by Alexis Nedd
“You’re not dumb,” I say reflexively. I don’t know what his report card looks like, but hearing him talk like this makes it abundantly clear that Jake Hooper is not dumb at all. “You are hella awkward, though.”
Jake groans and slides his fingers under his glasses to cover his eyes. “Urgh, I know. I’m the worst.”
“That’s not what I meant! Everyone’s awkward.”
“You’re not awkward. You’re a fricking Targaryen. Whenever I see you in school, it’s like ‘Make way for the queen!’ ”
“First of all, rude. I’m a Martell. They’re racially ambiguous in the show, but they’re the only Latinos in Westeros and I identify with them very strongly. Second of all, that whole queen bee thing is, like, seven years of me trying really hard to show people what they want to see. Nobody wants to see all of me; they just want the parts that make sense to them. Stereotypes are easier for people to understand.”
“I get that,” Jake replies, then backtracks. “Not for you, I don’t get that about you, all of you seems pretty gr—fine. But the general idea.”
“And where did you get that general idea?”
“Ki and P talk about it a lot. I didn’t really get what it was like to be, like, queer or not white, and they’re both, so they schooled me good. They’re two of my best friends, and I’d die for both of them. Pushy Tumblr girls, you know.”
“Those two girls on your team?”
“Ki and Penelope.” He affects a sports announcer voice and repeats their competition names: “KIKI and LMNO.” He pronounced it like the alphabet song, el-em-en-oh.
“Are they . . . together?”
“Ki and P? No, dude.” Jake shoots me a look that says I really ought to know better. “They’re gay, not pandas.”
He’s right. I should have known better. There just aren’t that many gay girls in GLO as far as I know—then again, I don’t play with any other women, so I wouldn’t have an idea either way. That’s the other hard part of keeping myself isolated on the Philly servers; I can’t get to know anyone else beyond the realm of GLO, let alone make friends with other players and find my people like Jake has. He’s luckier than he thinks he is, having a team like Unity.
“I was just wondering. They seemed close.”
He’s quick with his answer. “We all are. Ki and P knew each other before we formed Unity, but Ki didn’t transition until we had already been playing for a year or so. We all stuck with her when stuff was really hard at home, and then Bob brought Muddy onto the team—”
Bob. That’s the name Byunki freaked out over. I wonder if Jake knows anything about that.
“Bob’s your captain?”
Jake laughs and pulls out his phone. “Bob’s basically our dad.”
Now that we’re on more local roads, there are stop lights, and he waits until I pull up to one to show me a selfie he must have taken earlier at the tournament. Jake, Ki, Penelope, and that good-looking dude from earlier are bear-hugging the tall guy I saw on-screen at the end of Jake’s match.
“We literally call him dad because he’s older than us and using his gap year to hustle for Unity. You know how they keep hinting that GLO is going to put a league together? If it does, Bob has sponsorships and stuff lined up.”
Those rumors have been around since launch, but Wizzard’s press team straight up said they planned to test out renting the space to other tournaments before they commit to a real esports division. If other teams are taking the pro league rumors seriously, I’d be very surprised if Byunki wasn’t as well. He just didn’t tell us anything about that—or maybe he just didn’t tell me. Byunki planning out a big reveal for Fury’s first female player, him hiding my spot on the team until it was guaranteed to get the most attention, and then getting angry that I was stealing his spotlight in our debut match all makes a lot more sense now. He’s building a narrative in case Fury goes pro. Problem is, GLO doesn’t have any plans to develop a league.
I’ve gone quiet again, but Jake snaps me back. “Vibe check? Did I say something wrong?”
“No, you’re good. I was just thinking about your team. You guys are so close, it’s really cute. Dad-Bob and all that.”
“Yeah, we’re a family. Even Muddy.” Jake looks like he wants to say something else but decides against it. “Muddy’s a great DPS.”
“Should I be worried?”
