Roll for Initiative

Session 3

"You actually showed up!"

Maya barely has time to process anything, not the decor of Gumshoe's apartment, not her trepidation about this entirely new experience, and certainly not her exhaustion after having left at an truly ungodly hour to show up here on a Saturday before Phoenix scoops her up in a bone-crushing hug. "Oh, god Nick, you are literally killing me."

He lets go. "Pretty sure you're still doing the thing where you use the word 'literally' incorrectly. Miles is gonna love that."

"I couldn't breathe, ass!" She swats him on the arm gently. "And he's 'Miles' now?"

Phoenix studies his shoes, not quite smiling but...not quite not. She's aware of his awkwardness now. Did he used to be awkward? Maybe, but not quite like this. She scans Larry, to see if he's picking this up. He grins widely at her, grateful for the attention. A month isn't so long to go without seeing someone, but it's like she's missed a joke that everyone else understood long ago.

"Well, I dunno," Phoenix says eventually. "I figure first names are good. Makes it feel less like work, you know?"

"Yeah." Maya says. No work talk, okay, message received. It doesn't stop her from wondering about everything that's happened since she's been gone. The idea of Phoenix in an office by himself for eight hours a day seems wrong on a visceral level. Is he still 20 minutes late nearly every day? Does he play music in the afternoons, singing loudly though there's no one's concentration to disrupt. Has he started to sit at her sister's desk and use her things, instead of dusting them and working in the corner like Mia has just stepped out to lunch and will be back any second?

Phoenix grabs a beer from the fridge, nodding towards Gumshoe and Larry. He shifts uncomfortably under her gaze. "What?"

"Just practicing my mind reading powers."

His eyes widen. "They teach you how to do that?"

"No." She laughs, collapsing into the chair on Phoenix's left. She hadn't realized how much accoutrement D&D required. There shouldn't be this many dice needed from what she's read of the rules, but everyone seems to have their favorites anyway, little piles of colorful plastic next to the guys. She turns to look at Phoenix. "How long have you guys been playing?"

"Just for a few weeks-"

"I mean, like in general. You seem to know the game pretty well."

"We used to play all the time!" Larry grins from Phoenix's other side. "Like back in high school. Remember that bard you made? 'Fabian Nior'?"

"Oh god, no..."

"--he was so cool though! The pentagram tattoos? The flock of crows he could control? The whole concept of magical primal screams?"

"Sorry, your Honor, I sure don't recall that."

"I miss Goth Phase Phoenix, that guy was fun."

She can't help but interrupt at this. "Are there pictures? You probably had MySpace if you were that kind of kid. I'll find them, nothing ever gets deleted from the internet."

Phoenix's resolve collapses at this moment and he dissolves into laughter. "Good luck," he says grinning at her. "Let me know what you find."

"So, he actually going to show?" she asks, looking over Phoenix's collection of dice. He's partial to blue naturally, there's polyhedrons swirled with indigo, teal, and speckled lavender, but here and there there's other colors too, bright clear candy pink, bone white, and some smaller ones with silver glitter suspended inside.

"Yeah!" Phoenix fiddles with the label on his bottle. "I mean, he's been coming."

"Even with all your work stuff?" They haven't talked a lot, but she's heard bits and pieces here and there. Some kind of crazy case where the chief prosecutor was accused of murder but really she was covering for the chief of police. It sounded absolutely bonkers, and she could certainly imagine the chaos that was unfolding at the prosecutor's office after all that.