“Why don’t we hang out in the living room for a while?” I suggest instead.
Code is taking a sip of beer, which hides most of his expression, but his eyebrows dip downward, and for a moment I worry that my unwillingness to hop into bed with a guy I barely know has screwed me over, that succeeding in this business will require a part of me that I’m not willing to give.
And then I’m thinking of the girl gamer panel from this morning, and the fact that it was scheduled at a crap hour in a tiny room, and I’m suddenly wondering whether GrayscaleRainbow and Aureylian and IsabelPlaysGames and Emmaleie were scheduled for any other panels, or only that one like me. And then I’m wondering whether any of them have ever felt pressured to sleep with a guy for the sake of her career, and I’m thinking of GrayscaleRainbow and the dick pics she gets even though she has a girlfriend and how guys always assume I’m going to be crap at every game even when I’m ranked Diamond or higher, and this little flicker of rage burns abruptly inside me.
But then Code finishes his sip, gestures in the direction of the living room, smiles at me, and says pleasantly, “All righty then. After you, m’lady.” And I extinguish the rage flame inside me, because in this gaming world, there’s nowhere for it to go but out.
Code burps then, loudly, and I laugh—because what else am I supposed to do—and follow him down the hall.
In the living room, I settle onto the couch, and Code hands me a beer like his own, which I pop open, then set on the coffee table with no intention of drinking, because once you’ve smelled a drink as someone’s burp, it loses its appeal.
Across the room, Noog, Z, and Ben are piled in front of the monitors with controllers. “Die!” Noog shouts, and Z replies with a cry of, “Not on my watch!” while Ben stares at the screens with intense concentration.
I’m about to go see what they’re playing when Code plops himself down on the couch beside me, close enough that the side of his knee bumps hard against mine before he settles into the couch, thigh pressed the length of mine. He reaches out and takes a strand of my hair, lets it slip through his fingers. “So, you dye your hair purple?”
And suddenly I’m thinking of Code’s comment earlier about Confurzzle. I tried to ask Lainey about it when she brought it up, but she immediately got upset and I didn’t want to push it. I wish I could ask Code now what he meant by it, but I don’t want to upset the guy who holds the future success of my channel in his hands. So instead, I lower my voice in a fake whisper. “Actually, I only pretend to dye it, because if people knew the truth, they’d freak out. I was born this way.”
Code gapes at me. “Really?” He grasps another strand of hair and stares at it like it’s a unicorn.
I force myself to laugh. “No, not really. How drunk are you?”
“Got you!” Noog shouts, and I look up in time to catch Z tearing his eyes away from us and back to the screens. He swears.
“You win,” Z concedes. He puts down his controller.
“Dude! What happened? We were ahead!” Ben moans.
Z shrugs and stands. “I was worried about Noog’s confidence. He hasn’t won one in a while.” He pats Noog on the shoulder.
“You didn’t let me win,” Noog declares. Then, “Did you?”
“I’m going to get a drink of water,” I say, standing so quickly that I forget Code is holding a piece of my hair, and it gets jerked from his fingers with a painful tug on my scalp. Still, I feel like a bird freed from a trap.
I take my time in the quiet kitchen, and by the time I make it back into the living room, Wolf’s reappeared out of nowhere, and Code is complaining about the Canadian cold that Wolf apparently brought into the room with him, and Noog and Ben have settled onto the couch beside Code, which means the most logical place to sit is in the big armchair in the corner, so that’s what I do. And any grin on my face is because I’m here with all the Meisters and it’s utterly bananas, and not because Z is sitting on the arm of the chair that I settle into.
“So what are we going to do at LotSCON tomorrow?” Ben asks as Z smiles at me and I smile back.
“We have got to get our votes in for the next expansion,” Wolf says. “People online say one of the options is skyrifts, like normal rifts but splitting open high in the sky, with all new sky-related mobs.”
