Congratulations on making it this far! By now, you probably have a plan for attacking the final level. Unfortunately, the best-laid plans tend to go awry.
—The Haunted Place Player Guide
After my second call, I picked up the phone again, this time to talk to Shannon. She and the rest of our friends would be arriving at the store to play the final episode of The Haunted Place in about six hours. She usually came straight from work, but I hoped she’d have time to help me with something first.
Then I called the rest of the players, except Nathan. Everyone offered me encouragement. I spent the rest of my shift pacing back and forth and practicing what to say. Knowing I wouldn’t need Nathan to support me, to take care of me and the baby, gave me the freedom to accept that I wanted him in my life. This wasn’t about floundering along, taking whatever came up, like with Lucas, or Game On!, or going out with Marc because he came into the store and seemed interested. This was about what I wanted.
Shortly after Shannon got to the store, Tyler, Gwen, and Cody arrived. Even after my afternoon talk with Gwen, a massive weight lifted off my shoulders at the sight of her. She deserved to be here for the final game. So did Nathan, although he hadn’t arrived yet. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might skip it because of me.
I didn’t want to ask, but Gwen saw me looking around and picked up on my unspoken question. “He’s running late, but said to go ahead and eat dinner. He’ll be here soon.”
Excellent. If necessary, I would have gone to his house after the game, but I wanted to talk to him as soon as possible.
Finally, he appeared in the doorway. All the oxygen left the room. Gwen said he was miserable without me, but he looked fantastic in a green, long-sleeved Henley shirt and jeans. It took all my restraint to avoid throwing myself at him where he stood in the doorway.
Instead, I waited for him to take his usual seat next to me. “Hey. You look good.”
He smiled at me. “So do you. How are you feeling?”
“Much better.” I hoped the look I gave him conveyed that I wasn’t only talking about my physical wellness.
“And how’s the baby?” He squeezed my hand under the table, so maybe he got what I wanted to convey. But maybe he just wanted to make sure I stayed healthy for the baby’s sake.
“Still making me nauseated a lot of the time, but otherwise strong and healthy. We can talk more after the game?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. I want to be here for you.”
I wanted him there for me, too. And not just when I felt like puking.
At the conclusion of the last game, the house began disintegrating around us. Now our primary objective was to escape before it killed us all—but that was easier said than done. For one thing, we needed to find a key to the front door. For another, at the end of each round, a random die roll potentially would require us to cross off random rooms on the board, rendering them unusable and impossible to pass. Moving around became more difficult on every turn.
Still, we managed to plod along. If we beat this level, we’d win the entire game. We’d get a point total that, if we were playing the finished version of the game, could be used to go online and compare our score with other players around the world. Our characters possessed the skills and tools we needed. The only thing left was working together and executing a plan.
Finally, we made it into the home stretch. Tyler rolled the dice to avoid a collapsing ceiling, making it down to the main level. Behind him, the roof caved in, leaving the stairway impassible. Thanks to the elevator being taken permanently out of service in the last game, anyone on the top floor would have been trapped and out of the game.
The rest of us were on the two lower floors, although that was a mixed blessing. If we didn’t all get out within the next five or six turns, we’d lose. I had to hand it to Shannon. She’d done a great job of making the game escalate each time we played, until we found ourselves with the tools and knowledge needed to pass the finale.
We couldn’t move each other’s pawns, but we could share items. Although I neared the exit and escape, I moved deeper into the house to give Tyler a potion so he’d move faster. If I’d taken my chance to escape, I’d survive, but the other players might not—and I’d have no means of helping them from the outside.
Once done with my delivery, my remaining movements took me back to the foyer. Nathan rolled the dice, which gave him an oxygen tank to move through the poisonous gas in the basement, up the stairs. He met me in the foyer. Cody and Gwen stood on the far side of the main floor. They hopscotched through the vanishing and blocked rooms, entering the foyer just as the second-to-last room collapsed. There was only one clear path through the house. Tyler rolled the dice to see which room would go next.
The ballroom. It wasn’t on the path. The door remained clear.
I let out a whoop. He danced his character through the house, joining the rest of the group just as the basement gases reached the stairs and started to seep into the main hallway where we all stood. With no time to spare, we’d won!
“That’s it! We did it! Everyone escapes the house!”
We cheered and high-fived and jumped up and down like we’d won a trip to Disney World. At one point, Nathan swept me up into a hug. Caught up in the excitement, I threw my arms around him. Then we both realized what we’d done and stiffened. He pulled back awkwardly, avoiding my eyes. After the way I’d treated him, I deserved that, but pain lanced my gut.
“Guys!” Cody held up his hand for attention. “This is awesome, but we still have to read the end-of-the-game story.”
Right. This moment was as important to me as the rest of the game.
Gwen picked up the book and began to read. “Congratulations! You have successfully defeated The Haunted Place. Now you may claim your reward. Hand Box Q to the youngest player.”
“Technically, the baby is the youngest player,” I said, hands on my belly.
“We love the baby, but he or she didn’t contribute to our victory,” Gwen pointed out. “Cody?”
