Saturday morning after breakfast, Josh was in his room for his regularly scheduled weekend morning game of G-Force with Andy. He and Andy had worked well as a team, usually winning the matches that they had with other teams. After a couple of hours of play, their most recent opponents typed G.G. and logged off. Andy messaged, "Do we have time for another?"
"Probably not," Josh responded. "Why don't we chat for a few minutes before I have to go to work?"
"Sure thing," Andy replied and in a couple minutes they had the game shut down and had video chat active.
"Still no Katie," Josh observed.
"What did you expect," Andy frowned. "You could reject her and she would still want to play games with us?"
"I suppose saying 'I just want to be friends' would be pretty lame," Josh agreed. "It was good to have her on our team, though."
"It was our team," Andy said. "That's the problem. And the whole 'I want to be friends' … really lame."
"I suppose so. I guess I'm still feeling bad about it. She is really nice, she just isn't you," Josh sighed, then changed the subject, "How are things in Cleveland?"
"Getting colder," Andy said. "The climate both physical and social … colder here."
"I'm sorry," Josh said. "I hoped you would settle in, make some new friends."
"I didn't have that many old friends in Seattle," Andy informed him. "I'm kind of a loner if you haven't noticed."
"Hanging out in the boy's bathroom does kind of put you in a different social set," Josh observed.
"Well, I don't do that here." Andy frowned and changed the subject, "So how are things in Trager land?"
"Everybody's helping Jessi do something with a computer this afternoon," Josh said. "I can't help because I have to work."
"Not to mention you have no skills as a computer tech," Andy pointed out.
"There is that," Josh agreed. "Other than that, Lori had a set at 'Pockets' again. This time she was on stage for an hour. They had her name out front and everything."
"I would have liked to see that," Andy said. "Lori's getting into the biz. Hey, you know if she makes her own CD, my mom can help with that sort of thing. That's what she does, art design for media marking … bands and stuff. She runs her own department here."
"I don't think Lori's putting out a CD anytime soon," Josh laughed. "But they did invite her back again." He paused for a moment and admitted, "She is getting better, more practiced at being on stage."
"I'd like to see that," Andy said.
"You could come with me to the next one," Josh said.
"Very funny," Andy scoffed, "I don't think I can exactly fly out for a date."
"Well, if you did, I would have something else in mind to do besides watching Lori play," Josh said.
"That's always on your mind," Andy said with a smile.
"Well, yes," Josh admitted. He continued, regaining the thought, "I could video some of her performance and send it to you. We could have a virtual date."
Andy smiled, "That would be nice."
"We have to find ways of staying connected," Josh insisted. "It's going to be a long time before we can be together again. I thought about Christmas, but there isn't going to be enough time."
"My moms still aren't with the program," Andy said. "So it's still no go."
"Do you think they'll be ready by next summer?" Josh asked.
"Maybe," Andy said. "I'm working on them. Are you willing to wait that long, just talking online?"
"I'm going to wait as long as it takes," Josh said. "I'm not giving up on us."
"Always the stubborn one," Andy smiled.
"Always."