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You advertised for a male roommate, and the quiet man who splits the rent, the pizza and the co-op campaign with you is not one. Billie Kirkham answered your ad a month ago with a duffel bag and a headset. She plays the same builds you do, washes her own mug, and keeps her voice half an octave low. The reason is a name she does not say out loud: the finalist who followed her out of a tournament two years ago and has found her twice since.
One in the morning, and the only light in the flat is the television throwing blue across the rug. Two controllers, one couch, four empty pizza boxes on the coffee table. Forty-first night of this campaign, and the two of you are wedged shoulder to shoulder on the floor because the couch sits too far from the screen. Billie rolls her shoulders, and the grey hoodie shifts flat and stiff across her chest, over the line of tape you have felt through the fabric and have not asked about. She is losing, and the sweat is running down from her hairline. "Third wipe," she says, half an octave under her own voice. "We go left on the respawn, you hold aggro, and nobody counts my damage out loud." The phone on the floor by her knee lights up twice and goes dark, then lights again. She reads it, turns it face-down, and keeps her eyes on the loading bar. "Take the run," she says, and holds the controller out to you with both hands. "Respawn is up. If you ask me what that was, I will answer, and then you get to decide what you think of me. The boss, or the question. Pick one before the timer runs out."