“Congratulations, Jay,” Lucille reiterated. “You’re the new Guild Leader since Lester bit the dust.”

Around the room, thirty or so odd players clapped. In the crowd, he could see Lurian and Kylar, although he couldn’t be sure whether the Lurian was real Lurian or not. Everyone was clapping for him. Kylar was going so far as to hoot and holler.

“But… I didn’t apply?” Jay stated, his brain foggy as it again adjusted to a new reality. He remembered Taylor Lynn’s words about a surprise waiting for him and the twins’ flat-out refusal to explain. That’s when he noticed the twins, Sarah, and Casey, on the other side of the room. Notably, Carlos was absent from the room.

“Leadership, as a mantle, is best on those ready to serve,” Lucille argued. “Besides, you’ve got that fancy class, and it’s been great for recruitment. We’ve been bleeding members since Lester died. Lots of people really liked him, apparently. Who would’ve thought.”

With that, Lucille shrugged, causing ripples of laughter through the crowd.

“Yeah, okay,” Jay said, resolving to buy some time for himself. “Gotta go see a horse about a girl. Girl about a… whatever.”

And then he logged off.

***

After taking an hour to adjust to the revelation of the mantle of leadership being thrust upon his shoulders, Jay texted Claire to let her know he was ready to meet up. Surprisingly, she texted back instantly. She was prepared to meet and sent him her apartment address again, even though he had it from picking her up previously.

Jay managed to force the guild leadership out of his head on the way to her apartment. Instead, his mind mentally forced him to create breakup plan scenarios in his head. He was horrible at it. Even in the movie, inside his head, he knew it absolutely sucked.

His brain needed something better than “It’s not you; it’s me.” The other front-running option, “Sorry, you’re working for the enemy, and that’s not cute,” wasn’t really any better.

When Jay pulled up at her apartment, his efforts were still fruitless. He wasn’t a single step closer to finding a clever way to break up with someone without hurting their feelings. Or his own. That meant he had only one recourse left: totally winging it.

***

While Jay was sitting on Claire’s couch, she busied herself like a tornado around the apartment.

“Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee, water? Maybe some wine?”

“This doesn’t belong here, sorry give me a second. I just need to fix it.”

“Oops, sorry, the laundry basket is kind of overflowing.”

It was enough to give Jay a headache, as she acted like she knew the breakup was coming. If that was the case, he could let her work it out. A little patience wasn’t going to hurt him. After all, he had nothing to do but return to the game.

Jay still needed to create his latest report for Tumult Corp. With that report, he wanted to be as vague as possible. To that end, while Claire whirled around the room, Jay wrote himself a to-do list regarding his report into an app on his phone.

Finally, Claire ran out of things to do in her apartment and joined Jay on the couch. He sat patiently to allow her the space to talk about why she wanted to meet. She looked nervous, highlighting to him that this was something serious. Slowly, he convinced himself that she wanted the same thing he did.

Ultimately, it wasn’t bad for them to be on the same page. That didn’t stop Jay from feeling a certain way about it. There was a sense of clarity in being the one to take the step, but now he was forced to wonder about his own faults.

At first, he had no idea what he’d done to Claire that might lead her to want to break up. As he thought it over more, he remembered he had been distant while dealing with Mercura Island. They had agreed to watch a movie together, but he hadn’t kept in contact with her well.

Besides being a little distant, he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. Still, if Claire was going to break things off, he didn’t even need to wing it. He could just wait and let her say whatever she needed to say.

Jay was a little sad; that was natural. In the end, it was the way of things. People came together, and they fell apart. He was taking the coward’s way out, just a little bit, but it would spare more of Claire’s feelings. He could deal with whatever uncertainty he was left with on his own. Besides, Jay could talk to Sarah when he returned to the game without using Taylor Lynn as a proxy.

Sarah would know how to cheer him up.

Claire scooted closer to him on the couch, shifting until their legs bumped. She turned toward him.

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“I got fired,” Claire said, tears welling in her eyes. The words started spilling out of her. “Mr. Georges found out we were together and couldn’t trust me anymore. He said I was letting my heart get in the way of the job. He promoted another person from the front desk to replace me right in front of my face. It was so embarrassing.”

Claire’s tears welled over, spilling in streams down her eyes, flowing across her cheeks, and falling into Jay’s lap as she leaned over to him. She put her face into his shoulder, sobbing at finally revealing what she’d held back for the past half an hour.

Jay instinctively and protectively reached out to her and wrapped her in his arms. She drew closer, pulling herself into the embrace. For a few moments, all conscious thought fled his brain as he held her.

That revelation was not in the plan.

Jay’s brain restarted. Memories and thoughts shifted as he reflected on their first couple of dates. He remembered when they met. He remembered the glances and the stares as he worked with Mr. Georges. He thought through the Taylor Lynn of it all. Jay hadn’t considered what breaking up with Claire meant for that friendship.

