Chapter 62: 62 Catching Up

Heather laid in her bed and was surprisingly happy. She wasn't sure why, though. Her life had been quite a mess the last little while and things hadn't worked out like she had hoped they would. Her revenge on Arnold by trying to make him angry about her dating Brad had failed pathetically, even though he had defended her against Brad and had fought him.

It didn't make sense to her that Arnold wasn't angry about it. Then again, her mother had warned her that Arnold had quirks that she needed to be careful of, and Heather had to assume that not getting pissed off at an ex-girlfriend for dating his rival was one of them. She rolled onto her side and thought about all the things she and Eric had done all day, and that made her smile.

Who would have thought that Eric would be a cool guy? Heather asked herself. I have to text Kelly and... Her thought cut off and she sighed. Maybe she'll be happy that I stopped dating Brad. She thought and then she sighed again. She's going to hate me if I tell her that I'm dating Eric.

Heather completely ignored the fact that she had set Arnold up to be massacred by the guys in a virtual game. Her reasoning that it was just a game had absolved her from feeling any guilt over it. She didn't realize that actually made her a bit callous of other's feelings, especially Kelly's, since she cared a lot about Arnold and his welfare.

Heather's eyes caught the college package on her desk and she smiled again. She had been accepted into the Arts degree at the college and both she and her mother had been happy about that. She would be starting in the fall and her classes were spread out and she had enough free time in between that she wouldn't be overwhelmed with the course materials.

The best part was that her mother had been against having Eric visiting the house, until she learned that Eric would be going to the local college as well and was taking Business Administration. He had the marks for it and Claire had reluctantly admitted that he wasn't a complete waste of space.

“You see? I told you that she would like you.” Heather had said at the time and both she and her mother had laughed.

Heather rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling and sighed. Unlike what a lot of people thought, she actually regretted losing Kelly as her best friend. They had spent the last six years hanging out and carrying on, and they had been almost inseparable... until Arnold came along. He had been the deciding factor and things started to change afterwards, then pretty much everything fell apart.

Heather couldn't really get angry at Arnold for it, since it was her that pursued him, and it was her that dated Brad and drove Kelly away, and now it was her that was dating the bane of Kelly's reputation. It was her decisions that kept making things worse and had driven a wedge between them. She didn't want to admit to any of that, mainly because Kelly had warned her about it.

She closed her eyes and debated calling Kelly to try and explain everything, then she fell asleep before she had made any kind of decision.

*

Claire laid in bed and watched the posted prom video for the sixtieth time. Kelly is such a lucky girl. She thought and remembered the three times she had been with Arnold. A very, very lucky girl.

*

The vice-principal laid in bed, exhausted, and hugged Arnold's report to her naked chest. All she could think about was seeing Kelly's euphoric face as Arnold led her out of the boy's bathroom at prom.

*

Amy laid in bed and she thought over everything that had happened that day. Her mind kept going back to how Arnold had completely surpassed her inventory skills, her typing skills, and her personal boundaries. She could almost feel his strong shoulders between her knees, just like when he had sat between her legs, and it still surprised her that he hadn't even glanced at her underwear.

I had my legs wide open and I wore a skirt. It was right there! Amy thought. Why didn't he look? Why?

She rolled over in bed and sighed, because she just couldn't get those thoughts out of her head.

*

The next morning, Arnold and Kelly woke up almost at the same time. It was early and they had rolled over onto their sides and were currently facing each other.

“Good morning.” Kelly whispered, in case Annie was still asleep.

“Good morning.” Arnold whispered back and leaned in to give her a quick kiss.

“Good morning, sleepyheads.” Annie said from the kitchenette. “I've got toast in the toaster, now that I can make noise.”

Kelly chuckled and sat up. “You do realize we won't have to get up for another hour normally, right?”

“I shut off the alarm in the hopes that we would all sleep in, and here we are.” Annie said with a grin.

“All right, we're getting up.” Kelly said and smiled back. “Arnold, do you want to shower first?”

“Okay.” Arnold said and sat up, pushed the blanket off, then stood up. He pulled off his shorts and tossed them into the laundry basket. His t-shirt was next and his underwear soon followed, then he stepped into the bathroom and shut the door.

“I'd say you can stop staring; but, you can stare all you want.” Annie said. “You'll be seeing him a lot like that.”

“But... he just...” Kelly wasn't sure what to say.

“What? Are you worried about me seeing it?” Annie asked and then laughed. “I'm his mother. I've seen him naked since he was a little boy.”

“I... I know that... intellectually.” Kelly said and Annie laughed again. “It's not funny.”

Annie snorted a laugh and buttered the toast that popped up and added more. “You'll probably have to remind him not to do that if you have company over.” She said and waved her over to the small table. “You probably won't have to worry about that for a couple of months, though.”

Kelly nodded and went over to the table and sat down when Annie gave her the toast. “Thanks.”

“Do you have any plans about what you're going to do all week?” Annie asked.

“For the first little while, I'm going to try and stay near Arnold.” Kelly said. “I'm not actually worried about him at work that much, except for Amy.”

