“I don’t feel like going outside today,” Colt declared as lunchtime drew near.

“Then I won’t either,” Lacey gave a curt nod in return and went back to drawing the extended claws on the mimic-log-trap. This log didn’t just swing down from ropes, it flew down and attacked a person no matter where they stood to duck the trap.

“That’s not fair to you,” Colt frowned more than his new normal scowl.

“Solidarity,” she answered. After the Mimog, Lacey had plenty of other ideas to work through. If she could finish this list, they’d finish that quest. She’d spent half the previous night working late with Colt because he wasn’t ready for sleep. Was he sulking? Maybe.

He was working on the New York Sewer system where Crocorats warred with the vampire sludges they’d dubbed Slamps. The theme was West Side Story-ish, but only they’d know that. They were using the quest system to make the adventuring group save a girl that didn’t want to be saved. They were even incorporating an underwater subway car where the Were-rays were a neutral faction of manta rays that changed into hyenas on dry land.

“Go up,” he didn’t even look up from his map.

“And say what to whom?” Lacey rejected the idea.

“Just to get outside.”

It wasn’t even tempting. “No thanks.” The amount of tension from the people involved would be worse than the pressure of being underground. “I’ll go up tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll go up around midnight when everyone’s sleeping.”

“I just need one more day of sulking,” he gave a half-smile that she almost didn’t see because he still didn’t look up.

“If I thought you didn’t deserve a little sulk, I’d be whining for you to take me up,” Lacey sat up straighter to stretch her back.

“So, you do think I’m sulking,” Colt squashed the half-smile with a ruthless frown.

“Your word, not mine,” Lacey raised an eyebrow at him. “Don’t go picking fights with me just because you’re chicken shit to go talk to the girl.”

Colt looked up with a look of betrayal. “Really?”

“Too soon?”

“Maybe,” he admitted, his eyes going to his screen. “The last group is about to clear out. If you’re going up…”

“I’m not.”

“She didn’t even warn me,” he finally said it.

“Nope,” Lacey put her pencil back in the can.

“I didn’t want to make a bad impression on her dad like that,” Colt dug a hand into his hair and pushed his chair back on two legs.

“Makes sense.”

“And he’s been stalking us!” he threw his hands up and his chair wobbled fiercely, not that it concerned Colt at all.

“Totally uncool.”

Ginger sat at her desk, but she was watching Colt and Lacey with wide eyes. It looked a bit like they must have looked watching Kat and her dad fighting the day before. Colt smacked the front legs of his chair into the stone floor with a wince-inducing splintering sound that should have collapsed the chair beneath him.

“And she’s some kind of princess of the server or something,” he ranted on. “Her family could probably cause us a lot of trouble and we just got things going in the right direction.”

“I’d wondered if that was going to occur to you,” Lacey winced.

“How could it not?” he went on. “I mean, if her mom could zap him down from 77 to 10, then she could have changed her mind and zapped him right back up and he could even be back in here right now spying on us!”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Lacey frowned, looking around for Spark.

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“I can’t stop thinking about it!”

“Does that mean you have to date her?” Lacey scoffed. “In case your stupid brain goes the wrong way, the only answer to that is No!”

He waved his hands around over his head. She didn’t need to hear the words to know that he meant, “And lose all this?”

“And it’s still no.”

“How can you say that?” he squawked.

Lacey took a moment then said, “Would you ask me to whore myself out to pay rent?”

“NO!”

“Me neither.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Lacey gave him a you’re-an-idiot look.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” she waved it off like it was nothing even though they both knew it wasn’t nothing.

“How could I have chased a girl like that?” Colt lamented, though they both knew he didn’t mean it. They both knew that he couldn’t have known, and that even if he had known, it wouldn’t have changed anything. It wouldn’t except for how he might have responded to meeting her dad.

Instead of answering that, Lacey dug a treat out and tossed it to Spark.

“She must hate me,” Colt put his forehead against the desk in front of him.

“So, you’re still interested in her?” Lacey gave him a dubious look, just in case he still wanted to back out of that statement.

“How could I not be?” he looked up with a dopey smile, the first smile in almost a whole day. The world righted itself for Lacey.