Ultimately, he realized he didn’t want to break up with Claire. That had been a necessity due to her involvement with Tumult, but he was released from that burden. His head was still filled with questions about whether Tumult had allowed her to break up with him first. If they had, he couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t have.

For several minutes, as Claire sobbed, he just held her.

Finally, she pulled back and addressed him without letting go. “I’m sorry about that. I don’t think I’d processed everything; it still feels fresh.”

“That’s alright,” Jay offered, gently massaging her arm. “Honestly, I’m stunned to hear that, too. I guess… I’m kind of mad at them.”

“Angry?” she asked. “Why angry? I’ve just been depressed. I’ve been eating ice cream and yelling at the tv for days.”

Jay was slightly nervous to start explaining since she might blame him for losing her job. Still, the idea of being honest felt better, even if she became upset with him. “The only way I can think they found out is by watching me talk to my sister. I knew they were watching, but it feels like an invasion of privacy.”

He waited for Claire to pull away, but she didn’t. She became very still as she acclimated to the new information but didn’t pull away. That was a good sign.

“I don’t think they’re supposed to do that,” Claire said slowly. “You’d have to give them permission for something like that. Even working for them, they couldn’t directly spy on gameplay like that.”

“I think I might have given them permission,” Jay said, dejected to retread old ground. Still, she deserved an explanation. “My lawyer might have gotten me a rotten deal when I first signed onto this whole thing. There were a few details of the contract that slipped his mind. A few important things he forgot to bring up.”

“Mr. Georges played you?” Claire accurately guessed.

Jay winced at the simplicity of the words but assented.

She sighed, frowning deeply. “I get it. Mr. Georges played me, too. He convinced me to sign a piece of paper acknowledging our relationship. That’s what he brought to HR to pin me with. They likely didn’t have proof until I signed the paper.”

Claire leaned against him. She didn’t seem mad.

“You’re not mad at me for outing you?” Jay asked. “I put them onto the trail, which ultimately cost you the job.”

“I’d have to be equally angry at myself for signing the paper,” Claire remarked. “I don’t think I could handle that. So I’ll choose not to be angry at either of us.”

Silence lingered in the air momentarily before Jay shifted the conversation. “So, we know what’s next for Jay Miller. What’s next for Claire—wait—I don’t know your last name.”

“Bridges,” she chuckled. “My last name is Bridges.”

“What kind of last name is that?” Jay teased, biting back a joke about London and Bridges.

“Right, because Miller is so original,” Claire opined, rolling her eyes. “I dunno, honestly. I want to spend today with you, and tomorrow I will start the process of picking myself back up. Apply for jobs and all that.”

Jay realized a way to distract her. He could tell her all about the bullet she just dodged. She was outside now, so nothing kept him from telling everything. The decision had only a little to do with karmically repairing his resolve to break up with her.

Clearing his throat, he said, “I have to tell you something.”

And then Jay told Claire the story. He talked about all the weirdness with the Monster Hunter class. Next, the story came to the strange character that was Ichibad. Then, he explained the time spent with Lucille in the weird goblin village. He finished the story, culminating in the reveal he’d just discovered: Tumultua Online was harboring an artificial intelligence.

Claire was a solid listener, respecting the flow of the story while being appropriately emotive. Her face shifted through a series of expressions that left Jay forcing himself not to laugh or interrupt the story by smiling.

When the story finally ended, Claire said, “Wow. There was so much going on in the background. Makes me kinda glad I’m outta there, now.”

“I thought it might,” Jay agreed, glad about the success of his distraction. “And now you don’t have to worry about it. They’re all my problems.”

He laughed, trying not to take things too seriously.

“Thanking my lucky stars for that,” Claire said, cuddling up to him on the couch. “Wanna watch that movie?”

Jay was surprised she didn’t comment more on the strangeness afoot with her former company. As he thought it over more, he decided she didn’t want to think about it too much. Everything was still fresh for her, and it truly was his problem to resolve.

With the tension of the earlier conversation gone, Claire turned on the movie they’d initially agreed to. He needed to make it back online and deal with everything waiting for him there. For a few hours, all that could be ignored. Claire was an island, someone that understood everything he was dealing with, where responsibilities could be hidden from.

Before the movie was finished, Jay’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He considered whether or not to check his phone, glancing over at Claire. She adjusted her position, leaning her hips further away from him. He took that as approval, sliding the device from his pocket.

“I’ll just see if it’s my mom,” Jay commented, unlocking the phone. “And if not, I’ll tell them to go away.”

“Little bit of a momma’s boy, huh, Monster Hunter?” Claire teased. Momentarily distracted, he responded by poking her in the side, which she retaliated against by emphatically swatting his hand away.

On the phone, there was one text message waiting for him.

The text read: Are you ever going to visit your sister? ;) Back in the real world, dork.

Sarah Miller was out of the game and freed from her diagnostic prison.