“Dunno. Haven’t seen your Pharaoh.”
A little spicy, but I’ll take it.
“You better hope you never see my Pharaoh.”
“Should I be worried?”
“I’m Fury. We’ll end you.”
“We’re Unity. We’ll hug you to death.”
At the same time, Jake and I both agree, “I want that on a T-shirt.” Jinx. We look at each other and smile like we did in fourth grade, and fifth and seventh, every time we happened to be at the same party or arcade. We didn’t even have to say anything back then; every time we saw each other, we’d pick up where we left off and dip out to play whatever game was around. Once I started hiding all of that, I didn’t think I’d feel this open with anyone ever again. Funny how all it took was Jake being the same Jake. Again, he’s way taller now, but the part of him that makes me feel okay showing this side of me hasn’t budged after all these years.
By sheer coincidence, I drive right past Hillford West while we jinx each other. The school lights are still on at this hour, but the parking lot is completely empty. There’s so much dissonance between how I feel looking at the school where I bust my butt for whatever combination of letters will make my parents happy and the lot where Connor force-feeds me matcha lattes, and how I feel laughing in my car with Jake, whose entire life is GLO.
These two paths I walk aren’t meant to touch at all. I drew them parallel to keep them mathematically apart. Jake is telling me another story now, something about how Penelope threw a fit when the new meta launched, and listening to him while the streets around us get more familiar makes me feel nervous inside. Jake’s house—apartment, actually, now that I’m driving up to the building—is only a minute away from school, and even that proximity is stressing me out.
“This is me,” he reminds me, even though the GPS on my phone had already loudly informed me of that fact through my car speakers when we arrived at our destination. I slow in front of the building and realize that I’m lost in my head again. I don’t know what to say or if any further silences will be the awkward kind or the nice, Jake kind.
“Thanks for the ride,” he says without making a move to get out of the car. “It was, uh. Pretty wet out there.”
“Rain’s stopped, though. That’s good.” Doubling back to talk about the weather is probably the smart thing to do. If I could ask anyone else I know what to do in this situation, ignoring the part where I have to give context for everything that happened today, they would expect me to do the smart thing and reestablish the barrier I need to keep between myself and Jake.
“Hey, at the tournament,” Jake says, still not having unbuckled his seat belt, “you said not to tell anyone I know you.”
“Yup. Nothing personal, I—”
“But you could have just driven out of the parking lot.”
Oh boy. Come on, Emilia. Just do the thing. Tell him again, and none of this will matter tomorrow.
“You looked cold. I’m not a monster.”
Jake takes that in for a moment, then nods to himself. He sounds resolved, like that was exactly the answer he expected, and he can now leave happy that his expectations were correct when he replies.
“Right, you’re not an Envy main. You’re just Fury.” He unbuckles his seat belt and opens the passenger door, then stops himself. He closes the door again and turns in his seat to look at me. I don’t want to look at him when I’m feeling like this, but I also don’t want him to think my choices are his fault, so I do the absolute least I can and meet his eyes.
“Jake, I—”
“I just gotta say that I don’t get why you’re keeping
this”—he gestures with his hands to his uniform and vaguely waves toward mine, still hidden under my sweatshirt—“a secret, but I think I’m the only one who knows. Am I?”
My mental notes are scrambled together in my brain now. The bullet points I made while Jake and I talked are either entirely wrong or completely right, and I don’t know what he wants from me. In my experience, that feeling usually comes before someone starts a transaction. Just like everyone else, Jake wants something in exchange for keeping my secret, and I’ll pile whatever it is on top of every other obligation I fulfill to maintain this tiny piece of personal freedom. I steel myself for whatever it is and nod to let him know he’s right.
“Okay, that’s good, Em. That’s perfect.”
Wait, what?
“If it’s just you and me, we can make sure no one else finds out. If, like, your other friends knew or your parents, then it would be hard, but I’m not gonna tell and you’re def not gonna tell, so we’re good.”
