Long Line

Annalise pushes aside her glasses on the counter with her mouse hand and goes back to hitting the same hotkeys in rhythm.

“I can’t always do this for you,” she says, shielding Beck and then Grimrose. “Working from home does not mean what you think it does.”

“You always come when I call,” says Beck, in his distinctive rumbling bass, and Annalise runs her tongue over her lips, leaning back. Someone laughs in the call, and he says, “Damn it, Anna, I’m dying.”

“Die, then,” says Annalise, hands off the keyboard, fixing one dangling skeleton earring. She picks her mug up off the counter, leaving a round coffee ring, and takes a slow sip. The poorly-mixed creamer makes her cough.

“Uno Reverse,” says someone, and Beck laughs, his icon in the call prickling with soundwaves. Grimrose reminds everybody that they had a plan, and Annalise returns to heal whoever is nearest death. She lets Beck flail a little, pretending to be low on mana, until he growls, “Come on,” and then she takes pity on him even though he didn’t say please. She wiggles on her desk chair, scooted up to the narrow counter, and looks over the shoved-aside mess of her dinner. She eats a last piece of zucchini one-handed before wiping her fingers on a napkin and returning to play. As usual, she only gets in two offensive strikes before Beck says, “You know I can see you doing that, right?”

“Just testing your eyesight, Captain,” says Annalise,...