The text from Danny comes while I'm leaving my last class, still half-asleep from a lecture about market dynamics that felt personally designed to bore me into a coma.
"Can't make it to a cafe today. Too much work. Come to my place if you want to finish the project. Address below."
I stare at the screen like it's written in a language I don't speak.
His apartment. Danny Vega is inviting me to his apartment. The place where he lives. Where he sleeps. Where he keeps his things.
Where he might keep a VR headset.
My thumbs hover over the keyboard for way too long before I type back: "So if you're inviting the North Side princess to your house, does that mean you're still the Danny from the diner? The human one?"
His reply comes fast: "You can consider it whatever you want. I'm just busy. Take it or leave it."
Charming as ever.
I should say no. Every rational cell in my brain is screaming at me to suggest tomorrow, somewhere public, somewhere safe, somewhere that doesn't involve walking into the personal space of a man who might be the person I virtually fucked three days ago. A man who might be Ghost. A man who said he loves someone and doesn't know if it's mutual.
But my mind is already racing ahead to something else entirely.
His apartment. His bedroom. His things.
If there's a VR headset in that room, I'll know. The suspicion will become certainty, and I'll have to deal with whatever comes next. But if there isn't — if his room is just motorcycle parts and textbooks and nothing that connects him to Echo — then maybe I can finally put these insane theories to rest and stop feeling like I'm losing my grip on reality.
This is my chance. Maybe my only chance.
"Fine," I text back. "Send me the address."
The drive across the city feels longer than usual. I rehearse excuses in my head — needing the bathroom, asking for a glass of water, pretending to look for a phone charger. Anything that might give me a reason to wander. To look around. To accidentally stumble past his bedroom door and catch a glimpse of whatever's inside.
God, I sound like a stalker. This is insane. This whole situation is insane.
My palms sweat against the steering wheel. My heart pounds a rhythm that feels too fast, too loud, too obvious. I'm about to walk into Danny Vega's home and snoop through his things like some kind of deranged detective, all because a guy in a video game said he lives in the same state as me.
Illinois has twelve million people. Twelve million. The odds that Ghost is Danny are astronomically small.
But the odds that I can't stop thinking about it are apparently one hundred percent.
The building is old but clean — red brick, fire escapes zigzagging up the side, the kind of place that was probably beautiful in the 1950s and has been holding on with dignity ever since. I climb three flights of stairs that creak under my feet and knock on 4B.
Danny opens the door in a tank top and sweatpants, hair messy like he's been running his hands through it, dark circles carved under his eyes. He looks exhausted. The kind of tired that sleep doesn't fix.
"You actually came," he says.
"You actually invited me."
Something flickers across his face — surprise, maybe, or something softer — before his expression settles back into neutral. He steps aside to let me in.
The apartment is small. A kitchen that opens into a living room, a single hallway with two doors, windows that let in the kind of golden afternoon light that makes everything look warmer than it probably is. But it's the details that catch me off guard.
Plants on the windowsill — real ones, not the fake plastic kind my mother uses to stage her perfect rooms. A crocheted blanket draped over the couch, clearly handmade, slightly uneven in a way that suggests love rather than skill. Photos on the fridge — a younger Danny grinning next to a woman with his same dark eyes, birthday candles, a beach I don't recognize.
It's warm. Lived in. Full of the kind of comfortable mess that says real people actually exist here, actually laugh here, actually call this place home.
Nothing like the cold perfection of my family's house.
Something twists in my chest that I refuse to examine.
"Make yourself comfortable," Danny says, heading toward the kitchen. "I'll get us something to drink. Bathroom's down the hall if you need it."
Down the hall.
Past his bedroom door.
Which is slightly open.
My heart slams against my ribs so hard I'm surprised he can't hear it.
"Thanks," I manage, keeping my voice steady through sheer force of will. "I might freshen up."
He doesn't look back. Just waves a hand toward the hallway and starts rummaging through the fridge. I walk toward the bathroom like a woman approaching her own execution — slow steps, measured breathing, every nerve ending screaming at me to turn around and forget this whole stupid plan.
The bedroom door is right there. Slightly ajar. A sliver of darkness visible through the gap.
One look. That's all I need. One look to see if there's a headset on his desk, on his nightstand, anywhere in that room. One look to confirm or deny everything that's been eating me alive for days.
My hand reaches for the door. My fingers brush the wood.
I push it open an inch wider.
And freeze.
The room is dim, lit only by the light filtering through half-closed blinds. A bed with rumpled sheets — unmade, slept in, human. A desk covered in textbooks and motorcycle manuals. Clothes draped over a chair like he couldn't be bothered with a hamper.
And there, on the nightstand, unmistakable in the shadows:
A VR headset.
The same model I used to own. The same model that's sitting in a gaming club ninety minutes away, waiting for me to come back. The same model that connects to Echo, that creates the Love Room, that carries Ghost's voice into the dark.
I can't breathe.
I can't think.
I can't do anything except stare at that headset and feel my entire world rearrange itself into a shape I don't recognize.
It's him.
Danny is Ghost.
Ghost is Danny.
The man who held me together in the dark. The man who let me struggle under a barbell and laughed. The man I trusted with my secrets and the man I've been fighting since the moment we met — they're the same person. The same voice. The same hands.
I virtually slept with Danny Vega three days ago. I let him inside me — even if it was only digital. I told him things I've never told anyone, and the whole time, the whole time, it was him.
"Looking for something?"
Danny's voice comes from behind me, and I spin around so fast I nearly lose my balance.
He's standing in the hallway, two glasses of water in his hands, watching me with an expression I can't read. His eyes flick to the open bedroom door. To the headset visible on the nightstand.
Back to me.