“Holy crap, that sounds amazing,” I say. With all the excitement of hanging out with the Meisters, I forgot that LotS had announced they’d have a booth showing off concepts for three possible expansions that attendees could vote on.
“We’ll definitely have to vlog that,” Code says. “Where’s Lainey?”
“Bro! You actually remembered that vlogging is a thing!” Noog gives Code a high five.
“Lainey’s out with Legs,” I say.
“Those two need to hook up already,” Ben says.
“Dude. That’s my sister.” Code crinkles his nose in disgust.
“Yeah, and she and Legs are in luuurrvve,” Noog says, which gets him a hard punch in the shoulder.
“What time should we go tomorrow?” Wolf cuts into their banter. “Lines were really long today, and with word getting out about the skyrifts, I think they’ll be even longer tomorrow. So maybe late morning?”
“I have my signing at one tomorrow,” I say, and my stomach twists. What if no one shows up? What if the few obscure people who wanted my signature got it already, and now tomorrow it’ll be me, my Sharpie, and the whole convention staring back at me, wondering who I am and who the heck thought I should get my own autograph time?
Z shifts on the arm of the chair so he’s looking at me. His knee taps my arm. “Do you need help setting up and stuff tomorrow?”
“Oh gosh, I don’t know. Do I? I’ve never done one before.”
Z’s eyes light up. “Your first signing.”
I nod. It’s sort of embarrassing to admit, but none of the other guys are listening, just talking about all the different expansion options and what they hope will win, and I know Z won’t judge me.
“I’m not going to miss helping out with your very first signing,” he says. “Someone needs to be there to take a picture of it at the very least!” He must catch the panic in my eyes at the thought that he’d tweet to the whole world that it’s my first signing, because he adds, “For your scrapbook or whatever.”
“I don’t think there will be time to get into the expansion voting before it. If the guys are going late morning, that probably actually means, what, noon? You shouldn’t have to miss that to help me out.”
“I think Gray and Marley are going in the afternoon. We can join them, then meet up with the guys after.”
I think it’s finally happening—I think I’m finally feeling like a real YouTuber—because the idea of spending a day with a bunch of famous content creators doesn’t sound bananas at all. You know, aside from the signing autographs part, which is exactly one metric ton of bananas.
For the rest of the evening, I play some Smash Bros. with Z and Noog, then chat rift strategy with Wolf, then chat all sorts of randomness with Z and Ben, then put a blanket over Code, who’s fallen asleep on the couch, drool pooling on the pillow.
And as I stare down at him, I realize this: I feel nothing for him. He’s crude and sort of bossy and whines about the success of people we should be raising up. As I study his round face, there’s no pitter-patter of my heart, no swirl of excitement going right down to my toes.
Perhaps it should worry me, but as Z walks with me to the stairs, I feel a bubbly sort of freedom. If nothing’s going to happen with Code, anything could happen.
“Good night,” Z says.
“Good night,” I say. And although we say nothing more, as I float up the stairs, my heart feels all warm and fuzzy in my chest.
Do skunks purr? Because as I brush my teeth again and pull on my PJs, I’m pretty sure my baby-skunk heart is purring.
I dig my phone out of my purse, then collapse, exhausted, onto the bed with it. It’s blinking with approximately one million n
otifications. Right. I put it on silent when we went to record the bug video.
I check my messages from Claire first. There are about a dozen of them, all along the lines of:
Did you lick Code’s face?
Did you ask Wolf to marry me?
In that video, you look close enough to lick Code. Did you lick him? Marissa?!?!!?
Exchanging messages with her yesterday feels a million years ago. So much has happened since then.
I want to tell her that really, Z’s the most interesting Meister of the bunch, but first, I need to know: What video?
She must be up late studying, because her response comes immediately: Noog’s vlog. You’re practically sitting on Code. Did you sit on him?
I had forgotten about Noog’s vlog from earlier today, when I sat beside Code for the first time, the thrill of it making my arm hairs stand on end. That feels like a million years ago, too.
