Kevin came late. "Where's Jim?" he asked.

"Out with Pam," Mark said.

"Pam?" Kevin asked. "I thought he was dating Karen."

Ryan shrugged.

Kevin grinned. "Awww, yeah. Go, Jim."

"We're in the middle of a game," said Ryan. "We'll get you into the next one."

"No problem," said Kevin. He wandered over to the food table.

The door slammed open, and Karen stormed in, kicking the door shut behind her. She ran her eyes over the startled men in the living room. "Crap, that's right," she said. "Game night."

"We can leave," said Toby. Ryan's eyes widened and he shook his head slightly.

Karen took a deep breath. "Nah," she said. "You guys have been planning on this for weeks. Don't let me bother you." She turned and headed for the bedroom.

"Want to kill some Germans?" Ryan asked.

She stopped, swiveled, and stared at the screen. Then she dropped her purse, kicked off her high heeled shoes, and nodded. "Absolutely."

"I'll reconfigure," Ryan said, canceling the game they were playing over a mild protest from Toby, who had finally been in position to make a shot. "Toby, could you get me a beer?"

Toby looked from Ryan, who was sitting right next to him, to Karen, who still needed a seat. He looked back at Ryan. "I don't think so."

"I'll get it for you," said Mark. "I'm a little thirsty, myself. Have a seat, Karen. Can I get you anything?"

"Nope," said Karen, flopping onto the couch on the other side of Ryan. "Something tells me I shouldn't be drinking tonight."

"Probably a good idea," said Toby. He caught Ryan's eye and raised his eyebrows. Ryan just shrugged.

Kevin came by the couch. "Where am I going to sit?"

"Floor's open," said Ryan.

Kevin stood forlornly, gazing at the couch. "My knees are bad," he said. "I might not be able to stand up again."

Ryan and Karen ignored him. Toby sighed and shifted off the couch to sit cross-legged on the floor. Ryan shifted closer to Karen as Kevin lowered himself onto the couch.

"There's only four controllers," Karen announced to the room in general. Neither she nor Ryan showed any sign of relinquishing their controllers.

"That's okay," said Kevin, taking a chip off the top of his precariously piled plate. "I'll just watch you guys for this round."

"You play a lot of video games?" Toby asked Kevin.

"Oh, yeah," said Kevin. "I have mad skills."

"Oh," said Toby. "Maybe I..."

Mark rejoined the group. "Ready?"

"Prepare to die," said Karen, adding under her breath, "I'm in a really bad mood."

Toby shifted uncomfortably.


Pam didn't look any more comfortable than Toby. She and Jim were several blocks away from Karen's place now. She walked briskly, her eyes on the snowy pavement in front of her.

Jim cleared his throat. "When you said walking, I didn't know you meant just walking."

"I'm sorr..."

"Geez, Pam, don't apologize," he said, kicking a clump of ice. "Would you just quit..." He made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. "We're friends, and I'd walk to Timbuktu for you, but you look like somebody who needs to be talking and is trying not to be."

She laughed, a short, weak sound in the echoing cold. "I don't know what to say," she said.

"You don't know what to say or you don't want to say it?"

She bit her bottom lip and looked out at the street. "Or maybe I don't want to know what to say, because I don't want to know what it means, and I know what it's like not to say it, and what that looks like, and at least that's familiar."

Jim's head moved back in astonishment. "Wow," he said. "Okay. See, that's a great start."

"I like Karen," she said.

"Me, too."

"I don't want her to get hurt."

"Neither do I."

"Then why did you say...the things you said to her?"

Jim shoved his hands into his pockets. "I figured that eventually, it'd turn out that if I kept lying to her it was going to hurt her anyway. Maybe worse, even."

"Sometimes telling the truth hurts just as much," said Pam, and he nodded.

They were silent for another few blocks.

"So if lying to someone changes their life, and telling the truth changes their life, then maybe that means you're just the sort of person who changes lives either way."

"In that case, I guess all you have to decide is if you're going to play it honest or not."

She brushed a mitten across her eyes. "But you hurt people either way. Changing people hurts them."

"Well, going running hurts me, sometimes," said Jim. "But otherwise, what do I become?" He stopped walking and waited for her to turn and look at him, then he shrugged. "Kevin, maybe?"

She laughed, a real laugh that made it all the way to her eyes, and he grinned back at her.

"I missed you so much," she said, and even as the anxiety flooded her face she held his gaze.

"I hoped so," he said. "I missed you, too." She smiled again, small and nervous, and looked back down at the icy sidewalk.

They walked on in silence, and this time the silence was comfortable.