He didn’t start a new match.
The match started. The countdown hit zero. Both their characters sprinted forward—old muscle memory overriding the rupture between them. Leo took the lower deck, Sam climbed to the yacht’s bridge. They didn’t communicate. They didn’t need to. They had spent 2,000 hours in this game together. They knew each other’s routes, each other’s tells, each other’s blind spots. call of duty black ops 2 split screen pc
Sam looked back at the screen. He selected a loadout. A sniper rifle. The DSR-50. “No, you’re not. You’re sorry you got caught.” He didn’t start a new match
Leo pushed back from the desk. The cheap rolling chair squeaked. “We should talk.” They didn’t need to
“I was in Seattle. The flight—”
The screen was bisected not by a line, but by a chasm.
“About Mom’s funeral.”