“Okay,” I say. And even though catching Cody’s dickishness on camera proved to be a depressingly easy task, part of me wishes again that he’ll prove me wrong.
Before I can even properly form the wish in my mind, though, he says, “Be sure to get some video of Willow. She’s hot.”
Nice one, dickhead. Yeah, I’m most definitely going through with this.
Thankfully, Z whirls into the kitchen before I can projectile vomit across the room. “Code, you’ve got to stop talking about girls like their only value is in their looks, man,” he says as he pulls open the fridge.
Cody laughs. “Dude, I’m famous. I can say whatever I want.” He twists his mouth into a huge grin, like he’s said some big joke—but his joke is built on a foundation of truth.
Which is exactly why I need to make everything he’s built crumble, brother or not.
Z is rambling about all the reasons why ShadowWillow’s channel is so successful—apparently she’s especially badass at PvP—which I don’t care about. I chug the last of my coffee and set the mug down with a thud. “I’m heading out.”
Cody looks up at me, eyes narrowed like I’ve suggested something that doesn’t fit with his boss-of-the-world plan. “You’ll be there for—”
“Yes, I’ll meet you guys to take video for the expansion thing. Text me when you’re on your way.” Then I rush out of the kitchen before Cody can protest.
My coat isn’t in the front closet, which means I probably took it upstairs last night, so I duck up to my room to grab it, and sure enough, there it is on the floor by my bed.
Willow is up and in the bathroom, door open, peering at herself in the mirror as she layers on makeup. Prettying herself up for another day of flirting with my brother, probably. Ugh.
I hug my coat to my chest and march over to the bathroom, sticking my head through the door. “I don’t get it.”
She meets my eye in the mirror but doesn’t stop wiping cream across her forehead with a sponge. “Don’t get what?”
I’ve started it now; might as well finish it. “How you can take advantage of someone like Cody.”
Her hand drops from her face, which would probably turn pure white if not for the soft beige painted across it. “I’m not trying to hurt him, Lainey.” She bites her lip. “I don’t know what you—”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, how can you want to use someone as terrible as Cody?”
Her mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. “He’s your brother.”
“Yeah, and he’s a misogynistic dick. Or haven’t you noticed?”
The way her skin tightens around her eyes as she sighs suggests that yes, she has indeed noticed, and she understands exactly what I’m trying to say.
But then the skin around her mouth tightens too.
“Let me get this straight,” she says, crossing her arms. “I spend twenty-four hours a day in my parents’ basement while my friends are out pursuing stable careers and having adventures, working my butt off to build my channel, even though half my YouTube comments are about my boob size. Even though people think being a girl means I can’t possibly be any good at a game, let alone play it at a Diamond or Platinum level. Even though fans care more about my supposed relationship with Code than they do about my actual content. Even though when I get invited to conventions, it’s to be on one token girl gamer panel and that’s it.
“And despite all that, despite the fact that I have to put up with this crap every single day, I’m not allowed to benefit from a really big-name YouTuber noticing me, just because he might be a jerk? I get to suffer all the frustrations of sexism, but none of its benefits, is that the idea?”
I blink at her. I had no idea this pink-cheeked, purple-haired elf had all this brilliant anger inside her, and apparently she didn’t either, because her shoulders drop and she sighs and says, “Sorry. I usually try not to let that stuff get to me, because what’s the point, you know?”
I get where she’s coming from, and I definitely get the anger—though not the way she’s let it fizzle away so quickly. But there are things more important than fame. Which is why I’m willing to try to take away Cody’s for the sake of making him a better person. Hopefully. “Is that really what you want, though? To be famous because you embraced all these things you hate?”
“What I want is for my hard work to pay off. For my channel to be successful. To have enough ad money coming in that I can keep doing what I love.”
Which sounds like no, but is really just yes.
“Well, sounds like you two deserve each other, then,” I say, my own anger flaring. Legs is sticking with his bigoted friend, but at least he’s talked to the guy. At least he’s planning to keep calling him out. Willow isn’t planning to do any of that.
