“Don’t call me dude,” Dennis snapped.
This, thought Elly sarcastically, is going very well. “Um, so Dennis, you are going to be in this bedroom.” She led him down her short hallway to the guest room. Keith had aided her in stripping down the femininity of the room, but it was still very womanly. The room was painted a very pale purple—almost a gray—with white trim. There were hand-drawn pictures of Paris, Milan, and Prague—places that Elly had never been—mixed in with vintage photographs of her mother’s garden. They looked lovely against the paint with their drab coloring and wrinkly texture. She had replaced the fluttery champagne-colored comforter with a solid beige one and put a small TV into the corner. Hopefully he liked it, it wasn’t much. “Is it okay?” she asked nervously.
Keith hovered in the doorway, staring at Dennis with an expressionless face.
Dennis plopped onto the bed. “Yeah, it’s fine,” he said, totally devoid of emotion. He must have reconsidered his tone, because then he turned back to Elly, obviously trying to not be a tool. “Thank you. It’s, uh, nice.” Turning over, his eyes lit up. “Does that computer work?” he asked.
Elly smiled. “Yup, it does. Hooked up to the net and everything.”
Keith put his hand on her shoulder. “They don’t call it the net anymore, Elly.”
“Well, you are welcome to use it if you so desire. To turn it on, you push—”
Dennis was already past her, booting up the computer and pulling a disc out of his backpack. “Awesome.”
“Oh, you are, um, is …,” Elly paused. “What is that?” Please don’t be porn, she pleaded. I could not deal with that.
“World of MageCraft,” Dennis replied. “I’m a level seventy-three shaman, and I was just about to go on a campaign when I left Ohio.”
Elly had never heard him so excited. “That sounds … interesting. Tell me more.” Anything, anything to engage him. From the doorway, she saw Keith making a slicing motion across his neck and shaking his head.
Dennis stepped back from the computer. “Yikes, your hard drive is superslow. Uh, well, World of MageCraft, or WOM, is an avatar-based, immense, multiplayer role-playing game online. You basically take your character, place him in the appropriate realm—I prefer a PVE or an RP over the traditional PVP, but only because the Alliance works better in RP, in my opinion. Even the hero class works better—functions better, I should say—on that level.” Dennis’s blue eyes were brimming with excitement.
Elly didn’t understand a single word he was saying, but she didn’t interrupt him. “I’m part of a gaming guild online; our name is FallenCraft, and our raids are legend. I was invited to the clan by Ahora, who is this insanely hot druid priestess, and my friend Don and I joined up. We did this raid on the Cataclysmic Castles and the boss in there….” He let out a big belly laugh, deep and joyful. Elly had never heard him laugh, and she felt a slow grin creep up her face. He was so happy when he talked about this. “Well, let’s just say the Restoration Druid Bluff couldn’t do a thing for Don’s character….”
“So, is Don your friend from Sewell?” Elly asked.
Dennis looked at her like she was the biggest idiot he had ever known. “Uh, no, he lives in Tokyo.”
“Oh. So, you don’t, like, all get together and play?”
“No. Just online with my friends.”
“Oh.” Elly was silent. On the computer screen, the logo for World of MageCraft appeared, and Dennis gave a happy shout.
“Oh, oh my god, it worked! It worked!” He flung Elly’s antique chair (she grimaced, as it was kind of a delicate little thing) in front of the computer and plopped down inches from the monitor. Under his breath he kept repeating, “Awesome, awesome, awesome,” as he drummed wildly on the desk.
Elly stepped back from the door. “Do you need anything?” she asked.
Dennis didn’t look up from the screen. “Uh, yeah, maybe something to eat?”
“Sure!” she replied brightly. Keith motioned her toward the living room. “I’ll bring you some manicotti. I made it yesterday.”
Dennis didn’t reply. Elly closed the door softly behind him. She and Keith walked silently into the kitchen. “Wow!” said Elly, “He really likes that Way of MageCraft game.”
Keith wrapped his arm around her waist. “World of MageCraft. One of my employees plays it. He says it’s really addictive.”
Elly gave a shrug. “He’s probably just excited to be doing something familiar.”
“Absolutely,” Keith said halfheartedly.
Elly turned and faced him. “You still don’t like him living here, do you?”
Keith shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t like him or trust him—he’s pretty harmless and doesn’t move very fast—but I just don’t know if this is the right way to go about doing this. It seems like you leapt straight into the deep end of the pool when you could have waded in.”