If my brain activity had a scent, my entire car would smell like an electrical fire.
“That’s what you were worried about, right? That I’d tell people you’re in the tournament?”
“That I, um. All of it. That I play games at all, everything about GLO. Everything.”
He nods again and looks off to the side. He’s thinking. That makes one of us.
“Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, if anyone sees you talking to me, that’s a dead giveaway. Do you want to just not talk forever? I can do not talking forever after right now.”
“Don’t you want to know why?” I sputter. I want to know why he’s saying this; it would make sense that he would want an explanation. Nobody just does things for me without wanting to know why.
“It’s probably complicated, and I’m really dumb, so no, I’ll just trust you on it.”
“Stop saying you’re dumb.”
“Sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry.”
“Sorry.” And this time he says it with a cheeky smile. He can do not talking forever after now, but I don’t think that’s what I want. It’s what they all would expect, but it’s not what I want at all.
“I almost got doxxed a while back.” If the only way to get Jake to know I don’t think he’s dumb is to trust him, then I’ll trust him with this tiny bit of truth. “Well, not doxxed . . . just. I was really young and being a girl playing GLO. There were some bad people. My milkshake brought all the trolls to the yard, you know?” Does he know? There’s only so much Ki and Penelope could have told him about what it’s like for us. Even if they did, there’s no guarantee he’d understand.
“Right. No, I get it. Was it really bad?”
“Some of it was definitely illegal if that’s what you’re asking. Considering I’m a minor.”
“Jesus.” Jake exhales loudly. “I’m sorry that happened to you. So the tournament . . .”
“Fury has my back. No personal information, no leaks. They’re protecting me even though I have to show my face.”
“That’s surprising. I mean, it’s good. That’s really good. Just surprising.”
“They’re not bad guys. We just like to win.”
I suddenly remember Byunki’s reaction to seeing Unity win their match and feel terrible for telling Jake about any of my interactions with the team. I bet if I asked him right now what the deal was with that, he’d tell me, but I don’t want to ask. Sharing a car ride is one thing, but sharing the inner workings of our teams is another.
“Anyway, that’s the deal. You might have jammed the lock when you closed your door right after opening it, so let me get the thingy here.” I lean over to pop the lock open with my fingernail . . .
And find I am very, very close to Jake Hooper’s face. I still have my seat belt on, and the resistance against my chest feels like it’s the only thing holding me back from leaning too far over the edge of a cliff. We’re close enough to fog up his glasses, but Jake is frozen in place. He looks just as confused as I am as he leans back in his seat to give me the space I need to move away if I want to. If I think he wants me to.
Oh no, this is easy. It’s never felt this easy before.
My phone, which had so helpfully shouted directions at me through my car’s Bluetooth connection, chooses that moment to blast the chorus from “Funkytown.” Jake and I leap apart like we’ve just been accosted by the ghost of 1979. On my phone, Connor’s shirtless Palm Springs picture takes up the whole screen. Connor did that, not me. Just put it in my contacts one day when I wasn’t looking.
“That’s my cue,” Jake says in the same panicky voice he used when he first saw me at the arena. I’m scrambling at the dashboard controls of my car, trying to lower “Funkytown” to a reasonable volume level before I wake up his entire apartment building.
Come on, phone! I knock my phone from its dashboard dock and decline the call as Jake springs from my car and makes for the lobby door.
“Okay, Em, see you next week and also never, and that’s fine by the way!”
“Jake, wait! Wait. Hold on for one—Jesus. Hold on.” I’m tangled up in my seat belt and have that awful ringtone stuck in my head. Once free (of the seat belt, not the aggressive disco stylings of Lipps Inc.), I hop out the driver’s side and run up to Jake as he’s opening the lobby door.
“We can’t talk at school,” I say, out of breath more from stress than from physical exertion. “It’s too obvious.”
“Right.” Even behind his heavily refracted lenses, Jake’s dark eyes are wide.