“She has me concerned, too. She can be a real problem for Arnold if she wants to be.” Annie said and made more toast. “Of course, I'm assuming after Arnold's performance yesterday, she may keep herself restrained from now on.”

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“I certainly hope so.” Kelly said. “There's not really a lot we can do if she doesn't.”

Annie nodded. “Not without getting Arnold in trouble, anyway.”

“Which will only get us banned from the lab, since the professor needs Arnold to work.” Kelly said.

“I can't believe they make thirty dissected cats each year!” Annie said and made a gagging sound.

Kelly laughed. “Have you seen one? It's actually pretty cool looking.”

“The only cat I've seen like that was roadkill on the side of the highway coming here.” Annie said.

“Thanks for not pointing it out at the time.” Kelly said. “Even I'll get squeamish if it's too gruesome.”

“It's the circumstances, isn't it?” Annie asked and Kelly nodded. “It does make it that much worse.”

“I can only imagine what the poor animal went through being hit like that.” Kelly said. “So scared by all the noises, then trying to cross with heavy traffic.”

“Okay, we need to stop talking about roadkill or I won't be able to eat.” Annie said and made more toast and put it down on a plate in front of the other chair. Arnold came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and sat down to eat.

“My turn.” Kelly said and finished her toast, gave Arnold a quick kiss, then went into the bathroom.

“Any plans for today?” Annie asked her son as she sat down across from him.

“Playing the game to see what I can do before Brad gets back online.” Arnold said. “Unless Kelly wants to do something else.”

“No!” Kelly said loudly from the bathroom. “I'm playing, too!”

“I guess I'm watching television for a while.” Annie chuckled and ate her toast and drank her tea.

Kelly came out of the bathroom twenty minutes later with a towel wrapped around her and dropped her clothes in the laundry basket, then grabbed underwear and a breezy outfit to wear that consisted of a tube top and short shorts. She usually moved a lot when playing the more complicated games and didn't want to start sweating right after getting a shower.

Kelly stepped back into the bathroom to change and came right back out and saw that Arnold had put on shorts. “I'm tempted to have you come and pick me up on your horse.” She said and put her hands on his bare shoulders and shook him a little. “You. Have. A. Flying. Horse!” She exclaimed and then kissed him. “No one knows you can get a horse so easily! No one!”

Arnold gave her a small smile. “Are you going to tell anyone?”

“Hell, no!” Kelly laughed. “We know something that no other player in the whole world knows.”

“The whole world?” Arnold asked and she nodded. “Will we meet them?”

“Probably not, since we're logged in to different servers.” Kelly said. “Which reminds me...” She said and woke Arnold's computer up and looked at the server address that his character was using, then she walked over to the other side of the dorm room and woke her own computer and entered the server address into her game loader so that they would both be playing the same instance of the game.

“How are you going to get to me?” Arnold asked.

“I'll pay the fast travel fee.” Kelly said and sat down at her computer to work on that video. She could only include so much, since there was a limit on how big of a file that could be added, so she cut it to right when Arnold met Brad and his group and then ended with Arnold standing there and looking at Brad's shocked face.

“Ha. Perfect.” Kelly said and quickly opened up a secured browser that hid her IP address, then she uploaded the video with the caption 'Veteran Players Noob themselves by luring and attacking Newb Player'. Almost immediately someone responded and said that it was Brad's adventuring group and cursed them for such underhanded tactics on a new player, who was still wearing the starting outfit.

Another person responded, and another, then someone posted a link to the game forums and shared the video there. Kelly was shocked when it suddenly took on a life of its own as the gaming community banded together and blasted Brad and his group for it. The views on the video skyrocketed as the word about it spread and it was shared everywhere.

Kelly had to laugh at it. “Annie, are you seeing this?”

“Uh huh.” Annie said and only glanced at it. Stuff like that didn't really make sense to her, since she had avoided it for years on Arnold's behalf.

“I told you we'd all come together to defend him.” Kelly said and bookmarked the video and closed the browser, then she stood up and looked at Arnold. “We only have until eight o'clock tonight to level you up as much as possible.”

“You're actually planning on playing all day?” Annie asked, surprised. “I thought you were joking.”

Kelly chuckled. “We're taking breaks every hour and eating both lunch and supper. Depending on how well we do today, we might not have to go back online after supper to squeeze out a few more levels.”

Annie didn't comment on how much of a waste of time that was, considering she usually just sat on the couch and watched television. “Have fun with that.” She said instead and Kelly laughed.

“What do we do first?” Arnold asked.

“We're going to sort through all the loot they gave you and see what you can keep, probably just the food, the animal carcasses, and the crafting materials, since they won't have any specific requirements that need to be met to be worn.” Kelly said. “We can sell the rest for tons of gold and then buy what you need.”

Arnold nodded and started the game up, put on the VR headset, and picked up the controllers.

“We should sit down for this.” Kelly said and took one of the kitchen chairs and put it behind Arnold. “You can sit.” She said and guided him into the chair, then she took the other chair and set up her own VR and sat down. “I'll be at the inn in a couple of minutes.”

“Okay.” Arnold said and waited for the game to load.

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