Even Odds (8 page)

Isabel stepped out from under his hand and rolled her eyes.

Lloyd held up both hands in surrender, the sheet with its mocking checkmarks facing her. “Easy, killer. Just trying to lend some support.”

“Leave her alone, Lloyd.” Matthew steered Isabel away from him with a hand on her elbow, probably reading the anger in her body language. “You're the marketing guy. Go market to that crowd that's coming this way.”

The crowd, fortunately, was made up of scantily dressed cosplayers, and Lloyd swooped in with his iPad and broad smile before either of them could ask him twice.

“You know this is all just fun, right?” Matthew's brow creased as he looked down into Isabel's eyes. “This scavenger hunt. It's not a big deal. The plane ride isn't even three hours.”

“It's not that.” She struggled to articulate what she was feeling, finally settling on, “He pisses me off.”

Matthew laughed, looking over Isabel's shoulder at Lloyd smooth-talking the cosplay girls. “Nah, he's harmless. Don't let him get to you.”

Isabel tried to see Lloyd as Matthew did, like another bro who said some douche-bag things but didn't mean any harm. She couldn't quite manage it.

“I'm going to try out some of the indie games.” She gestured over her shoulder at the west side of the convention center. “You want to get dinner tonight before you go clubbing for hot guys?”

Matthew wrinkled his nose. “Don't say it like that. It makes me sound like I'm killing baby seals. But sure, yeah, I'll go. You've got the
StarCraft
tournament tonight, right? What time is that?”

“Not until eight.”

“Okay, meet me back here when the floor closes at five.” Matthew checked his phone for the time. “Maybe we can get a few more sales in before then.”

———

Caleb returned to his
hotel room in the late afternoon feeling discombobulated by both his encounter with Isabel and his hours spent in the expo hall. Conventions were fun, but they were also exhausting. He hadn't expected to be lonely. Sure, he'd always gone with Henry, but it wasn't like they spent the whole convention together, so he didn't imagine this year would be that much different. Sadly, without someone to meet up with, share all the cosplays they'd seen, and rave or bitch about the games they'd tried, the novelty of walking the expo hall had worn off quickly. He still had a few hours before the tournament, and he needed to get food at some point, but for now he was happy to be back in the relative solitude of his room.

Even though he knew it was probably a waste, he logged onto Gmail and checked for any messages from PI Games. Nothing. He did have a message from Katie, which he deleted, unread. He should set up a filter so those went right to his spam folder. No matter how many times she got in contact asking to connect with him again, to be friends, he wasn't about to have that negative influence in his life. Even if his parents liked her.

He wasn't sure his parents would like Isabel. She was independent and successful in a male-dominated field, but she was also a minority, and his parents had a deep-seated Waspish prejudice that emerged in uncomfortable ways sporadically throughout his upbringing. He remembered his dad's fear about “that Puerto Rican family” that had moved in nearby, or their late-night worries about property values that were much more about racism than about genuine concern. In art school, he'd realized the truth about his parents with discomfort, and now he knew they'd see Isabel's brown skin and be predisposed to think of her as a charity case or trouble waiting to happen.

Whoa, slow down there, buddy
, Caleb chastised himself. What did it even matter what his parents would think about Isabel? Why was he even entertaining that idea? Isabel was a fling, one that probably wouldn't repeat itself, and she lived on the other side of the country. Just having her pop into his mind in that capacity was unsettling. He pushed the laptop aside and pulled his sketchbook and Prismacolors out of his bag.

As he started to draw, his mind went to the half-finished mermaid sculpture back home. He'd been making decent progress on it before leaving, but it felt like all the rest of his art was stilted. He hadn't drawn anything he liked in weeks. Ever since he got it in his mind that he wanted to move, it felt like his life was on hold. He wasn't ready to say goodbye to PI Games yet, if he was honest with himself. Even though more than twenty-four hours had come and gone since Will called his references; even though intellectually he knew that hope was dangerous; even though every other job opportunity had fallen through, he couldn't help the tiny spike of hope that persisted despite overwhelming odds to the contrary.

Of course, he shouldn't put too much stock in the odds.

