Chapter 72: Uncharted?
The parking lot was fuller than his last visit — cars doubled up in spots, a truck half-mounted on the kerb doing its best. Liam found a space toward the back without making anything of it and killed the engine.
He didn’t call ahead either as there was no need to considering he had already established some sort of relationship with both of them.
He knew the building, knew the floor, knew the door. He crossed the lot and took the stairs at a normal pace, the evening air still carrying the residual tension of dinner with Mrs. Harriet that he was actively in the process of leaving behind.
He knocked twice.
The door opened almost immediately — Sophia, barefoot, in a loose top and fitted shorts, hair down. She looked at him the same way a person would look at something that doesn’t match the setting and her eyes moved once, quickly, across the suit.
"Someone looks well dressed," she said but this was with a sarcastic undertone like she was probing for something indirectly.
"I would hope so. I’m just finishing a meeting." Liam said with clarity.
She stepped back to let him in, and he caught the brief calculation behind her eyes — the word meeting doing its work, the question she wasn’t going to ask sitting visibly just behind her expression. She wasn’t his girlfriend. She had no claim on his evening. But the suit and the hour and the cologne that had survived dinner told their own story and she was clearly drawing up her own conclusion before he did answer it as she assumed he was on a date.
Of course, this doesn’t mean a hint of jealousy still wouldn’t exist here and there, that was what liking someone was about at the end of the day.
"There’s food if you’re hungry," she said, moving toward the kitchen.
"I ate," Liam shrugged, he didn’t want to come here and put her under any unnecessary stress and truth be told, he wasn’t hungry either.
"Of course you did." She disappeared around the corner almost immediately.
Liam stepped into the living room because that was the most logical place to be right now.
Mateo was on the sofa in the exact position he’d occupied a day ago — controller in hand, legs stretched out, the screen running. He didn’t look up when Liam entered, which was a performance. The slight adjustment in his posture gave him away immediately. Liam smiled to himself because this was the most teenage thing ever.
Liam sat at the other end of the sofa without announcing himself.
For two minutes neither of them spoke. Liam watched the screen. Mateo played with the focused energy of someone who had suddenly become very aware of his audience and was responding by trying to be excellent.
He died.
Respawned. Pushed forward. Died again — same section, same trap, slightly different approach producing the same result.
Liam watched the pattern develop across three more attempts. Same entry point. Same enemy position. Same sequence of decisions leading to the same outcome.
"You’re going for the objective too early," Liam said.
Mateo didn’t look at him. "I know what I’m doing."
"You’ve died in the same spot four times."
"It’s a difficult section." Mateo got defensive right away because why wouldn’t he?
"It is. But you need the item in the left corridor before you push forward. Changes the encounter entirely."
Silence. Mateo respawned and moved toward the main path out of habit before stopping. A beat. He turned left instead.
Found the item and then pushed forward.
Cleared the encounter without dying.
He sat back slightly, controller lowering an inch. He didn’t say anything for a moment.
"Lucky guess," he said finally.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night, buddy," Liam said with a raised thumb.
He was matching his sass, most people would try to be adult and navigate the situation like one but not Liam. Mateo wasn’t the only one who could act nonchalant at the end of the day.
Three more levels passed. Sophia was doing something in the kitchen that involved occasional sounds of cupboards and running water, her presence filling the apartment without being in the room. Mateo’s playing had changed quality — tighter, more deliberate, the performance energy replaced by something more genuine now that he’d stopped pretending Liam wasn’t there.
He hit a puzzle sequence and stalled.
Turned it over twice. Missed the solution both times.
Without a word he held the controller sideways toward Liam.
Liam took it.
He assessed the screen, identified the mechanic, moved the character forward with the confidence of a man who had read the situation correctly —
And walked directly into a trap.
The death screen loaded immediately. Dramatically. With considerable finality.
A silence settled over the sofa.
Mateo reached out his hand. Liam returned the controller.
"My bad," Mateo said. "I shouldn’t have given you the benefit of doubt."
Liam laughed — genuine, and almost uncontrolled. "I’m the brains. You’re the brawn."
Mateo looked at him sideways. "That’s not a real thing."
"It absolutely is. Every operation needs both. You handle the execution, I handle the strategy."
"You just died in a cutscene."
"I was testing the environment."
"You walked into a wall."
"Deliberately to see if it was bugged."
Mateo made the sound that teenagers make when something is funny and they’re still deciding whether to admit it — somewhere between a breath and a word, not quite either.
They settled into it after that. Liam calling patterns from the side, Mateo executing with the natural reflexes of someone who had been gaming since he could hold a controller. It was a reasonable division of labour and they both knew it and neither of them said so directly.
Liam glanced toward the kitchen briefly.
Sophia had gone quiet in there.
He wondered what she was doing, then wondered why he was wondering, then turned back to the screen where Mateo had just cleared a particularly difficult sequence with the casual precision of someone who had made it look easier than it was.
"Good," Liam said.
Mateo kept his eyes on the screen. But he sat a fraction straighter.