A shy reference librarian, and a college student who was disowned when she refused to submit to conversion therapy, meet in a bookstore. He's been waiting his whole life for her. Meanwhile, she's starting her whole life over. What ensues between the...
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We're clustered around the card table again. There are only five of us now - me, Magister, the other two librarians, and my classmate. When she and her boyfriend broke it off in an acrimonious sort of way back in October, she got custody of Sunday gaming nights. Some of that custody arrangement might have been due to his character's having lost so much sanity after summoning an Elder God that the character wound up permanently institutionalized as a drooling, gibbering wreck, an encounter only even survivable by his making an astronomically good save roll; but had also recently picked up a new part-time job that was going to get in the way of his gaming, so he didn't really have a good reason to fight for his spot at the gaming table.
Interestingly, this means Magister is now the only male in an otherwise all-female group of role players. That doesn't happen very often. If I'd been in his position, I think I would have made one obligatory teasing comment about having a harem, just to see what kind of reaction I'd get, but so far, he's refrained.
"Make a perception check," I tell my classmate, who is playing an archaeologist. It's a fairly easy challenge - the party needs to find out somehow that there's something a little off about the hieroglyphics on the wall of the pyramid. If all else fails, another character can spot the alien drawings. In the meantime, though, my classmate needs to roll, and she needs to borrow my dice, because while she got custody of Sunday game attendance, her ex-boyfriend got custody of all the dice. She still hasn't replaced her dice.
It was an extremely messy break-up.
When I pass her my twenty-sided die, our hands brush up against each other.
"Sorry," we both say, more or less at the same time. Of course, this makes us apologize again, with similar timing.
I feel blood rush to my cheeks. No doubt I'm blushing as hard as she is.
Her roll is successful.
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The grape and yogurt salad chills on a shelf in the refrigerator. That was the easiest dish to prepare. Everything else we're advance-prepping for our Yule feast - tiropitas, spanakopitas, and baklava - requires actual work.