He pulled out the box and held it up while Gwen continued reading. “Open the box and pull out the contents. If the Butler is still in the game, hand the item to the Butler and read the enclosed slip of paper. If the Butler accepts, game over. If he or she declines, the player to your right draws another slip.”
A confused look crossed Nathan’s face. The rest of us suppressed smiles. It hadn’t taken any time to convince Shannon to make some minor modifications to the game end scenario to help me re-create one of Nathan’s and my favorite scenes from television. Everyone else had agreed readily to the plan when I’d asked them after I got off the phone with Terri.
Cody pulled a small item out of the box and handed it to Nathan. Men didn’t wear engagement rings, so I’d put several, multi-sided dice of varying sizes into the container. Cody also withdrew a slip of paper. Holding it in front of him, he held out the die and read slowly. “Nathan, will you marry me?”
He shot me a sidelong glance. I struggled to keep my face neutral, when I wanted to beam at him and give the game up now. Gwen nudged me under the table with her foot, and I bit my lip.
Nathan looked back at Cody. “Thanks, but no.”
Cody passed the box to Gwen, who also drew a die with a slip and read the text. She offered the ten-sided die. “Dad, will you marry me?”
He chuckled. “Thank you, my darling Queen Guinevere, but even in medieval times, marrying one’s own daughter was frowned upon.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” She passed the box.
Tyler skipped the die and read his slip. “Nathan, will you marry me?”
“No thank you.”
“Figures.”
I took the box and set it on the table. There was one item left in the box. Pulling it out, I turned toward Nathan and pushed back from the table. Although he appeared to be enjoying this scene, and he knew exactly what I was doing, part of me worried about humiliating myself in front of all my friends. I’d be crushed if he turned me down. Still, life without risk wouldn’t be very interesting.
“I spent a lot of time thinking about where to find a two-sided die, something to represent that we’re two sides of the same coin. But then I realized, we’re more than that now. We’re a family. You, me, the baby. Gwen. Cody. So I got you this instead.” I handed him a five-sided die. “I know we’ve had some ups and downs, but will you please take a chance on me? I’ve found a job in Albany, and they’ve agreed to let me telecommute all but a few days per month. I’m not going anywhere. I want to be with you. For as long as you’ll have me.”
As I spoke, his smile widened until it split his face in two. He took my hand in both of his, cradling my fingers and the die. “Before I answer, there’s something I want to say.”
My heart stopped. Oh, no. He wasn’t just going to turn me down, he was going to make a big speech first. I’d ruined everything. Then, just as I started to panic, he leaned over and kissed me softly. The warmth of his lips eased the growing dread inside me and gave me the strength to smile up at him. “Go ahead.”
“Well, the thing is, you’re kind of stepping on what I’d planned, privately, for after the game.”
A thrill went through me. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I love you. When you told me we were having a baby, it was one of the happiest moments of my life. But that’s not why I asked you to marry me. I was planning to propose eventually, but after the whole thing with Gwen, it seemed better to wait.”
“Sorry,” Gwen said. “For the record, I am totally cool with my BFF becoming my stepmom. And I know I shouldn’t have been such an asshole before.”
I grinned at her, but my heart still beat a mile a minute.
Nathan shushed her, then pulled a box from his pocket and knelt next to me. “You are the last person I want to see when I go to sleep at night, and the first person I want to see each morning. There’s no one I’d rather game with. You’re the person I want by my side whether I’m shooting bad guys, exploring haunted houses, crashing our plane in the desert, or saving the world from deadly viruses.”
My lips twitched at the way he’d worked several of my favorite games into his proposal. How very thoughtful and even more perfectly us than my proposal.
“I never should have let you walk away from me. I’ve cursed myself a thousand times for not saying this a month ago. I’ve wanted to be with you from the beginning. It’s not about the baby. It’s about you and me, and the way I feel when we’re together. I understand why you said no but I swear—I’m not repeating my past mistakes. This isn’t a do-over. This is about finding the one person who makes me feel like the luckiest man in the world. I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy.” He pulled a ring from the box and held it out to me. A gorgeous, custom-made, incredibly geeky ring.
The center stone was a ruby shaped as a heart, surrounded by tiny diamonds. A pattern on the ruby and the sides of the ring mirrored the heart container in Legends of Zelda. It was absolutely the most perfect engagement ring I’d ever seen in my life.
“Holly, will you marry me?”
Even knowing what was coming, I gasped. My heart swelled.
“I asked you first,” I said.
“Technically, that’s not true. I asked you weeks ago.”
“Well in that case…Yes!” I gasped, throwing myself into his arms. He caught me and wiped the happy tears streaming down my face before capturing my lips in a heart-stopping kiss. The world fell away, and I didn’t know how much time passed before I pulled back. “I’m so sorry I left. I love you, and I never want to be with anyone else.”
“It’s okay. As long as you promise never to leave me again, I forgive you.”
“I promise.”
“That’s all that matters. And I promise not to let you go. I do have one condition, though.”
“Anything. Name it.”
His lips twitched as he turned back to the group. “Can we read the real game end story?”
~*~