My Virtual Prince Charming: Geeks Gone Wild #2 Read online

  But it did. I was officially shocked. Because MageLand wasn’t your average, run-of-the-mill game. It had been created by an indie company and wasn’t marketed all over the place the way the bigger games were. It had a cult following online but it wasn’t one that everyone knew about and certainly not one that everyone played.

  I couldn’t help myself. A voice in my head was shouting at me to walk away but I just had to peek. I leaned in closer and saw it, the flashing cursor next to the personalized log-in. Ready to play again, Prince Z?

  I don’t know how long I stood there gaping. Too long. My brain was racing to make sense of this, to try and reconcile the quiet, shy, meek girl who’d been all but invisible in our classes over the years with the snarky, pushy ball-buster I knew online.

  The sound of a guy’s voice calling out Margo and Suzie’s names finally snapped me out of my fog. I recognized the voice. Matt Cartwright, another one of our classmates and Suzie’s other best friend.

  A surge of adrenaline had me racing out into the hallway and back out the way I’d come. It was ridiculous, really. The flood of fear over potentially being seen coming out of Suzie’s room was on par with being caught robbing a bank. I was just checking up on a classmate. No big deal.

  Nope, not a big deal at all. That didn’t stop my heart from pounding in my chest as I narrowly avoided a run-in with Matt who’d just come in from another entrance.

  Once outside I stopped by the pool. “You need a beer, man?” Dale asked. He didn’t seem to notice or care that I’d just come from inside his house.

  I shook my head. “Nah, thanks.”

  Years of experience were the only reason I was able to play it cool as I headed back toward my party. What else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t go home. My dad wasn’t asleep yet. And Suzie…I glanced back over my shoulder. Well, there was still a chance that she might need me.

  Probably not, but there was a chance.

  Or maybe she’d come back outside and join the party after she got the beer out of her system.

  Yeah, I didn’t really believe that one either.

  Either way, I stuck around and waited on the off chance that I’d get a glimpse of her again. Suzie.

  Prince Z.

  I shook my head, still unable to get it through my head that they were one and the same. I sipped a beer and half-listened to the conversations going on around me as I watched Suzie’s house in case she reappeared. What was I supposed to do with this information?

  Should I tell her? I mean, Prince Z was my friend, right?

  But Suzie…well, I couldn’t actually remember the last time we’d talked. We had to have had some interactions. Our school wasn’t that big and we’d been in the same class since kindergarten. Surely we’d had conversations… I just couldn’t think of any off the top of my head.

  I guess I couldn’t really say that Suzie and I were friends. And even if we were, what would I say? Oh, by the way, I was creeping around in your room the other night and guess what I found out?

  No. I didn’t think so.

  The more I thought this through the worse it seemed, because here was the thing—I didn’t want to lose my friendship with Prince Z. Sure it was only an online friendship but these days I had more in common with my online gamer friend than I did with most of my real life friends.

  Hell, even Jason seemed to be on a different wavelength these days. He and everyone else I knew was all focused on their futures. Suddenly senior year hit and all anyone could talk about was their plans for college. Even Joel was obsessed with impressing college scouts. The closer we got to graduation the more single-minded everyone else became. They all seemed to have it figured out—where they wanted to go to school, what they wanted to study. Everybody around me was fixated on the future.

  As for me? I was pretty sure my dad was right. I didn’t have one.

  Prince Z was the only friend I had who didn’t seem to know that. We rarely talked about the future because when I talked to her it was all about the now. Even when talk of the future did come up, she seemed to take it for granted that I’d be okay, even when I’d spelled it out for her that I didn’t have anything figured out. She’d pointed out that I didn’t have to have it all figured out yet, that I just had to focus on the things that made me happy, the stuff that made me feel alive. What that was, I didn’t know, but she seemed to think that I’d figure it out.

  Prince Z was the bright spot in an otherwise bleak home life. Our chats were what I looked forward to all day when I was at work. She was the one person who pushed me, who I could always count on, who made me laugh…

  And all this time that girl had been Suzie Bryers?

  Nope. Still didn’t compute.

  I couldn’t see the Prince Z in Suzie…or the Suzie in Prince Z?

  By the time I left Joel’s party, safe in the knowledge that my parents and their lectures would be fast asleep, I had my answer.

  There was only one thing for it. I needed to get to know Suzie.

  The real Suzie.

  Chapter Two

  Suzie

  Six weeks later…

  Margo and Matt were waiting for me at our usual lunch table in the cafeteria and their expressions lit up with eager anticipation as I walked over. I didn’t so much walk as float. I was on cloud nine and nothing—I mean, nothing—could ruin my buzz.

  “Hey there, Suzie Q.”

  The familiar voice to my right burst right through my happy bubble. I told myself not to look over at him. Do not give that smug jerk the satisfaction.

  Too late. I shot him a glare before I could stop myself. I’d long since learned that logic had little to do with my interactions with Luke Warner—class clown turned school playboy right around the time that we all hit puberty. He was also a basketball player, a notorious flirt, and oh yeah—the bane of my existence.

