At 2:00 AM, after they had clawed their way to a five-win streak, Sam finally spoke. “I’m not here for the game, Leo.”
“Because she knew you’d be alone,” Sam said. “And she hoped you wouldn’t be.”
Silence. The PC fans whirred. In the background, the faint sound of Leo’s dad watching cable news upstairs filtered through the floorboards.
“She wanted you there. I was there. Alone.”
They played one more round. Standoff. The dusty Texas town at dusk. Leo took the garage. Sam took the general store. They fought back to back, covering each other’s angles without a single ping or callout. When the victory screen appeared—Leo top-frag, Sam second—neither one moved to start another match.
Leo looked at the split screen—empty now, both sides showing the same post-match scoreboard, the same useless numbers.
Sam walked to the basement stairs. He paused with his hand on the railing. “You know why she really wanted you to have the house?”
