Page 92 of Dating and Dragons
Sanjiv nods. “Honestly, I don’t care what you two do. I only agreed to that rule so none of you derelicts could date my sister. That’s all I care about.”
Kashvi gives me a quick, panicked look and I smirk. Good luck getting Sanjiv on board with Andrew.
“Just don’t make your characters turn all gushy and lovey in the game,” Mark adds. “You’re way more fun when you’re bickering.”
“Actually, if this is confession time, then Mark and I have something to tell you,” Sloane says.
My mouth drops open, but Sloane waves away my shock.
“Notthat,dear god. Mark and I aren’t dating. Quinn, we know you were upset about your ex-friends trolling you in the chat and we wanted to do something to make you feel better. Mark and I started talking and decided it would be great if we could fill the chat with something positive. So we found the contact info for Stephanie fromThe Smiling DMpodcast and asked her if she’d be willing to watch one of our sessions.”
“She never confirmed, but that’s why we were double-checking the internet connection when you got here,” Mark explains. “We didn’t want her to log in and then have our livestream go down.”
I sit back in shock. A quick glance at Logan’s surprised expression tells me that he didn’t know about this either. “You actually did that for me?”
“What do you meanactually? Of course we did. Not that it came to much, but we thought it would be a fun surprise if we could pull it off.” Sloane smiles and tugs on their crocheted hat.
I’d throw my arms around them, but they’re not one for physical contact. “That’s amazing. Thank you so much for caring enough to try. But I don’t care about the chat or anything they have to say anymore. They’re just bitter with nothing else to do.”
“The worst,” Mark agrees.
“And the guy’s a horrible kisser, from what you said,” Kashvi adds with a laugh.
My cheeks heat, but I can’t help smiling. “It was like he was trying to suction my lips off with his mouth.”
The others burst out laughing, though Sloane pushes away from the table with a shiver. “He’s a loser, no doubt, but that’s more info than I need.”
“You can only go up from there,” Sanjiv tells Logan.
“All right, can wepleaseget back to D&D now?” Mark asks. “This is a game table, not a feelings table, and I still need to figure out how to use this salt water to test the balance of my dice.”
Logan stands and I follow him. Sure, I love the group, but after the things he just said, I don’t want to wait one more second without kissing hi—
“It’s two-ten!” Kashvi’s voice is an octave higher than usual.
“The livestream should have started ten minutes ago!” Sanjiv cries. “Now we’ve lost our audience for today!”
“Ummmm.” Kashvi’s face is panicked as she holds up her phone to the group. “Andrew just texted—”
“No time, get in your chairs. It might not be too late,” Sloane commands. They rush to the other end of the table where their laptop is. “I bet some viewers will wait around for us. I’ll just…”
Sloane’s voice trails off. The blood drains from their face. Something is clearly very wrong.
“Please don’t kill me,” they whisper.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Sloane?” Mark asks.
Sloane frantically messes with something on the laptop and lets out a strangled scream. Then they step away from the table and start pacing, hands wrapped around the back of their neck.
“Are we not playing, then?” I ask gently.
“Yeah, no, that’s canceled. Like, for sure.”
We look to each other in confusion. Sloane is canceling the game? How much weirder can today get?
“Pleasedon’t kill me,” Sloane repeats, and turns to face the table. “But you know how we were having issues with the livestream earlier? And how we were troubleshooting before you all came barreling in and started fighting and declaring your undying love for each other?” Sloane’s eyes flicker to Logan and me apologetically. “Yeah, so…I kind of forgot to shut down the livestream when the mayhem began.”