  That last descriptor was a new one as of this school year. I ignored his taunting smirk and the teasing wink that went with it as he sidled up next to me. “You gonna save me a seat?” he said, his tone absurdly flirtatious.

  He was mocking me. Lately it seemed like Luke Warner was always mocking me. I’d gone more than a decade at the same school with this kid and now in our last year he not only took notice of me, he seemed to revel in getting on my nerves.

  I met his mocking smirk with a quiet growl. Not my finest moment. In about ten minutes I was sure to come up with some clever comeback. But that was the thing I’d learned these past six weeks. When Luke was around I was completely incapable of reason. Crafting eloquent comebacks? Forget about it.

  He hovered by my side, grinning down at me like my growl was so highly amusing and seemingly not caring that a gaggle of girls were waiting for him to continue walking over to their side of the cafeteria.

  The cool side.

  And if you think that’s a cliché then just wait for it. This year our high school had gone from a normal suburban, small-town school to one straight out of a John Hughes movie. You know, the ones where the cliques are all super obvious and forever at war.

  Yup. That was my life now, and it was all thanks to a stupid prank on the first day of school. My jerky neighbor Joel managed to capture a shot of me and Margo at this lame Labor Day weekend party that my brother threw. I’d sort of blacked out with rage and next thing you knew I was accepting his challenge to do a kegstand.

  I know. So dumb. I wasn’t typically such a moron, I swear.

  Anyway, Joel had labeled the photo #GeeksGoneWild because he was just so hilarious like that—he was a laugh a minute, that Joel. He submitted the photo into the senior slideshow on the first day of school and…long story short? It went viral. That was the turning point. I’d gone from invisible to the biggest joke at school. My cloak of invisibility had been replaced by a Kick-Me sign on my backside. Metaphorically, of course. Ever since then I’d been the butt of the joke and Luke Warner had decided that annoying me was his new favorite hobby.

  My life had gone to hell in a handbasket and
it had started to seem like senior year was going to be one interminably long disaster.

  But not anymore. I seized that thought, holding on to the reminder of just how great this year was going to be…if I could just survive the attentions of Luke Warner.

  Luke stood there for so long that I thought he was going to say something else. But no. He just locked eyes with me and stared, his gaze sizzling and hot and…he was so making fun of me right now. Trying to make me think he was actually flirting with me? Please. The very idea was laughable. I’d thought most of our classmates had outgrown the mocking bully phase, but this year had proved me wrong.

  Finally Luke broke the eye contact, and we both stopped blocking the door as he walked away toward his harem. “Good talk,” he called back to me. “Pleasure hanging with you again, as always.”

  I pressed my lips together and ignored the stares of the tables nearby who’d heard him, resisting the urge to flip him off as he walked away.

  I swear he heard my thoughts because when he looked back over his shoulder he was laughing like we were in on some joke.

  I growled again as I watched him veer toward the line for food. I hoped against hope that the meatloaf they were serving tasted as bad as it looked. I turned back to my friends and forced a smile, but when I sat down across from them and saw their expectant looks, my earlier excitement came back in full.

  “So?” Matt asked. He paused with his sandwich in front of his face.

  Margo’s eyes were impossibly wide as she waited for me to speak.

  I grinned. “He went for it!” ‘He’ being Mr. Marsico, the advisor for my computer science club, and ‘it’ being the competition of my dreams—a chance to be seen by the creative geniuses behind my favorite video game ever, MageLand.

  They both cheered and Margo leaned over to give me an impromptu hug. “That’s amazing.”

  I hugged her back, my smile so big it was starting to hurt.

  “It’s about time someone at this table had something good happen to them,” Matt said, stuffing his sandwich in his mouth with a satisfied smile.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’d say Margo winning homecoming queen and dating the star quarterback are pretty good things.”

  Margo fluttered her eyelashes and gave a small smile of false modesty that made me and Matt laugh.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Matt said. “You know what I mean.”

  I did. And he had a point—we were only six weeks into senior year and so far it had been a rough one. After that initial prank, which had led to an intense grounding from my parents and enforced tutoring for the first month of school, the school had gone a bit…crazy. The hashtag went viral and things turned nasty really quickly.

  I’m not going to say that my friends and I were above it all.

  We weren’t.

  We were hurt and wanted to strike back so…yeah. Things escalated. I wouldn’t say it was over now, per se, but after homecoming the whole #GeeksGoneWild battle seemed to have died down a bit. People were no longer bullying my friends and my friends were no longer retaliating with humiliating photos of the cool kids. Things were better, although not the same.

  I wasn’t sure if we could ever go back to how things were before that ridiculous cyber war broke out, but at least it wasn’t as prevalent anymore, and some of the anger behind it seemed to have faded. Most of the tags I saw on social media these past two weeks had been friend on friend, or frenemy on frenemy. You know, people tagging their friends with the hashtag when they did something stupid, that sort of thing. All in good fun, I guess you could say.

  Margo changed the topic back to the one at hand. “You must be ecstatic, Suzie. This is like a dream come true for you.”

  I grinned back at her. This wasn’t “like” a dream come true. It was literally a dream coming true.