When I open my mouth to snap at her, though, a warning comes out instead. “Just a heads-up—Cody has a firestorm coming his way. And you . . . might not want to be associated with him when that happens.”
I’m not sure why I warn her. Maybe it’s a last-ditch effort to put a wedge between her and Cody. Maybe the words spill out because I don’t know what to say. Or maybe it’s that I can’t attend women’s marches and fight against misogyny and then not have another woman’s back—even if we don’t exactly agree on everything.
“Why? What’d he do?”
“What didn’t he do?! You’ve heard the kinds of things he says!”
“And someone’s angry at him?”
“Well, not yet. But they will be when a video gets posted to his channel with a dozen clips of him being a bigoted jerk.” I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. What if she tells Cody? She won’t tell Cody, will she?
“You’re planning to post a video to his channel?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“That could do some serious damage. And he’s your brother!”
I think of Cody and me in a canoe together as kids, paddling in unison. Of Cody letting me take his hand when we buried our dog, Terra.
The metallic tang of guilt fills my mouth. I swallow it away. “That’s why it matters! Not that I’m doing it. I didn’t say I was doing it. Just don’t tell Cody, okay?”
“Hang on a minute,” she says. “You were reaming me out about not caring what means I use to accomplish my goal, at the same time that you’re planning to devastate your own brother’s career for ‘the greater good’?” She make air quotes around “the greater good.”
Forget what I said about the two of us having anything in common. “At least I care about the greater good!” I snap. My phone pings, a reminder that I’m supposed to be meeting Legs soon. Which is good because I have no interest in being here any longer. “I’ve got to go.”
I turn on my heel and head toward the door.
“When are you posting it? Today?” she calls after me.
“It’s not ready yet.” I stop at the door, handle on the doorknob, then look over my shoulder, meeting her eye. “Please,” I say, “don’t tell Cody.” And then I open the door and march out.
I practically run to the coffee shop where Legs and I said we’d meet, and as a result, I get there before him. I pull out my phone to pass the time. There’s another message from Janessa, probably thanking me for last night’s apology.
Are you serious? You want to help me?! Yeah, right. I’ve spent this whole weekend crying, and so far, you’ve only made it worse.
Okay, so not a thank-you, then. More like a knife in my gut. I thought our apology was a good one. I reread it, my forehead crinkling. It was a good one. So what the heck has she been crying about?
I thought you said you were fine, I reply.
I don’t know what else to say except that, so I head inside to grab pastries and coffee—because there’s no trouble that another cup of coffee can’t fix. And then Legs shows up as I finish paying and I’m glad my hands are full of paper cups and waxy paper bags of baked goods, because as he strides up to me, I have no idea whether I should hug him or go for our
first kiss or nothing at all or what, so I thrust his coffee and cinnamon roll into his hands so neither of us can do a thing except balance our breakfast. “Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” he says back, his face painted with this perfect, awkward grin that kind of makes me wish I’d gone in for the kiss. I didn’t think I’d be ready for that quite yet, but maybe I was wrong. As he takes a sip of coffee, I can’t help but think how especially delicious his coffee-flavored lips would taste.
Which means that for one long moment, I was thinking about something other than Willow’s comments about my plan. About something other than Janessa’s unexpected meltdown.
The lovesickness—I’ve got it bad, apparently. As we sit and eat our breakfasts and talk how this is already my second coffee of the day and how Legs dreamed of Noar the Boar, the cartoon LotS wereboar created by K-Stine and the Andrees, instead of wondering whether I’m a terrible person, I can’t stop thinking about how Legs’s jawline is so epically perfect and how I wish his knee was touching my knee and yes, how his lips probably still taste like coffee.
Which is sort of annoying. Why hasn’t anyone told me about the annoying parts of maybe kinda sorta starting to fall in love? Hollywood, you’ve failed me.
