
‘She said she’d go to the convention with you. As of this morning when you told her you had a spare three day pass to the geek fest on the Gold Coast, plus five nights’ accommodation already booked. You asked her if she wanted to share. Embrace the genius that is me pretending to be you. She said yes.’
‘Jesus, Caleb. How could y—’
‘Eli, listen, just once. What’s not to enjoy? Spend some time with this girl. Check out the latest games. For chrissakes
have some fun
.’
‘I have fun.’ Eli hefted his sledgehammer. ‘This is fun.’
‘No, this is you sticking a window in the cave you crawled into after Simone died.’
‘It’s fun,’ Eli offered curtly.
Caleb had stopped pounding on the wall and had turned to face him, his eyes, like his words, a little too direct for Eli’s liking. ‘Isn’t it time you started to get out more?’
‘I get out enough.’
‘You live like a monk.’
‘I don’t want a new woman in my bed every three weeks.’ Which was about how long a woman lasted with Caleb.
‘Five years, Eli. You haven’t even looked at a woman in five years. That’s not normal.’
‘I
loved
Simone.’
‘You were
twenty-one
.’ Caleb took one look at Eli’s face and relented. ‘And okay… maybe you loved her and she loved you, but she’s been dead for five years. What do you think
she’d
tell you to do?’
‘She’d probably tell me not to push you out this dirty great hole in the wall.’
‘And she’d be right. Look.’ Caleb sounded supremely frustrated. ‘Five nights, a convention hall full of new computer games and gadgets to look at and a nerdy costume-designing room-mate who seems like a good sport. Even if she did ambush her own men.’
‘She gave you fair warning.’
‘See? You like her. You’re defending her. No one’s telling you to bed her. Just be open to the thought that you might actually enjoy spending some face to face time with her.’
‘When’s it on?’ Eli wasn’t agreeing. He was just… wondering.
‘Starts next Friday, runs through until Sunday afternoon and the accommodation goes through until Tuesday.’
‘There’s too much work to do here.’
‘We’re bringing Bobby in. Any other objections?’
‘Yeah, cost.’
‘Birthday present from me and Cutter. Apart from that you’re hardly a pauper. Spend some money, Eli. There’s no point earning it if you never spend it.’
‘I just blew plenty on windows and doors.’
‘And they’re worth it. Maybe they’ll broaden your horizons.’
Eli swung the sledgehammer and it cracked wood and rammed through the wall with satisfying force. ‘What’s the catch?’
‘There is no catch. This is me worrying about my little brother’s lack of a life and trying to do something about it.’ This time it was Caleb’s sledgehammer that sent splinters of wood flying. Caleb’s face set in grim, unyielding lines. ‘Get out more, Eli. Please.’
‘Since when do you say please?’
Caleb’s pithy reply definitely didn’t include the word please.
They spent the next several minutes making the wooden wall disappear, before Caleb finally took out the last plank and stood back. The windows were going to open this place right up. Eli wasn’t at all convinced that
he
needed opening up as well. One thing at a time.
‘Cutter and I took a vote. You weren’t included ‘cause you were the subject. You’re getting out more, starting now, even if we have to drag you out.’ Caleb sounded dead serious. ‘Because you need to lighten up and live a little.’
‘If I go will you stop nagging?’
Caleb grinned, sensing victory. ‘Put it this way. If you go, you won’t be able to hear me.’
‘Y
ou’re going
where?’
Zoey stopped stacking warm coffee cups on top of the red and silver espresso machine and turned to face her sister, Sophie. Sophie worked hard, worried enough for the both of them and took most of life’s twists and turns altogether too seriously. It was a function of their childhood, mostly, and for that Zoey felt both guilty and grateful.
Sophie had encouraged Zoey to visit her six months ago – a visit that had turned into something else altogether when Zoey had fallen in love with the place. Soph had let her turn the room above the café into a costume design workshop and she’d insisted that Zoey stay with her until a decent rental place became available in this tiny seaside pocket that the Daniels sisters now called home.
A favor for a favor, Zoey figured it only fair that she help with café clean up at the end of each day.
‘I’m going to the Gold Coast for five days, to a big gaming convention where I’ll get to see what all the latest computer game characters are wearing and I’m rooming with someone called Eli Jackson, who I’ve never met, but he’s a sweetheart. A real gentleman.’
Sophie stopped scrubbing the café’s grill plate long enough to offer up a snort. ‘How do you know he’s a gentleman if you’ve never met him?’
‘I’ve been gaming online with him for almost two years. He never undermines me when I lead the play and I haven’t heard a sexist comment out of him yet.’
‘Yeah, so he doesn’t trash talk you. What a prince. What else do you know about him?’
‘He’s twenty-six, has two older brothers, dove grey eyes and he likes shucking oysters better than he likes shelling peas.’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘Yeah, I don’t know either but I like him. I want to meet him.’
This time Sophie put the scrubber down, wiped her hands on a nearby tea towel and offered up her full attention. ‘Couldn’t you have just invited him round for coffee? I’d have thrown it in for free.’
‘He lives two hours up the road. It’s a long way to come for coffee.’
‘How do you know where he lives?’
‘I looked up Jackson’s Boatbuilding.’
‘He’s a boat builder?’
‘I’m not sure. It looks like a family business. According to the website he’s either a fisherman, a dive master, a charter boat operator or a boat builder. Apparently they do the lot. A grey-eyed fisherman, Soph. Tell me that’s not just a little bit sexy.’