  Okay, here’s the deal—I liked video games. A lot. Like, more than most human beings liked anything. They were my escape—from my overbearing, strict mother, from my sometimes-cruel, often-thoughtless classmates, from my irritating younger brother who lived to annoy me.

  At least, they started off as an escape. But then they became a passion.

  Margo had her clarinet, Matt had his newspaper, and I had my games.

  The only problem with that scenario was obvious. Margo’s clarinet meant she was part of a band, Matt’s love of journalism meant he was now editor-in-chief of the school newspaper. Both interests looked great on college applications and could help them on their way to success.

  Video games? Not so much.

  In an attempt to rectify that, I’d put my love of gaming into something more useful and productive by starting up a computer science club my freshman year. It was…not popular. That was fine by me. I hadn’t done it to be popular. God knows I never ever held out hopes of popularity. To be popular in this school one had to be an airhead, a hottie, or at the very least able to speak to others without losing their cool.

  I was none of the above. I was smart, not even remotely hot, and I tended to blush and stammer when faced with actual human interactions with anyone outside of my two best friends.

  So yeah, popularity was not in the cards for yours truly. But I digress. Back to the computer science club. With the help of my advisor and a small—read that very small—crew of members, we spent our afternoons learning and practicing coding skills that I hoped would one day lead me to a career in programming.

  Sounds hot, right? I know. It was a wonder my club wasn’t more popular.

  But now? Well, as of today my club was my pride and joy.

  “Mr. Marsico said we could enter into the MageLand competition on behalf of our school,” I told my friends. “He’s having everyone in the computer science club pair up to come up with a concept to submit.” I’d started unwrapping my sandwich I’d brought with me from home and almost missed the fact that Jason had slid into the seat next to Margo across from me.

  I stalled in my babbling as I watched him lean over and give Margo a kiss on the cheek, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. Maybe for him it was. For me and Matt? We exchanged a quick look and then looked back down at our food.

  Yeah, it was still weird.

  Jason and Margo had been spending every free second together ever since they publicly declared themselves a couple during homecoming. But Matt and I hadn’t seen them together much—we’d been giving them some space, because we’re supportive like that. But now…he was here. At our table.

  Jason Connolly. Star quarterback. Luke Warner’s best friend. One of the most popular guys in our school, rivaled only by my own personal nemesis.

  And he was sitting here ready to eat lunch with us like it was normal.

  Margo raised her eyebrows in my direction. “So?” she said. “All these teams get to come up with an idea…”

  “Oh. Right.” I cleared my throat and ignored the fact that Jason was staring at me. I had no reason to feel lame just because I was super excited about my computer club. “So then all of the entries—”

  “Hey, what did I miss?” Luke slid onto the bench seat beside me and his hip brushed against mine.

  I scrambled to inch away from him and he grinned down at me like we were sharing some inside joke again. Whatever the joke might be, it was clearly at my expense. Jokes always were when it came to Luke and his friends.

  “You were saying?” Jason prompted.

  I glanced over and saw him giving me that smile—that nice guy smile that never failed to put everyone around him at ease. Including me. I focused on Jason and my friends and ignored Luke as I continued with my explanation, all about how each idea would be put before the club in two weeks’ time to vote on the two best ideas, then the club would split in two to focus on the winning ideas, and just before the holiday break we would present both ideas to the entire student body to decide which one would be entered into the competition.

  “Whoa, whoa,” Luke interrupted. “What competition?” Luke had been oddly silent beside me up until then
and I froze at the sound of his voice. But everyone was waiting for me to explain and I realized that Jason probably had no idea what I was talking about either.

  See? Me and social interactions—not a match made in heaven.

  I cleared my throat and mentally backed it up. “Arcadia Games,” I said, talking to Jason and trying not to notice Luke’s eyes on me lest I burst into flames of embarrassment. I mean, I was well aware of the fact that he thought I was the biggest nerd on the planet. I didn’t really relish the fact that I was currently putting all that nerdiness on full display.

  “Arcadia Games is an indie gaming company,” I said. “They make some lesser known video games, and their most popular one is this online game where people team up, it’s called—”

  “MageLand,” Luke finished.

  I blinked in surprise and then peeked over at him. He smirked. “What? I’ve heard of it.”

  I ignored that and turned back to my friends. “Anyway, the company is trying to market the game to a younger crowd. Right now its demographic is mainly…” I trailed off as I tried to come up with the right terminology.

  “Basement trolls and Dungeons & Dragons freaks?” Luke suggested.

  I stiffened, hating my stupid transparent skin for turning crimson at the slightest insult. My heart pounded furiously as embarrassment warred with anger.

  Sometimes it felt like I was forever torn between those two emotions. I had my mother’s fiery temper that was dampened only by my ever-present fear of embarrassment. The two collided in epic fashion whenever Luke was around. His mockery brought out the worst in me at all times.

  Ignore him. Just ignore him.

  Nope, couldn’t do it. “Not everyone who plays video games is a loser or a freak,” I said.

  His smirk grew into a grin and I cursed myself for responding. Anyone could tell you that the worst thing you could do with someone like Luke was encourage him.