Out of Character by Annabeth Albert
Chapter Two
Alden
I straightened my shoulders, not letting my body lean forward like it wanted to. I wasn’t going to let myself be overeager. Not yet. Real-world plans had a way of seldom working out in my favor, which was why I loved Odyssey so much. In the game, all my careful strategies could come to fruition, as they had when I’d won out over Conrad a few minutes earlier. Across from me now, he had gone pale, his usual Disney-hero face gaunt and more than a little green.
“A plan?” he croaked. I had to admit, it was nice to see the Prince of Swagger off his game, even a little. He deserved to be off his game, in no small part thanks to his endless needling and mockery. He called it trash-talking, but I’d never seen the difference. It was hard not to take his comments personally when they always felt so targeted.
My fingers itched to reach for the tickets, to make sure they were real, but I wasn’t going to be the first to grab. I also wasn’t about to let Conrad—or anyone else—see how badly I wanted to go. Payton and Conrad undoubtedly wanted a ticket so they could party with other gamers, and Jasper was likely already envisioning the cosplay possibilities, but all I could think about was that tournament. A seat on the pro tour. Yeah, that would be worth something after the tire fire that was my last year.
A win like that would validate all the time I’d spent honing my game, but more importantly, it would give me the one thing my life was sorely lacking: control. I’d spent the past year racking up disappointment after disappointment, and here was my chance to seize a fresh new direction for my future that had nothing to do with the increasingly claustrophobic path my family had set me on.
I swore I could already hear the cheers, feel the weight of the trophy, the intense wave of pride washing over me. But behind the daydream was the bitter splash of reality. I didn’t like to fly. It was what had kept me limited to cons and tournaments within driving distance here on the East Coast and what had held me back from registering for MOC West when it first opened.
“And it doesn’t involve flying?” I asked, trying to not sound as skeptical as Conrad.
“Nope.” Professor Tuttle offered a wide smile. “I’ve had a bunch of midwestern local game stores ask for signed books. And they’ve been clamoring for something of a tour. So my idea is to drive with whomever wishes to join me. We can share time behind the wheel, stop at my favorite local game stores along the way, play a few hands of Odyssey with their regulars, see the sights… It’ll be fun.”
That was easy for him to say. He had friends all across the country thanks to his storied career as a mathematics professor as well as the reputation he’d built with his vlog. He loved travel, but I knew full well that he was only proposing driving because he thought that was the best way to get us there. He’d been friends with my family long enough to know about my issues with flying. Also, Jasper was perennially short of funds, and I was never quite sure what was up with Conrad lately. He’d had to drop out of school for reasons he was cagey about, and I could never tell whether he was as broke as Jasper, or just didn’t care, or possibly a mixture of both. For all his bravado, he was tough to read—something that irritated me even more than his swagger and constant needling.
“Can it be the sort of fun that I hear all about when I see you guys at the con? Road trips are so not my style, and I’ve got plane tickets already up on my phone.” Payton waved their phone, managing to sound dismissive without outright knocking the professor’s plan. I desperately wanted to learn their trick for always managing to seem above the fray without being rude about it. They were never emotionally invested in anything, whether it was grades or relationships or even the game itself. Me? My adrenaline was still thrumming from the win, my stomach yet to settle from that sick feeling when I’d thought Conrad might be about to best me. Holding back his soldier tokens had been a stroke of genius.
Not that I’d ever tell him that. He didn’t need the ego boost.
“The convention is right after the term ends for summer break.” Professor Tuttle still taught part-time, despite devoting most of his retirement to his vlog. “I say we take two weeks—five or six days there, three days for the convention, five or six days coming home. It’ll be a grand adventure. Who’s in?”
I expected Conrad to agree first, because no way would he turn down a chance to go party with Payton and be a minor celebrity with Gamer Grandpa’s following. I’d been forced to overhear too many stories of their wild antics over the years to think otherwise.
In the end, though, it was Jasper who nodded first. “I’m up for it. I’ll have to talk to my folks and Arthur, though, make sure I can be spared.”
“Excellent. Conrad?” Professor Tuttle prompted. Relief rushed through me that he hadn’t asked me next. I still hadn’t sorted out my reaction to this turn of events. Unlike the others, I wasn’t the best at reading situations and never coped well with sudden change. I wanted to go. That wasn’t the issue, but there was a ton of other mental clatter going around in my head that was making it hard to focus.
“Uh…” Conrad still sat across from me, still holding his duffel like a shield. “Work, you know? Might need to rearrange some things…”
That was typically vague. I wasn’t entirely sure what job Conrad currently had. He seemed to have an endless supply of side hustles and part-time gigs that never lasted long. Rumor was, he got fired almost as often as he went out and partied. I’d once tried to help him see that the two probably were related, but he’d almost bitten my head off, so I tried not to get involved anymore. It wasn’t my business anyway.
“That’s fine. How about you guys think about it? The tickets are yours, but you can tell me your decision about the road trip when we play Sunday afternoon.”
“Time to think is good.” That gave us a little under forty-eight hours, but it was better than being put on the spot. I nodded along with Conrad.
“The tickets are ours?” Conrad licked his lower lip as he took one from the stack. I couldn’t shake the feeling he was mentally working out what his ticket might fetch on a reseller site. And see, this was why I needed to go. I was the only one of us who truly cared about the game and the tournament.
I grabbed mine before anyone else could think about taking it.
“So, you think you’re going?” Conrad nodded at the ticket in my hand. His midwestern flat affect took a turn for the country with you sounding more like ya when he was agitated. I’d never figured out exactly where he was from—some corn-fed rural state where they grew their guys naturally athletic and tall as water towers. Conrad always looked like he’d escaped some minor league baseball team to come slum with us nerds at the game store.
“Maybe. I said I’d think about it.” I didn’t owe him a peek at my inner turmoil, didn’t want him to know how rattled I was, and my tone came out way too snappish. Something about Conrad always made me feel even more out of my depth socially, and that uncertainty tended to come out as combative—little verbal swipes that accomplished nothing other than to ensure that we were always at odds.
“Chill, Alden.” Jasper was more Conrad’s friend than mine, and the long-suffering look they exchanged grated on my last nerve.
Whatever. I wasn’t in this to make friends. I was here for one reason, and one reason only—the high I got from winning. Sure, the satisfaction of deck building was nice, and the aesthetics of the game weren’t entirely lost on me, but nothing compared to the rush of victory. And right now, at this point in my life, I needed that rush in the worst way.
Payton would accuse me of being overly dramatic, so I’d never admit it aloud, but there were days when the game kept me going. Just knowing we’d had the filming today had been good. Getting to do this professionally? Being able to call this a career choice and not an expensive hobby? That might be worth whatever it would take to get that seat on the pro tour. I still wasn’t sold on Professor Tuttle’s plan, but that ticket was mine, and I wasn’t letting go.
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