Caleb stopped to look down at the sketch so far. He wasn't drawing anything meaningful, just a mock-up of one of the characters he'd designed for a game that never came to fruition, but even without the pressure, he didn't like the result. The proportions looked off somehow, the eyes lifeless. Portraits weren't working for him lately. He flipped ahead to a blank page and began drawing a landscape, something simple that he could do without much thought. He sketched a palm tree arching over a sandy beach, the colors crisp, the sun high in a bluebird sky. Of course he would draw Florida. Amused and annoyed at himself in equal measure, he continued drawing, let the meditative quality of art melt his tension away.

The gender disparity in a
game convention was nothing compared to the gender disparity in a gaming tournament, an unfortunate truth Isabel remembered as she found her assigned station and scanned the room. She was one of only a handful of girls out of the hundred-plus gamers currently setting up, a disheartening but unsurprising ratio. The tournament was being held in an upstairs meeting room of the convention center, probably one of the largest they had, given the scope of the room, but the large space was filling up quickly and the clean hotel smell was yielding to the humid press of bodies. The room didn't even have any windows, and Isabel held back a feeling of claustrophobia as she settled into her spot. At least she was at the end of a row and would have some space on one side.

Although she was focused on setting up the gaming controls, she knew when Caleb entered the room, as if she could sense his presence. If she were more suave, she'd keep focused on the monitor, but instead she looked up and caught his eye. He flashed her a smile and gave her a small wave, then went over to the registration desk to sign in.

A short white guy walked over with a bag and began setting up next to her, pulling out supplies for the tournament while glancing over at her every few seconds. He unearthed a bottle of soda, his gaming glasses, and a pair of headphones, along with a few bags of snacks. “Hey,” he said at last, breaking the silence without extending his hand. “I'm Ted.”

Isabel nodded to him. “Isabel.” Ted was about an inch shorter than her, with a sort of lean, starved look common to many young gamers, and a pale complexion that fit the stereotype. His watery brown eyes darted around as if he was looking for someone, or just suspicious that he might be attacked by ninjas at any moment. In this crowd, it could be either. He bobbed his head as he logged onto the computer and started entering the information from his registration card. Giving her his name seemed to be the beginning and end of their conversation. At least he wasn't overly talkative.

The tournament was set up in a ranked bracket-style single-elimination system. She was in a free-for-all game with five other people first, and then if she won that, she'd progress to the next level. In this way, they would eliminate people fairly quickly. Although this was her sixth or seventh similar tournament, she'd never actually won one: her skills were solid, yes, but she wasn't the best. Each time, though, she got a little better. Maybe this time she'd be lucky. She wanted to at least make it to the top twenty.

The registration staff had projected the leaderboard—currently blank—and list of competitors onto the screen at the front of the room, and she scanned the list looking for a username she could recognize as Caleb's. He could be anyone, though, and she was unsuccessful. Honestly, their mutual anonymity was comforting: she didn't want to subconsciously adjust her playing style either way to accommodate someone she knew.

If she could even count Caleb as someone she knew. After all, she didn't really know anything about him other than how he fucked (incredibly) and how he tasted (delicious). Aside from their brief exchange at the party that had ended in his room, they hadn't exactly spent much time talking last night. She wasn't sure what to make of that.

But then the game started, and she didn't have time to think about Caleb at all.

The first game was unsurprisingly quick. Any kind of open-registration tournament had people who'd just started playing the game, who had beaten the AI a few dozen times and thought they had a chance against real competitors. She eliminated all five of her opponents in record time and then waited for the rest of the rounds to finish, the computer sorting her automatically into the next bracket with five other winners and then beginning again with the second round. She felt in tune with the game, enjoying the systematic progression of resource management and army development, the macro and micro leadership role she took over her troops. Time passed differently when she was immersed in a game, and the next two wins came easily, leaving her in the top thirty and the semifinals.

Finally, in this round she was playing against people of her caliber. As she set up her army for an early game rush against one of her opponents, she wondered idly if Caleb was among them. Then she was flanked, the action taking her by surprise, and thoughts of Caleb vanished as she struggled to manage her army amid heavy losses.

She won the fourth bracket, although barely: if her final opponent hadn't made a poor attack decision, she'd have definitely lost. That was too close for her to feel comfortable, but she couldn't resist the feelings of triumph at winning the semifinals. She'd never made it to the finals before. An overhead map of the room was projected on the wall, with most of the circles grayed out. She found her circle at the end of the third row, still illuminated, and watched as other circles in the room faded to gray with the other losses, leaving six total circles illuminated. One of them, she realized with a room scan, was Caleb. He was leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling. As if feeling her watching him, he looked over and made eye contact, grinning, and Isabel's heart flipped in a way that she probably should have outgrown in high school.

