From the main menu, Jamie selects two players, a warrior woman with blonde hair dressed in a tight black outfit, a sword in hand. She looks fierce, like the kind of woman who can kick some serious ass. A few characters like her are in Mage Wars, but the closer I study her face, I realize she’s… me. Holy shit, this girl could pass as my twin.
I angle my body toward Jamie, my mouth open in complete shock. He notices my expression, rewarding me with a cute smile.
“I had a hard time capturing your beauty,” he says, pointing at the woman. “But I think you turned out just right in the end. What do you think?”
His eyes find mine, and I have to blink back the tears forming. “This is…” I shake my head, at a loss for words. “You did this for me?”
He nods, inching toward me, his fingers slipping between mine. “For us.”
I reach up to cup the side of his face with my hand, and he sucks in a deep breath. “Too much?”
“No, it’s perfect,” I whisper, staring into his eyes. “You’re perfect. I can’t believe you wrote me into your video game.”
“You are my game,” he admits. “You’re my muse. I want you in my life, Shan. In every part of it. I was an idiot to let you go. Every time I close my eyes, I think of you. When I roll over in bed, I reach for you. I miss you. I need you. It’s always been you. You were right in front of me all of these years, and I was too stupid to see it. I’ve learned over the past few months that time is a commodity, and I don’t want to waste another second without you.”
Now, the tears spill from my eyes, coating my cheeks. “Jamie,” I choke out.
“Every line of code in this game…” he says, motioning toward the screen, “… I wrote for you. But there aren’t enough ones and zeros in the universe to express how much I love you.”
I chuckle, even though his words weren’t meant to be funny. “Did you just… tell me you love me more than binary code?”
“No… yes. I guess so.” Jamie puts his face in his hands and sighs, now laughing as he looks at me. “Binary is a two-symbol system, kind of like us. You need both the one and the zero.”
He’s so adorable when he does his nerd speak. Most of the time, I don’t understand all the complexities of coding and video games, but I love seeing how much his face lights up when he talks about it.
“Which one would I be?” I ask, joking. “The one or the zero?”
“Zero,” he says without hesitation.
“How come?”
“Because zero comes first. But you will always be my number one.”
I fling myself into his arms and kiss him so hard it takes my breath away. He lifts me up, clutching me against his chest. Our friends clap and whistle in the background, some of them making dirty comments. We ignore all of it, lost in each other, drowning in our love for one another.
Once our lips separate, I’m out of breath, my head spinning. “I love you, too,” I whisper, and he smiles in response. “So… are we playing the game or what?”
He glances over his shoulder at the screen and then leads me by the hand to sit at one of the couches in front of the gaming console.
“I was stuck until you came into my life,” he admits. “I couldn’t finish this game, and that’s because you were missing. But you gave me the motivation I needed to get my shit together. You helped me see what I needed to do.”
“What’s my character’s name?”
“Princess Shanaya.”
“Shan-ay-a?” I over exaggerate the pronunciation, not knowing if I’m right.
He nods. “Yeah. It’s not my most creative name, but I wanted something that sounds like Shannon.”
The game is named after me. It’s Jamie quest for me… for Shanaya.
I smile. “I’m a princess. How come I’m not a queen?”
He hands me a controller and laughs. “Because Princess Shanaya will eventually become the Queen of Dragonsbane.”
Squeezing the controller in my hand, I smile. “And does the Queen of Dragonsbane marry the king?”
“The Lord of Winterbourne…” he says, gesturing toward his character, who looks like him down to the very last feature, “… has to fight all of the Lords of the High Houses to prove his loyalty to Princess Shanaya. After he does, then he’ll become worthy of ruling alongside her.”
“Sounds like you have your work cut out for you,” I quip, grinning like an idiot. “And how does Princess Shanaya prove she’s worthy of the crown?”
“She has to slay the dragon and drink its blood.”
My nose wrinkles in disgust. “Eww, that’s gross. You want me to drink blood?”