Terms and Conditions

Chapter 04

A tall man stood beside me, dressed in the same thief clothes Manny had selected at the beginning of the game. He wasn't too thin and fit the outfit just right. My eyes couldn't help but trail the lines of slender muscles along his arms, accentuated by the tight, dark brown fabric of his attire. When my gaze traveled up the side of his neck, I caught sight of a red stud adorning his ear. It caught the sunlight, creating a subtle glow.

But that was nothing compared to the light I saw when I finally looked at his face and into his eyes. Light brown skin like sand kissed by ocean waves paired with dark golden eyes similar to a topaz stone. In seconds, I was breathless.

And when he smiled, I think I died.

"Were you buying anything today?" he asked me with a grin. "A lovely lady like yourself should always have jewelry like this. I think this one, in particular, will match that pretty dress of yours, no?"

Whatever goofy smile I may have had on my face fell. He did not just go there.

Regardless of how gorgeous he was, or how lovely he may have smelled if I got closer, there was an invisible line in the gaming world he just crossed without shame. Flirting.

In games, it was such normal behavior for a guy player to assume a girl was only playing a game for the pretty dresses and beautiful pieces of jewelry.

They would bring up conversations about boyfriends, "Are you single?"

And always followed it with, "I bet you look good in real life, too."

A S L, anyone?

This was not that type of game. And I was not that type of player. I was a Mage leader, a dungeon group healer. It was my group in Harrowing Knights who single-handedly defeated the high-level end-boss in the Cooler mountains. We held that spot on the leaderboards. I took the title of top Mage.

"This isn't a dress." I bit the insides of my cheek, holding my basket at my side. "And I don't care if it matches."

"Oh?" His grin grew, and he tossed the necklace back on the table, ruining the neat layout the NPC had before him. "I didn't say you'd care if it matched, I simply stated the obvious. It was pretty, like you."

Dios mío.

I threw one of my hands over my head and turned around. Behind me, he gasped, grumbled, loud enough the NPC within the stall asked, "Are you all right? Did you care to buy anything today?"

The sounds of my feet stomping against the evenly cut stone floor echoed in my ears. Beta notes, make sure this isn't some e-dating web game.

"Hey, where are you going?" He followed close behind me, weaving past a player who came between as they tried to cross the town square. "What did I say?" he asked once he came to my side.

I refused to look at him. I didn't care for his sunlight, his pretty face. With a personality like that, he was poison. Had to be. I looked ahead instead, scanning the crowd of players in search of my cousin.

The guy's hand touched my elbow, an attempt to get me to look at him. Quickly, I turned and snatched my arm away, pulling my basket back up towards my neck.

My eyes widened as I looked at him. "Don't touch me," I said through clenched teeth. "What do you want?"

For a moment, he looked sad. Sincerity in his gaze. The grin he had, the one that pushed up the evenly lined, five o'clock shadow, faded away. He frowned.

I hated people, yes. But I also hated to see people sad. My natural reflex was to frown, too.

"Okay, obviously I have gone about this the wrong way, hm?" He pushed one hand up into his wavy hair and scratched. "I should apologize." Lifting just his eyes, those small golden suns peered at me. "I'm not good at people-ing. My brother always tells me to just say hello, but I feel like that is too hard."