As soon as the finals started, she knew she was out of her league. How had her opponents developed their armies so quickly? She felt a trickle of sweat roll down her back, which she found amusing in some distant part of her mind; sweating while gaming was pretty unusual for her. Quick thinking, plus allying with another player, allowed her to eliminate two of the other opponents on the board. Then the others turned on her, as she should have expected, and her base was swiftly overrun. As the opponents eliminated her last building, she hit the Surrender option and sat back, breathing heavily considering she hadn't engaged in any physical exertion at all. But hell, she'd placed fourth in a
StarCraft
tournament, and there was no shame in that.

After being eliminated, she was able to watch the rest of their final round where it was being broadcast on the big screen on the wall. On the overhead map, her spot was grayed out with a big red number four over it. Fourth place. She matched up Caleb's highlighted dot to his army on the map and realized that he'd been the person with whom she'd allied, the one who'd turned against her in the end. No hard feelings. She'd have done the same to him if the situation had been reversed.

Now that he'd beaten her, though, she wanted him to win. Some odd form of protectiveness overwhelmed her competitive instinct. Yes, she had wanted to beat him. But since he'd surpassed her, now she wanted him to surpass everyone else.

He didn't, though. He made it all the way to the final duo, playing against another guy a few rows over, and she watched with her breath held as he was eliminated by a sweeping flanking move. Exhaling at last, she applauded with everyone else as the final rankings were announced. She joined the rest of the final-round competitors at the front of the room to collect their prizes. She ended up with a small cash prize, a tournament shirt, and some company swag. Not a bad haul. After they all shook hands and did their annoying circle jerk of congratulations, she headed for the exit for some fresh air. She had just stepped out of the room when she heard Caleb's voice behind her.

“Nice job.”

Turning to look, she watched him jog to catch up with her. Caleb looked as worn out as she felt, but with the same fever-bright eyes she recognized from her own gaming marathons. Gaming for that long was exhausting but stimulating, a high that she could feel beneath her skin like a low-pitched humming.

“Fourth isn't bad at all.” He adjusted the bag on his shoulder.

Isabel nodded, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. The rush of adrenaline from the tournament was still coursing through her body, accompanied by a sudden impulse to excise that adrenaline in the most destructive way possible. “I'm psyched. I've never made it this far before.” She pulled her wild curly hair back into a ponytail, getting it off her neck. One of the clocks on the wall near the escalator caught her eye. “Shit, it's already after eleven? I'm surprised there are so many people still here.” Isabel turned to look back at the wide hallway they'd just walked down: in addition to the former tournament competitors, most of whom were still hanging around, a few dozen other people were sitting near the windows or gathered in groups. Did this convention ever really close?

“DiceCon is like this. The expo hall shuts down at five but some of the panels go way past midnight, and then there's an all-night movie marathon.” Caleb licked his lips and preceded her onto the escalator down. “I might stay. I don't know. I'm so hyped up right now. This is the best I've ever done in the tournament. I've hit the final round three or four times, but usually I get eliminated right away. It would have been nice to win, but still, no complaints.” He was standing on the step right below her, holding both sides of the escalator, and she was suddenly aware of how close he was. The adrenaline of gaming was dangerous. She felt reckless, hyperconscious of her body and his, and the thought working its way through her mind was by no means socially acceptable. But there
were
a few items on the scavenger hunt list that dealt with conduct on convention center property, and she was on convention center property with a very good-looking guy who fucked like a pro.

When they got off the escalator, Isabel paused, knowing what she wanted but not sure how to proceed. Give her a
StarCraft
tournament any day, but this felt way beyond her element. She looked to the sides, down the long hallways in each direction. The second floor, unlike the third, was mostly deserted. A gaggle of people in cosplay were gathered at the far end of one hallway playing a card game on the floor, but otherwise they were alone. Caleb cocked his head to the side. “What's on your mind?”

“I'm feeling a little . . . um . . .” How could she say this? His face was right there, his mouth just out of reach, and kissing was so much easier than talking.

So she stepped forward, took his face in her hands, and did just that.