Still, when Legs slips away to go to the bathroom, my mind slips back to Janessa. I pull out my phone to find another reply from her:
Are you kidding? My boyfriend broke up with me, the whole school’s calling me a slut, and my ex’s sister keeps sending me cryptic messages. Of course I’m not fine!
I blink at the messages. The slut part makes sense, but she’s also sad about my stupid idiot brother breaking up with her? That possibility didn’t even occur to me. Shouldn’t she be happy she dodged a bullet? Maybe, like me, she’s sad to have lost the Cody he’s supposed to be, not the Cody he is now. But she said she was fine. I’m not a mind reader.
Legs slides back into the seat across from me. “What’re you looking at?” he asks.
“Message from Janessa. Apparently she’s all sad about Cody.”
Legs nods like it makes sense for someone to be heartbroken over my jerkface brother. “How long did they date for?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure.” I think it was a few months ago that Cody winked at her in the parking lot, though I don’t know if they got together right after that. Cody doesn’t really talk about his love life. You know, aside from commenting on random girls’ boob sizes.
“Has she had a boyfriend before?” Legs asks.
I shrug again. “I don’t know. I barely know her.” And yet you sent her all these messages, a voice in my brain says.
Well, I know now that she’s sad. Maybe I can cheer her up. If it makes you feel any better, I type, I have a plan to take Cody down. It might be risky telling her that, but considering that they broke up, I’m guessing they don’t talk much. Or at all.
Janessa’s response comes quickly:
And what am I? Collateral damage?
Collateral damage? What the heck, Janessa? I’m trying to help you. I start to type a response, then stop myself. My fingers itch to tell her that in my defense, she did tell me she was fine. And that I was only trying to help. And that I didn’t mean to hurt her. But I guess that’s exactly her point. I was thinking about Cody, not her, but apparently she was the one who got hurt.
At least I won’t be hurting anyone else with my plans. At least, no one else except Cody. And like Willow said, that’s for the greater good—never mind that she meant that as a criticism. In my opinion, it’s a good thing.
I look up from my phone. “Hey, Legs, do you think the ends always justify the means?”
“For what?”
“Anything. Everything.”
“No, of course not. Do you?”
I shake my head. I don’t, not as an unconditional rule. But in Cody’s case, it does. Because I’m not siding with the enemy to achieve my own ends, I’m bringing him down in order to turn him into an ally. That makes it a million times better. Doesn’t it?
I glance down at my phone again and type out another message.
I’m sorry is all I write. Because what can I really say aside from that?
By the time we leave the coffee shop, Janessa hasn’t responded. Still, with Legs standing beside me, it’s hard to feel upset about that or about anything. “Hey, so we’re dating now, right?” I ask, because apparently I can’t think about anything except Legs for longer than a few seconds.
Legs smiles so broadly that the skin around his eyes crinkles adorably as he slips his hand into mine. “Yes. And it’s awesome.”
“You’re such a dork,” I say, though as his fingers braid themselves through mine, finding both familiar and new places to touch skin to skin, I decide that kinda sorta starting to fall in love isn’t so annoying after all.
Also, considering that we’re walking down a public street hand in hand, I don’t think Legs has any interest in keeping us—us—a secret. Though maybe that will change when we get to LotSCON and he’s surrounded by swoony fans. If Willow’s willing to sacrifice her morals for the sake of her fans, maybe Legs would be willing to sacrifice me for the sake of his.
Though that doesn’t really sound like Legs.
“Are you planning to hang out in the VIP room again today?” I ask.
“You know, I think maybe I could handle a few fans today.” He stops to take a sip of his coffee, since he’s one of those people who can’t drink while walking, which means we both stop, since we’re basically fused together now. He stares down at his feet. “I still feel what happened with Brian as a rock in my stomach, and I wonder again and again if I made the right choice, but after talking it out with you a few times, I also know that I couldn’t have made any other choice and still be me.”
