Chapter 57 : Close Calls and Hot Consequences
New York, Queens – Alex's POV
The aftershocks still hummed through my veins, a live wire of satisfaction and unspent energy. I was buried deep inside May, our bodies a sticky, sweat-slicked tangle on her rumpled comforter. The scent of her, of us, was thick in the air—musky, intimate, and utterly intoxicating. I could feel my own release, warm and potent, beginning to seep from where we were joined, a tangible claim I was reluctant to break.
My cock, still thick and semi-hard within her clenching warmth, gave a lazy, possessive throb. May's eyes were half-lidded, her expression one of dazed, fucked-out wonder. A slow, smug smile touched my lips. Mine. The thought was primal, absolute.
I leaned down, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. "I could stay inside you all night," I murmured, my voice rough. "Just like this. Filled with me."
A soft, breathy sigh was her only answer. Her hips gave a tiny, involuntary roll, a silent plea for more friction, and I groaned, my own control fraying at the edges. Fuck, she's insatiable. I was about to give in, to start moving again and see if I could wring a third, shuddering climax from her beautiful, responsive body, when the sound cut through our hazy bubble.
"Alex? You still out there?"
Peter's voice cut through the heavy, sex-thick air, sharp and intrusive. It wasn't right next to us, but it was close enough to send a jolt of adrenaline through my system. My cock was still buried deep inside May, her body clenching around me in sudden panic as if trying to hold me in place, her nails digging into my back like little claws.
I froze, my breath caught in my chest. The room, which moments ago had been a cocoon of heat and pleasure, now felt suffocatingly exposed.
Peter's voice came again, bright and oblivious. "Hey, Alex! Come check this out! The game glitched, and now my character's, like, ten stories tall!" His tone was excited, the kind of enthusiasm only a kid engrossed in his world could muster. But it was distant—blessedly distant. He wasn't standing outside the door. He wasn't even in the hallway.
He was in his room, just like always, glued to his PC. I could almost picture him there, hunched over his keyboard, the glow of the monitor reflecting off his face. He had no idea what was happening just a few feet away.
May's eyes were wide, her breath shallow and uneven against my neck. Her hands shifted from clawing at me to gripping the sheets, her knuckles white with tension. "Close," she mouthed silently, her lips trembling. Too close.
I nodded, my jaw tightening as I pulled out of her slowly, reluctantly, the wet slide a reminder of what we'd just done—and how close we were to being caught. The air felt cold against my skin where our bodies had been pressed together, the warmth of her still clinging to me like a secret.
"Be right there, Peter!" I called back, my voice steady despite the chaos in my head. Calm. Casual. Nothing's wrong. May's eyes flicked to mine, a mix of relief and something deeper—something that made my stomach twist with guilt and desire all over again.
But there was no time to linger. I was already moving, my body on autopilot as I grabbed my clothes, my mind racing. Peter's voice echoed faintly from his room, cheerful and oblivious, a stark contrast to the storm swirling inside me.
May stayed on the bed, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths, her gaze fixed on the door. I could see the fear in her eyes, but also something else—something that hinted this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.
Her eyes met mine, wide with the same frantic understanding. She pushed herself up on her elbows, her movements jerky. She grabbed a corner of the comforter and wiped hastily at her inner thigh, then pulled the rumpled fabric up over her lap, hiding herself. It was a flimsy shield, but it was something. She ran a hand through her tousled hair, trying to smooth it down.
I gave her a tight, quick nod. Good. Okay. I took a final, steadying breath, willing my pulse to slow, my expression to neutralize. I could still taste her on my lips, smell her on my skin. The front of my jeans strained uncomfortably. It was a pathetic disguise.
I turned toward the door, my hand reaching for the knob.
I took a breath, steadied my shirt, and stepped out of May's room, closing the door behind me with a soft, practiced click. The hallway felt cooler than it should've, the shift from heat to normalcy almost jarring. I forced my heartbeat back into something controlled — steady steps, composed expression, nothing out of place.
"Alex?" Peter called again from down the hall, his voice carrying from his room.
"On my way," I replied, my tone even, calm, like nothing had happened at all.
I walked toward his door, each step measured. No rush — rushing would draw attention. No hesitation — hesitation would do the same. Just normal, quiet confidence. The kind I always carried.
I reached Peter's room and leaned inside. He was at his desk, headset on, excitement buzzing off him like static.
"Okay," I said, stepping fully in. "Show me what you found."
I moved behind his chair, focusing on his screen, on the game, on the bug — anything that would keep his attention locked here, away from the hallway, away from May's room, away from the scent and heat of everything we had just done.
"Look!" Peter said, gesturing wildly. "The game glitched, and now my character's, like—ten stories tall!"
On the monitor, his avatar towered over the environment, legs clipping through entire buildings, the camera struggling to decide whether to zoom or surrender.
I exhaled slowly.
"Okay… yeah, that's not supposed to happen."
His laugh was half-nervous, half-delighted. "Dude, it's kinda awesome though."
"It's also going to break every physics interaction in the next thirty seconds," I replied, already leaning forward and opening the debug console to confirm what I suspected. One of the scaling functions had desynced from the server tick rate. A rounding error, tiny — except now it was multiplying itself into a kaiju.
"Yep," I muttered. "Your character's literally growing every frame."
"That's metal."
"It's not," I corrected, "but it will be fixed."
It took a few minutes to track down the runaway multiplier, reset the scaling parameters, and purge the corrupted data from the local instance. Once the character snapped back to normal proportions, Peter practically vibrated with relief.
