Epilogue Three Months Later

“Are you ready for this?” I ask Logan. Our hands are tightly clasped, and we have heavy bags slung over our shoulders.

“This is the most intimidated I’ve ever been,” he replies. “I hope they take it easy on us.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be by your side the entire time.”

I squeeze his hand for reassurance and then march us through the front doors of the Sunny Valley retirement community center.

Grandma is there waiting for us, looking as elegant as always in a pink blouse and scarf. “There are two of my favorite people!” she exclaims, and gives us both a hug. “I’m so excited for this—I’ve been telling everybody I meet that they need to come and spend the afternoon with my clever granddaughter and her handsome boyfriend.”

She ushers us toward a meeting room in the back. I wave to a few of the residents and staff I recognize as we walk by. My family visits Grandma here a lot, but we’re often in the community center instead of her residence because she’s too social to be home alone. Now we have a calendar on the fridge so we know when she’ll be in water aerobics, craft classes, or weekly pickleball games.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she says over her shoulder, “but a few more people said they were interested, and I told them they could join us. They don’t have a lot going on, so I hated to say no.”

She stops at the entrance to the room. Logan and I both freeze at the sight. Around the oval table, which was clearly made for card games or crafts—as opposed to fantasy role-playing—are no fewer than seven elderly people staring expectantly at us. I recognize some as Grandma’s newest friends—Janet’s wearing a sweatshirt with embroidered kittens on it and Carol’s crocheting at her seat, while Mitch is in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank. And then there’s Jim, Grandma’s flirtatious pickleball friend. He’s sitting ramrod straight with narrowed eyes, like he’s ready to take down whatever fantastical foe we throw his way.

Logan squeezes my hand tighter.

“Oh! Um, hi, everyone,” I say, and give a little wave.

“Hello, dear!” Winfred says. “I love that color purple on you. Very flattering. And who is this ?”

“That’s the twerp who can’t play pickleball,” Jim is quick to say. “Are you up for a rematch?”

Logan sets his bag on the table. “I’ve had some practice since last time. I think I could take you on.”

“I’d like to see you try.” Jim sniffs, but his eyes are sparkling. “Did you play anybody good? Other than Barbara and me?”

Logan and I both snicker. We’ve forced our friends to play a few games with us…and they beat us handily. But that might be because Logan and I kept getting distracted by each other.

“So, we’re actually still waiting on a few more people. We’ll be right back!” I say, and tug Logan back toward thehall.

“Don’t take long!” Carol says. “My daughter is tickled pink about this. She lives across the country, so she wants us to put it on the internet like you do with your game.”

“You know about that?” I ask while backing out of the room.

“Very entertaining way to spend a Saturday,” Mitch says. “Unless there’s golf on. I don’t miss golf.”

“Great, great. Logan and I are just going to…”

We duck out of the room and sprint down the hall until we’re sure we’re alone. We turn to each other with a mixture of horror and laughter.

“What have we gotten ourselves into ?” Logan moans.

“And where are Kashvi and Sanjiv?” I pull out my phone. “I’m texting the group chat. We need Mark and Sloane to come for more backup.”

Quinn: SOS we need help. Free pancakes to all who can come.

Logan leans against the wall and pulls me into his chest. “I can’t believe we agreed to this. Maybe we should hide out here until the others arrive.”

I wrap my arms around his waist and relax into him. I can’t argue with more time alone with Logan. Over the past three months he and I have spent countless hours in his shed, working on this campaign and another we came up with, drinking hot chocolate, and (of course) taking breaks to visit SusieQ. She’s getting so big now. Between hanging out at his farm, at my house, and with our friends, we’ve spent more time together than I thought possible, but it’s still never enough. I don’t think it’s possible to get too much time with him.

I lay my cheek on the soft cotton of his shirt. “No, we can make this work. We’ll just…well, I guess we start by helping them create characters. And then maybe you run enough of the campaign today to allow the characters to meet each other?”

“Quinn, I can’t run this campaign.”

I pull away just enough to look up at him. “Oh no,” I reply. “You’re not getting out of this. I finally got you to agree to run the assassin campaign, and we put too much work into it for you to bail.”

“But working on it with you was the best part. Besides, I bet it could still use more tweaking. I think we need a few more brainstorming sessions at my place.” He kisses my temple. “You know, to go over details, workshopping.” His lips slide to the corner of my mouth. “It’s important we put the time in to get it just right.”

“Hmm, you do make some very valid points,” I murmur. “We definitely want to get it right.” I lift my arms around his neck and angle my mouth slightly to kiss him.

“Argh!”

The sound of someone pretend-vomiting jolts us away from each other. I twist to find Andrew at the end of the hall, hand in hand with Kashvi and next to Sanjiv. Andrew’s expression is pure disgust.

“In Grandma’s community center ? Really? You have no shame?”

I raise an eyebrow at him. That’s a bold stance to take after what I saw him and Kashvi doing in her car outside my house. I’m glad they’re happy, but enough is enough. I’m about to say as much, but Logan speaks first.

“We were waiting on you all. It turns out we have eight volunteers for the game.”

“And you were planning to build characters and run the first session today?” Sanjiv asks skeptically. “I don’t know.”

“We’re going to earn our pancakes today,” Kashvi says, and gives me a quick hug. “Mark and Sloane are on theirway.”

“Good, because we’re going to need them.” We return to the room where the residents are patiently waiting. They all look so excited, their eyes twinkling, and it makes my heart fill with joy.

“Andrew! What a surprise!” Grandma exclaims.

“Hi, Grandma. I’m just here for moral support.”

Andrew hasn’t become overly interested in D&D in the last few months, but sometimes he hangs out in the basement while we’re livestreaming. I think he’s picked up more than he’s letting on. He sits down next to Kashvi, and Sanjiv takes a seat across the table between Janet and Carol. I sit between Grandma and Jim. Someone needs to keep an eye on these two.

“Okay, first things first,” Logan says from the head of the table. “We should learn about dice.” He pours out the set of seven onto the table and picks up a d20. “This is your twenty-sided die. You’ll be using that a lot today, especially as you build your characters.”

“Can I be a cat?” Janet interrupts. “I’ve always wanted to be a cat.”

“Um, well—”

“I’d like to be an elf,” Carol adds. “I’ve had my eye on elves ever since I saw that blond one in Lord of the Rings . He was very good-looking.”

The others nod in agreement and Logan’s eyes cut to mine. He’s clearly panicking, and I should be empathetic, but he’s so adorable that I’d like this conversation to go on indefinitely.

“So, uh, we brought our copies of the Player’s Handbook for you,” he continues. “You can start flipping through to see your character options and we can help to—”

“This print is much too small,” Winfred complains. “I didn’t know I’d need my reading glasses.”

“I want that sword.” Jim jabs at an illustration of a greatsword.

Grandma lays her hand on top of mine. “Thank you for coming, dear. This is such a treat for all of us.” She winks. “Now, go rescue that boy of yours.”

I give her a quick kiss on the cheek and take my place next to Logan. I nudge his shoulder with my own. “We’ve got this,” I whisper.

Mark and Sloane poke their heads in right then, and we gratefully gesture for them to take seats next to the other residents.

“You really want my assassin to kill off all their characters one by one?” Logan whispers.

I glance at Jim, who’s flipping through the weapons section with Grandma. He looks gleeful.

“You should at least give it a try, but don’t be surprised if it’s your assassin who ends up dead. Never forget, elderly people can be vicious.”

He laughs and kisses me quickly before calling the group to attention once again.