I tap in my reply.
Actually, Code’s . . . Well, I’m not sure we have chemistry.
Oh, that’s disappointing!
I know, right?!?
Except I don’t actually feel disappointed at all. My heart is still purring, and the thought of Z’s leg against my arm is taking up an awful lot of space in my brain.
Your viewers definitely think you have chemistry. They’re shipping the heck out of you guys in these comments.
And that’s when I remember why I wanted to hit it off with Code in the first place. My heart stops purring and starts pounding as I click open YouTube and find my way to the video. I don’t bother watching—I was there, after all—instead scrolling right down to the comments. Claire’s right. It’s Noog’s channel, not mine or Code’s, and yet probably a third of the comments are about us.
CODEWILLOW 4EVER
omg they’re together they’re totally dating
Who’s the girl beside Code?
Youtube.com/ShadowWillow
Code + willow = <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Did you see the livestream today?!?
Yes! That wink!! OMG!!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3
Claire must be reading the same comments as I am, because another message from her comes in: What wink are they talking about?
I had forgotten about the livestream, too. Man, we gave them a lot of fodder to work with today.
My thoughts of Z and of Code slip away and are replaced with the questions I ask myself every time I try something new on my channel: Did it work? Did it do anything?
I’ve tried so many things to build my brand. I put in at least twelve hours a day recording video, editing, networking with other YouTubers, building my social media, doing collabs, connecting with viewers, and anything else I can think to grow my subscriber base. Nothing has worked as well as that tournament with Code.
My heart races as I tap through my different pages, looking at my stats. I’ve had a huge jump in subscribers on YouTube. Another jump in Twitch followers. More Twitter followers. More comments on my videos. More everything.
Yes.
Yes!
I glance through my latest video comments.
You’re so badass
Are you and Code dating?
I luv you so much your amazing
I have fans. Maybe tomorrow’s autograph signing won’t be so bad after all. Maybe people will actually show up.
Then another comment chain jumps out at me:
If you break Code’s heart, I will personally hunt you
down and destroy you
omg me 2
me 3
Right. They aren’t my fans, they’re Code’s fans. Which means they’re here for Code, not for me. And last time, I didn’t mention Code for a few weeks, and that’s all it took for the initial boost I gained to start to die off and fall away. If I’m not dating Code, if I don’t even flirt with him, the same thing will happen. And if it became definitively clear that I wasn’t dating Code because I was, for example, dating someone else, how much faster would they abandon me? Fans like this would probably even call for a boycott.
I swallow, slip a hand into my pajama pants pocket like I’m searching for the grin I seem to have lost.
Before I can find it, Lainey strides into the room, looking like she’s walking on air.
“Good evening?” I ask her.
She smiles and nods but says nothing, as though letting the words out would cancel the magic in them. I don’t press her, just roll over to stare at the wall and give her some privacy while she gets into her own PJs. Well, stare at the wall and also at my phone, where those comments stare back at me.
Is this it, then? Am I stuck with Code forever because the viewers—the sweet, sweet viewers I’m so hungry for—declare it to be so? Code, who burps beer, who brought condoms with him to LotSCON, whose comment about Confurzzle still has me unsettled.
When Lainey climbs into her own bed a couple of minutes later, I roll back over to face her. “Do you think it’s possible for YouTubers to keep their relationships a secret? So viewers don’t find out?”
She frowns. “Oh, I don’t know. Why would they want to?”
I shrug with the one shoulder that’s not pressed into the mattress. “No reason.”
When I finally turn out the light to sleep a little while later, both Code’s and Z’s faces fill the dark, and I can’t seem to think of one without the other, so I push them both away and dream of having millions of subscribers instead.
@LumberLegs: Tonight was a good night. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
[1.4K likes]
Nineteen
Lainey
WHEN I WALK INTO THE KITCHEN IN THE MORNING, I’M THINKING OF LEGS. MY fingers tingle at the remembrance of his fingers wrapped around mine, of his thumb tracing the outline of my thumbnail, the grooves under my knuckles, the very center of my palm.