"Oh! It's fixed! Dude, look—Wendy, you seeing this?"
His mic picked up Wendy's distant, amused "About time!"
I stayed a little longer, watching him move around, making sure the physics didn't implode again. A couple tweaks to the interpolation functions, a small patch to prevent the same overflow loop — nothing major.
He relaxed immediately, absorbed back into the game, completely unaware of the chaos I was keeping him away from.
After a few more minutes, I straightened.
"Alright. It's stable now," I said. "I'm heading home. You two can keep playing for a bit if you want."
Peter half-turned, already nodding. "Yeah, thanks, Alex! Seriously."
I gave him a calm, easy smile.
"Anytime."
I stepped out of Peter's room, closing the door behind me with a soft click. The hallway felt strangely still after the noise of the game—quiet, controlled, almost too clean compared to what had happened minutes earlier.
May was in the living room, fully dressed again, the space tidied, the last traces of our chaos erased with meticulous efficiency. She looked composed, calm… but her eyes flicked to me with that same heat barely hidden under the surface.
I walked toward her, lowering my voice.
"We're going to need a serious conversation," I said. "About us. About what we did."
A flicker crossed her expression—anticipation, worry, desire—before she smoothed it out.
"But not now," I continued. "All that needs to be said now is this : I wanted it too. And I don't regret it."
That made her inhale sharply, just once. Not surprise—confirmation.
I slipped on my coat.
"I've gotta go home. But tomorrow… early afternoon, if you're free, we can talk. Properly."
Her response came almost immediately, too quickly, before she reined herself in with a slower, more controlled tone.
"I'll be free."
I nodded once, steady, then headed for the door.
"Good. We'll figure everything out then."
And with that, I stepped out into the night, letting the cool air hit me as the door closed behind me.
I headed straight down the hall toward my room, keeping my footsteps even, controlled. The apartment was quiet except for the soft sounds of my mother moving around in the kitchen — the clink of dishes, the low hum of running water. Familiar. Ordinary. A grounding contrast to everything still burning subtly under my skin.
I pushed open my bedroom door.
Wendy was seated at my desk, fully absorbed in the
game on my PC. She had one knee tucked up on the chair, her headset slightly crooked, her notebook open beside the keyboard where she'd been scribbling quick observations between actions. Afternoon sunlight spilled across the desk, catching on her hair and the corner of the monitor.
She noticed me instantly, turning halfway in the chair with a bright, easy smile.
"Hey! You're back." Her tone was light, excited. "Everything's running super smooth now. Peter said you fixed the giant-model bug in like… ten seconds."
I stepped inside, closing the door softly behind me.
"Yeah. Just a scaling glitch. Nothing serious."
Wendy spun her chair fully toward me, enthusiasm radiating off her.
"Well, whatever you did, it worked. We've been testing the updated crafting rules, and it feels way better. Look."
She gestured toward the screen, where her character was moving fluidly through an improvised test area. No lag spikes. No stutters. No broken animations.
"Any issues on this end?" I asked, leaning slightly forward to get a better look.
"Nope." She tapped her notebook with her pencil. "A couple tiny things — texture clipping, minor timing inconsistencies in the furnace cycle — but nothing game-breaking. We can fix them during the next pass."
"Good." I nodded, letting myself absorb the smooth rhythm of the test, the stability of her report, the normalcy of it all. "You're doing great."
She flushed a little at the praise, then cleared her throat quickly.
"Um — we're gonna test the resource multipliers next. If you want to watch? Or I can just keep going."
"I'll watch for a minute," I said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. "Then I'll leave you two to it."
Wendy grinned, turning back to the screen.
"Okay! Peter, Alex's here— Yes, I'm telling him you finally stopped trying to build your giant treehouse palace. No, I'm not telling him about the lava accident."
A small breath escaped me — something close to a muted laugh.
The room felt warm in the late-afternoon light. My mother's quiet movements drifted faintly from the kitchen. Wendy clicked through menus, taking notes as she talked. On the monitor, the world she and Peter were shaping moved with clean precision.
And for a moment, everything felt steady again.
Like I could breathe.
I stayed with Wendy a little longer, observing her testing loops and answering a few small questions she had. Nothing major — just refinements, clarifications, tiny adjustments she wanted to confirm. She was focused, efficient, exactly the kind of tester I needed.
While she launched another stability batch, I pulled out my phone and typed a message to Gwen.
Me:Can you be free tomorrow afternoon?
Gwen:Yeah, I can. Something wrong?
Me:No. It's a surprise.
There was a short pause.
Gwen: …Should I be nervous?
Me: I'm not sure yet. But it's important.
Gwen: Important how?
Me: You'll understand tomorrow. Just… try to be there.
Gwen: Alright. I trust you. I'll be there.
I pocketed my phone, catching Wendy's satisfied nod as another test logged successfully.
After a few more minutes, I excused myself, letting her and Peter continue their multiplayer run.
I stepped into the living room. The apartment was quiet, warm, familiar — the kind of atmosphere that let my mind finally stretch outward.
I sank onto the couch, elbows on my knees, and let my thoughts drift toward the next step.
The company.
Not the fantasy of it — the structure. The roadmap. The legal framework. The early team. The launch timing. The way it could support all of us, not just financially, but operationally. Cover stories, equipment budgets, resource pipelines. Stability for our civilian lives, leverage for the other one.
I let the pieces fall into place in my head, one after another, until the shape of the future felt solid.
Tomorrow would be a big conversation.
And for once, I wasn't walking toward stress — but toward something that felt like momentum.