Chapter 3
THREE
TROYE
Even showered and fed, I still felt like I was going to lose it.
These acts had only delayed the inevitable meltdown that had been brewing all day long.
Nothing about this trip had gone right. My luggage had been lost on the way there, and they still hadn’t found it, leaving me with nothing but a backpack.
By the mercy of the universe, my friend had an extra suit I could wear to his wedding.
It was a small affair, intimate, beautiful.
And it made me even more lonely than I’d been before I flew clear across the country to watch them get married.
I was happy for them. Truly I was. It wasn’t easy to be gay, and it wasn’t easy to date, and it wasn’t easy to meet your soulmate.
Yet they’d been smiled on by some kind of gay guardian angel because they’d had each other since they were both fifteen-year-old baby gays.
They grew up together, and now they were going to grow old together, and I was single and stuck in an airport hotel with a stranger. On Valentine’s Day of all days.
I scoffed at the knowledge that at least I wasn’t spending it alone, and either way I’d have been with strangers. I’d just hoped to be on an airplane.
But I guess there were worse things than sharing a bed with a hot stranger on Valentine’s Day. Even if nothing was going to happen with said stranger. Said hot stranger. He’d ditched his hat. His hair was mussed up and I hated that he still looked good. Maybe even better than before.
I shifted positions and found myself frowning because of how uncomfortable I was. Because my luggage had been lost, I only had one change of clothes, and they were both jeans.
“Are you okay?” Matthew asked me.
It was almost like his concern was genuine. Like maybe he really wanted to know instead of just asking because he thought he should. I considered giving him a bullshit answer, but something in the way he patiently waited for me to answer, his attention never wavering, made me tell him the truth.
“No, actually. It’s been a shit weekend.”
“Mine hasn’t been so hot either. After four days of soul-sucking meetings, I was supposed to be on a flight home.
But someone got me kicked off the plane.
” Matthew should’ve been angry with me still, but he managed to make it sound like maybe he didn’t mind so much after all.
Like maybe he’d already gotten over his anger and had now crossed over into finding it amusing.
He should hate me, but he did buy dinner. Although that was likely because he invited himself to stay in my hotel room. In my bed.
Nope. Not going to think about that right now. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. Ugh. Don’t say came, my stupid body urged, because suddenly I was a fourteen-year-old boy and everything was a sex joke.
“Well, maybe someone had to wear an ill-fitting borrowed suit to his friend’s wedding because the airline lost his luggage. And maybe that someone is now facing the fact that they’ll have to sleep in jeans, which is a fate worse than death. So maybe karma came for that person in advance.”
Without a word, Matthew set his food aside and climbed out of bed. He rummaged around in his suitcase and pulled out a pair of pajama pants. They were cornflower blue, my favorite color, and they looked like they’d be soft as hell.
“Here.” Matthew held the pants out to me. “They’re clean, I promise.”
“Honestly, at this point, even if they weren’t, I still might chance it.” I slid off the bed, careful not to disturb our feast, and I took the pants. They were every bit as soft as I’d thought they’d be. “Thank you.”
Matthew smiled at me, a hint of… something in his expression. Like pride or some shit. Like he was proud that I was going to wear his pants. I didn’t try to decipher who he was proud of—himself for helping an uncomfortable stranger or me for taking the offer without any fuss.
I quickly disappeared into the bathroom and changed out of my jeans.
The instant I put those pants on and the softness cocooned my legs, I felt better.
Almost good enough to cry. Which was dumb.
Why did I want to cry because I felt good?
Because someone I’d treated awfully had been nice to me?
That was almost as ridiculous as the hard-on I was in danger of getting.
Not wanting Matthew to see me pop wood in his pants, I hurried back out to the main room. I ditched my pants by my backpack and climbed into bed again, hurriedly using my takeout container with my half-eaten burger to hide my burgeoning erection.
The thing about my dick was that it wasn’t trustworthy. It had horrible taste in men, and it had gotten me into more trouble than I could shake a stick at. Time and time again, I’d let it lead me on. Each time it tried to convince me that this guy was different. This guy wasn’t like the last guy.
Hint. All the guys it went for were cut from the same brand of douche bag cloth. Therefore, if it was now interested in Matthew, he must also be a douche bag.
Except he’d ordered dinner and loaned me a pair of pants. He seemed to actually care a little about other people. Even about impulsive jerks who got him thrown off airplanes.
“What do you do for a living? I assume you were in meetings for work?” I asked.