“Coffee?” Cody’s question breaks into my thoughts, and I push the image of Legs’s hands away, because although part of me wants to tell someone all about it, that someone is not going to be my brother. And he’s the only someone in this kitchen right now.
Cody pours me a cup without waiting for my answer. He adds half a spoonful of sugar and gives it a stir before handing it to me.
I breathe in the sweet, sweet richness before taking a sip. Cody’s put in the exact right amount of sugar. “Good job remembering what I like.”
He lets out a single snort-laugh. “You’ve been lecturing us on the right way to make coffee since you were, what, twelve? I’m surprised Mom let you drink it that young.”
I take another perfect sip and push away another image of Legs sipping from his own coffee yesterday morning, peering at me over the edge with a nervous smile. “I told her that Dad let me drink it and if she didn’t, that would make her the mean parent.”
Cody laughs again. “Smart. Hey, remember that time Dad had that new pastor guy over, and he was talking about whether coffee is a drug and whether that makes it a sin or something like that, and then you said—what’d you say?”
The memory comes back to me in a rush. “If drinking coffee’s a sin, then I guess I’m going to hell.”
“Yes! So badass. Then you picked up your coffee and stalked out of the room. Perfect mic drop!”
I shake my head. “I don’t think I stalked out of the room. I think I sat there wishing I could take it back, because Dad grounded me for like the next two months of weekend visits.”
“No, I’m pretty sure there was an actual mic drop involved. Pure badassery.” Cody grins, and I can’t help but grin back at him. I’m in a good mood this morning.
“Do you have special plans with Legs today?” Cody asks with a twinkle in his eye.
I narrow my eyes at him. “To what might you be referring?”
“I knew it! I knew something was happening with you guys.”
“I didn’t say that!” I say, though I’m not sure why I’m keeping it a secret. He’ll find out soon enough—at least, I think he will.
Last night Willow said something about YouTubers needing to hide their relationships from viewers that has me the tiniest bit unsettled. What if Legs wants to keep our relationship secret because his viewers might be upset? I’m not sure I’d be okay with that. I’m nobody’s secret.
“You’re being safe though, right?” Cody crinkles his nose. “I mean, I don’t really want to know, because gross, but I can take you to get anything you need, you know that, right?”
I won’t ever be taking him up on that offer, because double gross, but somehow it’s still sort of nice of him to say that. It’ll be a long time before I get to that point, though, I think. I refuse to go with Mom to the massage place she loves so much because the thought of a stranger’s hands on even just my shoulders or feet or whatever else makes me cringe. I like my personal space. I don’t understand how people can jump right into bed together, limbs locking around each other like they’re already intimately familiar, like they’ve known each other’s hands and mouths and everythings for years, not hours. I want to take my time getting to know each body part, letting them into my bubble one by one—and judging by how long Legs took to explore my thumbnail alone last night, it seems like he’s similar.
Not to mention that I still haven’t decided where I stand on the whole existence-of-heaven-and-hell issue, and while I’m willing to endure the eternal fires of hell for coffee, I’m not sure I feel the same way about sex. But there’s lots of time to figure that out.
“Just drop it,” I say, crinkling my own nose.
“Okay, okay.” Cody throws his hands up in surrender. “Did you get some good video yesterday? For the vlog?”
And that’s when I remember what I decided yesterday. Oh, Cody. Why do you have to be so nice the morning after I decide to ruin your life? Though really, if you were this nice all the time, I wouldn’t need to ruin anything. “I’m not sure,” I say noncommittally. “I was trying to catch some candid stuff, but I don’t know.”
“Well, this morning we’re going to check out the LotS expansions, so come along to that, and I’ll actually talk to the camera and vlog for real and stuff.”
Fan the Fame Page 19