Jared was driving home from work after a rough week. The server had crashed on Monday, and after spending four and a half hours bringing it back up, it crashed again on Wednesday, and on top of that, he found a virus this morning. Normally he would have to perform a little routine maintenance throughout the week, the job wasn’t stressful or difficult normally and he spent a lot of his time at work on his phone while monitoring the company servers.

  Now, on top of having a rough week at work, traffic is a lot worse than normal because of the concert going on tonight. All he wants to do is get home and get on his computer and he’s stuck in traffic. I might as well stop and pick up some pizza and wings on the way home, last thing I want to do after this traffic is cook when I get home, it’ll keep me away from my computer even longer.

  He turned right and drove another block before turning into his favorite pizza joint. He got out of the car and went in the place.

  “Hey Tony, how are you doing today.”

  “Pretty good Jared, how about yourself?”

  “Terrible, had a bad week and this traffic has been terrible, I'll take a New York Style bacon with extra cheese and an 8-piece of honey chipotle wings with a side of ranch.”

  “Sure thing boss,” he punched the order into the register. “That’ll be twenty-two dollars and forty-three cents, will that be cash or card?”

  He pulled out his wallet and took out two bills, a twenty and a five, handing it over to Tony.

  “Keep the change.”

  “Thank you, your order will be out in about twenty minutes.”

  He went over and sat in one of the chairs by the wall and took out his phone. He pulled up his text messages and say he had a text from Jess:

  Hey Jared, are you going to get on LoD tonight?

  He smiled as he typed back:

  Yeah, I’ll be on, which character do you want me to run, my tank or my DPS?

  He continued going through his notifications, not finding anything important when his phone vibrated with another text from Jess:

  Steve isn’t getting on, so we need a tank, hope that’s ok.

  He sent back:

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  Anything you need is fine with me, my tank is falling behind in levels anyways, I’ll be home in about 30 minutes, after I eat ill be on, so give me about 45.

  He didn’t have to wait long until he got her reply:

  Thank you so much, I can’t wait to play, I’m running my healer so I’ll focus my heals on you ;)

  He smiled and shook his head, she’s a big flirt, and while he liked her, he was pretty sure she didn’t return his feelings.

  Jess was blushing as she put away her phone. Jared is cute and nerdy, just her type, but she didn’t think he even knew she had a big crush on him. Most guys she was ever into usually assumed she was just a flirtatious girl because she was a pretty girl who was into video games.

  “Number 738.”

  She walked forward and grabbed her bag of food, she opened it up to make sure her order was correct before walking out the door with it. She knew she shouldn’t eat the greasy food, so she only ate it on the last day of her long weeks. She was just glad the hospital, her apartment complex and the fast-food restaurant were all within a block of each other, she walked to and from work every day, even though she had to work twelve-hour shifts. She just finished her seventh straight shift at the hospital, and now she had three days off, it wasn’t after that her three days aligned with the weekend, so when it did, she always hit up Jared to get on LoD with her. It wasn’t her favorite game, but Jared was always playing it so she started playing it more.

  She unlocked her front door and walked in. She set the food down on her desk and walked straight to the bathroom. She took off her scrubs and bra with a sigh, she started wearing the constricting bras so her ample bosom didn’t attract too much attention from the patients, so the first thing she did when she got home was let them breathe and throw on a tank top. She still got hit on by some of the patients, but it was half the amount she got hit on when she started. She threw on some booty shorts as well before heading back out to her desk and taking out her chicken sandwich and taking a bite out of it.

  While eating her sandwich and fries she hit the power button on her computer and put on her headphones. She knew she was still a little early for meeting up with Jared, but she was already home, she might as well get logged in to wait.

  Jared walked in and set the pizza down on the table and got a soda out of the fridge. He sat down and ate his wings and a couple slices of pizza before washing his hands and putting the pizza box in the fridge and grabbing an energy drink. He sat down at the desk and hit the power button on his desktop, opening his drink and taking a sip.

  He logged into his computer and clicked the icon on the screen to launch LoD. While LoD was booting up he put on his headphones and pulled his mic closer. Once the game loaded, he clicked on his tank character and started the game, it loaded into one of the late-stage towns, he clicked his inbox and found a party invite from Jess and accepted it.

  He noticed that Eric, Jason and Vanessa were already in the party. It looked like Eric was using his rogue, Jason was using his elemental mage and Vanessa was using her scout.

  “Good evening, everybody, hope ya'lls week was better than mine,” said Jared.

  “Wasn’t bad for me, finally finished the divorce proceedings for my client and his ex-wife was not happy with the outcome, but I guess that’s what happens when the person you have an affair with records it and puts it online,” said Jason.

  “Sounds like a pretty good week, do you have any more upcoming cases?” asked Jared.

  “Had a new client come in where she signed a prenuptial agreement with an infidelity clause today. That’s going to be fun,” he said.

  There was a blinding light and Jared blacked out.