Work was usually a safe topic of conversation.
He was probably some kind of finance bro and the minute he started talking about bitcoin my dick would shrivel up into a raisin and tuck itself back into my body.
Not that all finance bros were awful, but the ones I’d met were.
My dick had gone through a finance bro phase, and I was still a little scarred from it.
“The meetings were kind of for work. I’m a software developer, but sometimes I moonlight as part of a non-profit organization that helps foster kids who are going to age out of the system.
We develop support systems for them. The meetings I was in were about the non-profit.
We have a sister organization out here, and they’ve been having some financial problems. Money doesn’t go as far as it used to. ”
Of fucking course Matthew had a perfect job. Well, not so much the software developer part, but he worked for a non-profit. For foster kids. The only way he’d have been more perfect was if he saved puppies in his spare time.
“What do you do?” Matthew asked me.
Mostly I hated answering this question because of what I did. The younger generations thought it was amazing, but people my age tended to be confused or they’d look down their noses at me.
“I’m a streamer.”
“Like on Twitch?” Matthew asked, not looking confused or disgusted. He also didn’t look excited, just… interested. Like you would be if you wanted to get to know someone.
“Yeah. It kind of happened by accident really. Mostly I game. I have a few different companies who let me beta test for them. It works to both of our benefits. They get early promo for the game and someone to find different bugs that need to be patched, and I get content for my channel.”
“What kind of games?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll play anything. First person shooters. RPGs. Even those cozy games.” I let myself smile a little, and I leaned closer. “Don’t tell anyone, but those are my favorite.”
“Can I ask why?” Matthew grabbed a slice of pizza and bit into it.
I shrugged. “I like that they’re low stakes. I like that they’re so accessible for people who’ve maybe never gamed a lot before. And not everyone who wants to game wants to shoot things all the time. Sometimes you just want to run your own little cat cafe.”
“Do you have a big following?” he asked.
Getting a positive reaction from someone who looked to be at least a few years older than me was so rare that it took me a moment to gather my scattered thoughts. Matthew’s easy acceptance of my career was kind of throwing me off.
“I’m not the biggest, by any stretch, but I do okay. Right now on all my platforms, if you add up all my different followings, I have just over ten million followers.”
Matthew’s eyebrows rose up to meet his hairline. “Ten million. That’s impressive. And not easy to do.”
How effortlessly he offered his praise felt like a gut punch.
Why couldn’t other people in my life be as nice about my job as Matthew was?
My parents were disappointed that I didn’t become a doctor—ew, blood.
Or a lawyer—ew, blood, or something else prestigious and important.
Hell, at this point, I thought they’d be happy if I bought a hot dog cart.
At least then they’d be able to tell people that their son finally had what they called a real job.
“Thanks.” My voice was barely a whisper, and I had to clear my throat to make it normal again. I picked at my fries and thought about Matthew and his two jobs and the way he hadn’t looked down on me when he found out that I gamed. And he hadn’t laughed when I told him that I liked cozy games.
Cozy games.
“Hey, uh, you said you develop software, right? Do you make games?” Matthew made an affirming noise around a mouthful of food.
His lips tipped up into a half-smile as he chewed.
“Well, what if you made a game for the non-profit? If it’s about, like, supporting foster kids, maybe in the game you are the foster kid and you just work at levelling up your character.
But you make it fun and kind of whimsical.
Like maybe all the characters are mushrooms, and you have to teach your mushroom how to live in the forest.” I stopped talking, noting the way Matthew stared at me like maybe I’d grown a second head.
“Or not. It was dumb.”
“It was brilliant,” he said. He practically flung himself out of bed and grabbed his laptop from his carry-on. “Tell me more. I’ll give you full credit. I’ll even buy the idea off you. Or, actually, I’ll hire you as a consultant. Yes. Troye… whatever your last name is, do you want to work with me?”
Despite my building excitement, I furrowed my brow. Call me skeptical, but first I wanted to know who exactly Matthew was. “What company do you work for?” I asked.
He got a strange look on his face. “Gemstone Games.”
“You work for Gemstone?” I gaped at him. Gemstone made some of my favorite games of all time. They currently didn’t have any cozy games, though, which was a shame.
“Gemstone is mine, actually.”
“Matthew… Kincaid. You’re Matthew Kincaid?” No wonder he didn’t look down on my career choice. He was a game developer. He was the game developer.
Oh, God, and I was wearing his pants.