“And I like you,” I say, which is true even if we don’t always see eye to eye. And at least he’s trying to make his friend a better person in his own way.
He blushes but barrels on. “Right. So it sucks, but talking it through has helped. Plus, for some reason I can’t explain, I feel weirdly happy today.” He squeezes my hand to emphasize that he’s joking and he knows exactly why he feels happy today, and I squeeze back, and then we keep walking. We talk for a while about all the universities I’ve applied to and am waiting for acceptances from, then about poor Noar the Boar, who wishes he could put people to sleep like countable sheep, but who can only ever manage to give the shadowdragons and mutant rabbits naps. And then Legs says, “So, you’re still going through with the Code exposé?”
I nod. “I think so.”
He raises an eyebrow. “That’s less certain than last night.”
I don’t know why Willow and Janessa have both unsettled me so much. I may have screwed up by messaging Janessa, especially when I had—still have, really—no idea how she was feeling. But I know what I’m doing with Cody. And it’s for his own good. “I mean, I’m pretty certain. But let’s just see what video I get today, and take it from there.”
“Okay,” he says, and I think he really is okay with it. It’s not what he would do, but he gets why I need to, and he doesn’t think I’m reprehensible for it. “I both do and don’t hope you get good video today.”
“My sentiments exactly,” I say. I’d really rather Cody didn’t make offensive jokes at all. If only.
It’s a good thing Legs thinks he can handle fans today, because at the convention center, we don’t even make it to the front doors before we hear a “LumberLegs!” A pack of half a dozen tween boys comes running—literally running—down the sidewalk toward us. A scrawny Asian kid, who’s clearly the leader of the group even though he hasn’t gone through puberty yet and still has the voice and height of a seven-year-old, babbles away to Legs about how excited they are to see him because their parents would only get them tickets for one day, and they had to miss his panel Friday night, and he was super sad about it, but now here Legs is in front of him and it’s the best day of his life.
Legs has to let go of my hand to sign
all their programs—asking each kid’s name as he does—and the thought occurs to me again that maybe Legs won’t want his relationship with me to be public. That maybe fame poisons everyone, even big-hearted Legs.
But when Legs finishes signing and tells them all with a grin to “Be awesome!” and we continue toward the convention center, Legs slips his hand right back into mine, and we head into LotSCON hand in hand.
Twenty
SamTheBrave
LEROY AND MARK ARE WAITING FOR ME AT THE SHADOWDRAGON, JUST LIKE we agreed. Mark is wearing another Team Meister shirt—a forest-green one this time that’s not frayed along the collar, with a cartoon of the whole team fighting a mutant rabbit. Leroy’s in a black T-shirt again, baggy over his sweatpants, though this one has no print. They’re both grinning.
“Awesome stream last night,” Mark says.
“It’s cool knowing a streamer,” Leroy adds, as if I’m a somebody and not just another fifteen-year-old with a mic and a Twitch account.
“I’m not much of a streamer,” I say. “I’ve only got two hundred and nine followers.”
“Not much of a streamer yet. But you’re going to be big—I know it.” And the confidence in his voice is so nice to hear that for a moment, I’m not sure I care whether it’s true.
I’m not worrying about that today, though. “What’s the plan for this morning?” I ask. “You guys wanted to vote on the next expansion?”
Mark bobs his head up and down. “I’ve heard one of the options is new rifts that spawn in the sky, full of all-new mobs—like winglings made of clouds.”
“I’d rather more building supplies,” Leroy chimes in. “I’m sick of making the base of my fireplaces out of coral rock. They need something black that’s just as flammable.”
“Well, may the best man win,” Mark says.
“Indeed,” Leroy says, then adds, “We should check out some of the booths before getting in line. The wait’s supposed to be really long.”
So that’s what we do. We head up the escalator into the main hall and wind our way through the exhibitor and vendor booths. It’s slower going than when I was searching for something for Code to sign yesterday, since I’m no longer a man on a mission. It’s also more fun.
Fan the Fame Page 20