A Rose By Any Other Name

The bed was roomy again. All my limbs were sprawled out across it to claim as much real estate as I could. Clearly a sign I woke up alone.

“Great,” I huffed out. “Ray is MIA once again...”

I stopped keeping track of the days I was on my own after a month had come and gone. Ray wasn't coming home at night anymore and probably had to sleep in that dirty office chair of his. Was he eating okay? Resting well?

How was I supposed to make sure he was taking care of himself if he never visited? He had such a horrible habit of forgetting his health without me.

I knew it was crunch time for his team, which was like fighting a war overseas for game devs. This wasn't the first time he'd camped it out at the studio for weeks on end with zero contact, so I knew what to expect. But this time it was going on longer than ever before. Would it have killed him to drop in once in a while to tell me how things were going? I didn’t even know the name of the game he was working on!

“Ugh!” I grumbled in anger as I sat up and tapped away at my phone. “That's it! I'm gonna’ give that man a piece of my mind.”

Nobody ignores Rose Roberts and gets away with it! If he wanted to marry that job, then he was gonna’ have to go through his wife to do it.

There wasn't a second ring before he picked up the phone. Not like any of the other times I tried to call when he was apparently sleeping.

“Ready to actually talk now?!” he yelled into the phone.

I was stunned. That man had some nerve talking to me like that after all this time! No way was he acting like this was my fault.

With grit teeth, I prepared a few good words to hit him with.

“Why did I wake up to an empty bed again?”

I thought my voice was going to be more aggressive and mean, but I just sounded sad and pathetic.

“Rosealina!” he corrected his tone with shock.

“Now it's Rosealina?” I held back tears, because he never called me by my full name. All that time away must have made him forget that. “Fine, Raymond.” I used as stern a tone as I could, like a mother disciplining her child.

Something about his attitude toward me didn't make sense, so I made my case and tried to figure out what was going on…

🌹🎮🌹

“I said I’m coming home.” Ray announced in a proud tone over the phone. “Right now!”

“Ray…? Wait! Seriously?!” My jaw dropped in surprise. “Hold on. Is it okay for you to just leave like that?”

As if I wasn’t shocked enough by him actually abandoning work, he hung up the phone on me too.

I stood there in the middle of our bedroom. My mood shifted and a smile crept on my face until I leapt into the air with joy.

“Ray’s coming home!” I threw my fist happily up and fell backwards on the bed. “Yippie! I get to see my man!”

This was the most excited I'd been since that mean HR girl decided to quit the bank. I couldn't help but get back on my feet and flip around the room like I was in high school cheer practice all over again.

Sadly, my late twenties legs weren’t keeping up with my giddiness.

“Ouch…” I heard something pop in my knee. “Crap… They say you're old at thirty, but this is ridiculous…” I chuckled as I limped over to the bathroom to put on some makeup. “Well, no sense in looking my age. Rose Roberts has breakfast with a 6 foot stud muffin.”

Makeup. Cute shirt and stockings. Good hair day. Sexy lips… Lookin’ good, girl!

Once I felt great, I got right to work on breakfast and set the table for our long awaited reunion. I wanted this to be as special an occasion as I could make it. Ray was going to need a little pampering with how hard he'd been working.

And if he was a good boy, he might even get a smooch or two♡

“This is gonna’ be fun!” I said as I took a seat and faced the front door of our apartment. “He’ll be here any second now. Then we can both have a nice breakfast like a normal couple.”

🌹🎮🌹

“Come on…” I nervously tapped my foot as the phone dial rang several times in my ear. “Ray, pick up… What’s taking you so long?”

I’d been sitting at the table for over an hour. Ray wasn’t home yet, and his work wasn’t that far away. I tried calling some people there too, but nobody picked up.

I was getting super worried. All sorts of scary thoughts flooded my mind when I thought about why he might have been late. He was in a rush… Could he have gotten into an accident…?

“No, stop thinking like that, Rose!” I slapped my cheeks lightly. “He’ll be here soon. I can feel it.”

