“Are you competing in Singles or Doubles?” asked Nathaniel.

“Doubles.”

“Oh, nice! I tried Doubles a few times but it’s always hard finding a good partner...”

I laughed dryly. “Tell me about it.”

“What? Is your team no good?”

“It’s Shit with a capital S,” I said.

I explained to Nathaniel my situation with Wes and how he was holding one of my cards hostage.

Nathaniel looked horrified.

“That’s not right, Alaric, you need to report that—” he said, sounding a lot like Macie.

“I’m fine, it's being sorted out,” I quickly lied. “What’s more important now is getting the Dark Wolf card back…”

Nathaniel's jaw dropped.

“A Dark—how? Isn’t there –”

“—only about less than a hundred of them in existence, yes,” I said. “Long story short, I tracked down someone who owned the card and won it through an online battle…”

“What did you bet on your end?”

I grinned.

“Five thousand dollars that I may or may not have had.”

Nathaniel laughed.

I learned that Nathaniel was competing for the third year in a row.

“I got into the Elimination Rounds for Singles last year,” he said. “But I got wiped in my first battle just because of a poor team match-up. I’ve adjusted my deck to hopefully counter most of the common threats this year.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to prepare for everything,” I said, examining one of the battle timers on a table. “Sometimes it’s just down to dumb luck whether you win or lose.”

My phone chimed.

“Shit, sorry, I have to go,” I said.

Nathaniel and I stared at each other.

We seemed to have the same thought.

We still had so much to say.

We didn’t feel ready to leave each other yet.

“Can I have your—” said Nathaniel quickly.

I plucked a pen from one of the adjudicating tables.

“Do you have anything to—”

“Here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

I took his hand and wrote my name and number on his palm.

“Go, Alaric – I don’t want to hold you up."

“Bye, Nathaniel.”

“Bye, Alaric.”