“But if you meet me at the east side Dunkin’ next Saturday, I’ll drive you to the tournament again. No one goes there because the west side Starbucks has doughnuts now.”
“Really? Starbucks doughnuts are chalky, though.”
“Not the point. But you’re right.”
“Why do they—”
“It’s a status thing. Do you want the ride or not?”
“I want the ride. And a doughnut now that you brought it up.”
“I’ll buy you a doughnut on Saturday. Seven o’clock?”
“Seven o’clock. And I’ll buy you the doughnut. I’m sorry, I’m so hungry and I just realized it.”
“Same. See you Saturday.”
“See you Saturday.”
I’m hyperaware of what almost happened in the car, and from the way Jake is purposefully keeping room for the Holy Ghost between us, I feel safe assuming he’s aware too. We both lean forward in a weird, shoulder-only hug and part ways. My driver’s side door is still dangling open, and my lights are on when I get back to the car. I’m about to reconnect the Bluetooth and steel myself to text Connor when I see Jake hanging halfway out the lobby door.
“Hey, Em,” he stage-whispers. The sidewalk is narrow enough that I can still hear him. “It’s super cool not being friends with you again.”
I command myself not to smile, and my mouth rebels spectacularly. I’m still smiling two streets over when my phone lights up again. Jesus, is Connor secretly fifty years old? I was getting to you, enough with the phone calls already.
I answer before the ringtone can start and hear something that completely wipes the grin off my face: not Connor’s voice, but Penny’s.
“Hey, Lia. Just got a weird text from Matt Pearson? I have some questions. First question: who the hell is KNOX?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Team Unity Chat, Sunday
BobTheeQ: Ch-ch-checking in with Round One Winners Team Unity!
BobTheeQ: Especially and including Our Ladies, how was everything after we parted ways last night?
JHoops: i haven’t been online but yes how are you both
shineedancer: not great, bob
ElementalP: I’ve had worse
BobTheeQ: My bots are at your service. BlockBot, WipeBot, PrivacyBot . . .
ElementalP: How about MurderBot?
JHoops: ThatsAFelonyBot
JHoops: but Bob would probably build one for you anyway
ElementalP: ok i’ll take a BlockBot pl
s there’s only so much racism I can take before noon
BobTheeQ: DMing you the code, Sweet P.
JHoops: anything you want us to handle?
JHoops: if you give me your pw I can go through your TL and only show you the nice tweets starting from yesterday
shineedancer: don’t you have enough on your plate Jake? aren’t you still hyperventilating and/or recovering from the bus
JHoops: why would i hyperventilate
shineedancer: oh idk. she plays with fury. looks like elena of avalor. rhymes with box.
ElementalP: or maybe rhymes with shmay-oh-shmee idk what we’re going with now that she’s a known entity
shineedancer: this would be a lot easier if you just told us her NAME
JHoops: oh that’s all fine.
JHoops: fine fine fine. I don’t want to like take space rn
JHoops: also nothing happened and I took the bus
BobTheeQ: Consider me convinced!
shineedancer: gonna butt in, can yall report this one guy? I’ll link to his profile he’s some blue check transphobe and all his followers are calling me a dude
JHoops: on it
BobTheeQ: I’m on it too.
BobTheeQ: Let me know if any of this creeps into GLO, by the way. The tournament officials told me all of our tags would remain confidential but if anyone gets froggy I can talk to Wizzard about it. There are a lot more available account protections because the company wants this tournament to go well.
ElementalP: obviously they want it to go well
BobTheeQ: No, they want it to go really well.
JHoops: like “pleasantly surprised by the Kotaku comment section for once” well or . . .
shineedancer: is there something you’re not telling us bob
BobTheeQ: Not sure! Stay the course and when I can tell you, I’ll tell you.
ElementalP: ominous. exciting. I like it
JHoops: more surprises, perfect i hate it