All that anxiety caused me to get up and pace around the apartment, which eventually turned into stress cleaning just to take my mind off those intrusive thoughts. I kept my phone volume up just in case he called.

*Ting-a-ling*

A sound came from the hallway. Something like a little bell.

“What the…?” I froze up and turned to see a door creek open. “Ray? Darling, is that you?”

There was no response, so I grabbed an umbrella just in case I needed a weapon.

The room in question was Ray’s mancave. I approached it, quiet as a mouse. Then I shoved it open and screamed really loudly to scare the intruder!

…But nobody was in here. His computer was on though.

“Oh, that noise must have come from his PC.” I sighed in relief. “But, when did this turn on?”

It wasn't me. And I knew for a fact Ray hadn't come home in forever to start it up. Must have been that ghost everyone in the building was paranoid about. I much preferred a ghost over a burglar.

Now, where did mom hide that crucifix?

Regardless of how strange it was, it was wasting energy to keep the PC on. Before I could shut it down, I noticed something was downloading through the Ice game launcher. It was just about to finish and auto start.

“Angel Sword Online?”

I didn’t recognize that name. The fantasy characters on the banner artwork sure looked cute. There was a little description for the game under the banner that said it was being made by Square Studios.

“Oh, This must be the game Ray is working on.”

This download started around the same time that Ray hung up on me. He must have got it going remotely, I guess. Tech sure is getting wild if that was possible.

He probably was planning on showing me the game when he got here. I didn’t want to spoil anything yet, but it started on its own and went into a flashy anime opening cutscene.

2D characters theatrically pranced around a fantasy world to fanfare music and gathered big slips of paper and symbols from dungeons. At the end of the opening they switched to 3d models and built the start menu out of the stuff they collected. The transition was smooth as hell. They must have gotten one of those anime studios to slap it together.

“Oooh!” I clapped my hands. “Bravo! How cute.”

Finally, a tiny little angel fairy showed up on screen and tapped on the start button for me, which brought me to the main menu.

“Good luck, Rose!” She said as she threw an 8-bit rose flower at the screen. “Please save our world!”

“Awww, Ray must have left that cute little thing in for me.” My heart melted and I pressed my hands close to my chest in delight. “He still cares.”

It reminded me of how he proposed all those years ago. He hid an item in one of his games and had me hunt it down like an Easter egg. It was a ring with the description “Will you marry me?” The story got so popular online that copycat proposals popped up all over the gaming world.

I wasn't sure if he wanted me to see this opening yet though, but oh well. I could fake my reaction again for him later. That was, if he was ever going to show up.

I was seriously getting worried. There was always the possibility that he just got held up by traffic or a workmate, but I couldn't shake the stress that something worse could have happened. No news was good news, but still…

To keep myself preoccupied, I started playing around with the main menu.

“I can already tell this game will be…” I squinted at the screen and realized I couldn’t understand a word of it. “Hold up. Is that in Japanese? Woah…” I unfolded the reading glasses hanging from my V-neck and placed them on. “Why isn’t anything in English?”

What little I remembered about 208 Basic Japanese from community college, and Koogle Translate…mostly Koogle Translate…gave me a little buffer here. I eventually found the options tab, but there wasn’t any way to set the language to English.

“That’s dumb.”

There was a little set of letters and numbers in the corner that said this was a beta build. Beta01-17.649 to be exact. So they probably just hadn't added the option yet. But why the heck would they not add a translation earlier? Was this supposed to be a japan exclusive game? I didn't even know Ray could read Japanese.

“Hmm… Does this game have controller support?”

If I was going to keep checking this game out, I’d need a controller. I left the room and grabbed my sparkly pink Z-Lox one from our living room. After the middle button flashed a few times, it connected to the game.

“Thank goodness.”

Keyboard and mouse gaming was hella’ bad for my back. This way, I could sit back and kick my feet up on the table.

“Ahh!” At least until the chair almost falls backwards! Yikes!