Toby flinched away as Karen's foot kicked out in time with her triumphant yell.
"What…how did you do that?" Ryan asked. "I was completely undercover."
"Nothing is impossible for the master," she grinned. "Watch and learn, young apprentice."
"Yeah, whatever," said Ryan. "You're going down this time."
"I very much doubt that," she said.
"Maybe if you stopped following Karen around, you'd have a better chance of staying alive," Kevin volunteered. He had yet to claim a controller.
Toby looked at his watch. "Wow," he said. "I didn't know it was this late. I'd better go."
"It's 9 o'clock," said Kevin.
"I've got a long drive," said Toby.
"You live 10 miles from here."
Toby and Kevin stared at each other, then Toby sighed. "I have to go." He handed Kevin his controller and moved to get his coat from the closet.
"I should go, too," said Mark. "I have to call my fiancée back."
Kevin held his plate a little tighter. "I don't have anywhere to be," he said.
"Thanks for letting us come by, Karen," said Toby.
"Yeah, it was fun," said Mark.
"Thanks for coming, guys," said Karen. Her jaw stiffened. "Sorry Jim's not here to say goodbye."
"Um, that's okay," said Toby. "I'll see him tomorrow." He held the door open as Mark left, stepped over the threshold, and stuck his head back in. "You've got a great place here," he said.
"Thank you," Karen said darkly.
Toby hesitated.
"Come on, Toby, close the door," Ryan called. "It's freezing out there."
"Bye, Toby," said Kevin.
The door closed.
Jim took a sip of his coffee as Pam shrugged off her coat.
"It's so cold out there," she said.
"Yeah," he said.
"It's like, you know it's winter, but then you're out there, and it's cold."
"The season comes every year," he said.
"I know!" she said. "Seriously!"
There was a long pause.
"I used to be good at this," she said.
"What, drinking coffee?"
"No, that. Casual conversation. With you."
He smiled reminiscently, and they sat quietly for a few minutes.
"Hey," he said.
"Yes?"
"You any good at video games?"
"Oh, totally," she said.
"I'm serious."
"Okay, not really. Roy never... Um, I was barely allowed to play. It was a guy thing."
"How sad for you."
"Yeah," she said. "I'm still not over it. I had to turn to art for solace."
Her face was too straight. Jim quirked an eyebrow at her and she dissolved into laughter.
"Take that, Jerry," Karen said.
Ryan raised his eyebrows dubiously. "Nazis," he said. "Gotta hate 'em."
"You know who were worse than the Nazis?" Karen asked. "The Russians." She jabbed at the shoot button. "They pretended to be our friends, and all the time they're scheming behind our backs, trying to get a piece of Europe."
Ryan glanced over at her and suffered the loss of one of his lives in consequence.
"And you can have summit after unilateral talk after treaty, and none of them can be trusted," she said. "The Nazis were killers with delusions of grandeur, but at least you know where you were with them. At least they weren't sneaking around behind your back, or lying to your face."
"In the interests of honesty," said Ryan, "I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about. But I'm thinking it's not international politics."
Karen tossed her controller onto the couch and held her head in both hands.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I think you should go. I need to be by myself."
"Hey, I'm sorry," said Ryan. "Can I..."
"No, you can't," she said. "I don't need anybody to do anything, and I don't want to talk to anybody—especially somebody who has a girlfriend. What's wrong with you people?" she burst out, glaring at him. "You can't have it both ways, and you can't go back and forth, and don't try to lie to yourself and say you're trying to save people's feelings when you're just trying to keep yourself from looking like a big jerk, because you know what?"
Ryan blinked and swallowed. "What?"
"Because you are a big jerk, that's what," she said. "And don't think you can just flash a smile and a clever phrase and get out of it, because that doesn't work forever."
Ryan stared into the TV screen and rubbed his palms on his knees.
"You're right," he said finally.
Karen looked at him in surprise, almost as if she had forgotten he was there.
"I should go," he said, and pushed himself to his feet.
"Wait, Ryan, I'm sorry," she said, rising quickly and putting a hand on his arm. "I was...sort of talking to somebody else."
He nodded.
She pulled her hand back and moved to the entertainment system. "Nice of you to come," she said, pushing buttons and flicking switches to shut everything down. "You play a mean Call of Duty."
"Thanks," he said. "Coming from the master, that means a lot."
"You should come over again sometime," she said over her shoulder. "You can bring Kelly."
"Yeah," he said blankly. "Thanks."
"You guys are really cute together," she said. "Don't let her go, okay?"
"Okay," Ryan said dully. With one last, long, lingering look at the Xbox, he left.
When she was finally alone, Karen curled up on the couch with a pillow and stared at the curtains for a long, long time.
Her living room light was still burning as Jim held Pam's car door open for her, gave her a hand in, and watched her drive away. He looked at the lit window and hesitated. Then he sighed and walked away towards his house, scuffing his feet in the snow.
