“You know,” Xun Guan said as she adjusted herself in the bath, “you’re passing up a pretty easy source of stress relief with that fox girl.”

“I know,” Lucas said. He struggled to calm himself and to act like nothing was out of the ordinary. Xun Guan seemed so at ease.

“Not gonna even give it a spin? She doesn’t seem like the type of girl that will get possessive.”

“Nah, I think I’ll pass,” Lucas answered, washing down the fry with a swig of cold brew. In-game beer wasn’t exactly the same as beer in real life: it was a little better and a little worse. It wasn’t as sweet as most American beers, and it wasn’t as bitter as a lot of the homebrew IPAs that beer snobs in their early twenties raved about. The game brew was more like modern German beers, but with a little less flavor.

“You know, Lucas”—Xun Guan paused to take a sip of her own beverage—“you weren’t the one who died that day.”

Lucas’s breath seized up for a moment, and his eyes widened. He was caught completely unprepared for such a statement from her. She looked like his dead wife, but he had never told her why he had trouble looking at her. Bonnie knew, and Kegan knew, so it was possible that the GM had listened in on those conversations, but given her tone and the way she put the words together, the sentence sounded personal.

Lucas didn’t know how to reply. It was a fact. He was still alive; she wasn’t.

“Ah, right,” Xun Guan said, “it must be hard looking at her face every day. It’s hard to accept that she’s gone when I’m sitting here with you, wearing my guilt as plain as day.”

Lucas’s mouth hung open. He had his suspicions earlier, but to hear it from her was still a shock.

“Fancy that,” she continued. “No reply from the great, decisive CEO. I know a dozen board members who wouldn’t believe it even if I told them.”

“But . . . why? Why her face? Why would you do that to me? To us?” Lucas finally asked. He didn’t know what to feel at the moment, how to act, how to react, and so curiosity began to lead his thoughts. Questions sprung up where he knew there should have been hurt.

Did she pick this moment to confess because she thinks I won’t leave? Does she think she has me trapped here, that I won’t storm out of a bathroom without any clothes?