Colt did one of two things during the first fight of a relationship. He bolted or he doubled down. That first fight, more often than not, revealed the fatal flaw of the girl he was chasing after. This fight had exposed the dark side of Kat, the depth of angst that existed under all that cute shell she put out for the world to adore.

Lacey had seen the hints of it in how Kat had only admitted her attraction to Colt when he wasn’t looking. She’d seen the awkward under the brittle mask of normal. Lacey, personally, liked Kat a little more for it.

“Well, shit,” Colt said, only in that moment admitting or realizing the truth. Colt had doubled down.

“If we’re going up there, I need to put on my boots,” Lacey scooted her chair back and headed for the bedroom to find her shoes.

“I haven’t even showered!” he called out, heading through his own room to the shower where he would rinse so fast as to be useless anyway.

“Colt act very strange,” Ginger shook her big green head at his retreating figure as Lacey came out of her room with her boots in her hand.

“He’s a guy,” Lacey shrugged. “They’re all strange.”

“Ginger thought Colt different,” Ginger scratched her head.

“Not when it comes to dating a girl,” Lacey sat down on her chair to tug on her boots.

The dungeon was still red, so Lacey scanned the screens. She cast a glance at Spark. Spark was batting around a stray crumpled paper, not a care in the world. There didn’t seem to be anyone left in the dungeon, but Spark wasn’t acting funny.

“Pedestal, show me the remaining adventurers,” Lacey announced across the room.

The screen flickered and settled on a screen with a single adventurer making his way to the dungeon exit. It was odd that the guilds had sent a single person in by themselves. Until now, only Kat had gone through alone. Lacey flipped through screens to look up their stats for this run, but Colt came out, interrupting Lacey’s query.

Colt’s hair dripped as he ran a comb through it. The comb then went in his mouth and Lacey was reminded that guys were gross. Seeing her look of disgust, he tossed the comb to the top of his desk and reached around to tuck in his shirt. All the while, he was kicking his shoes across the room to his chair.

“Do I look okay?”

“Colt,” Lacey scolded, stomping her heel into the last boot. He knew she wouldn’t tell him.

“Fine,” he rolled his eyes at her, but he was smiling so she let it slide.

“How many groups are left?” he asked, scowling at the red of the room, like he could scold it into turning green.

“Only one guy,” she told him.

“Only one?” his eyes snapped toward the screens in alarm. He tied his shoes even as he scanned the screen.

“It’s not him,” she answered the question he’d really meant to ask.

“Are you sure?” he tugged a shoelace a little too hard, but it was Colt of the charmed life, so it didn’t break like it would have for Lacey.

“Nope.”

“Okay, okay,” Colt put his main attention back on his shoes.

“He could be the scary level 77 guy in disguise just screwing around with us after sneaking past an entire camp full of Bernard’s men,” Lacey deadpanned. “It’s a really good disguise, though, because this guy is wearing a mage’s robe and casting a bunch of spells.”

“I said okay,” Colt held his hands up in surrender.

“I’m just saying,” she shook her head at him. It wasn’t that the same thought hadn’t occurred to her, but his questioning it smacked of him thinking that she was too stupid to spot something he would see.

“Do I look okay?” he asked again, his gaze darting around the room for something.

“Colt,” she simply said again. If she answered that question, he’d just keep asking it like she’d have a different opinion in a few minutes. She got up and walked over to his desk to ruffle his hair. She reached and he ducked.

“Right, I asked that already,” he looked under his chair. “Have you seen my comb? I just had it.”

“It’s on your desk,” Lacey tapped the damp comb. “Dripping on your dungeon.”

“I just looked there,” he complained at the comb, as he picked it up. He ran a hand over the paper to wipe away the moisture.

“She doesn’t hate you,” Lacey pre-empted his next question.

“How do you know?”

“She ran the dungeon last night and this morning and she still left coupons,” Lacey pointed to his screen.

“What is taking that last magic-user so long?” he groused, but the dungeon flashed green halfway through Colt’s question.

“Shall we?” Lacey gestured to the elevator that hadn’t moved since they’d come in the day before.

“Yeah,” Colt followed her into the elevator and up to the top floor. “Do I look…?”

“Colt!” Lacey snapped, but she was smiling.