Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Gayle
“Your voice makes me wanna drop to my knees and bark like a dog. The things I would do to hear that voice in my ears, chat. I would beg and plead. I would write songs. I would become a poet. I would ride a dolphin into the sunset. Don’t even pretend you wouldn’t do the same, chat.
The only thing going on inside my head is how much of a gay disaster I am intermixed with bark bark bark bark bark. ”
Once he’s petered himself out, I murmur, “umm. Thank you? I’m flattered?”
There’s a very, very long pause. It goes on so long I’m worried they might have disconnected before I hear a very startled What?
The other guy, the one who’s been silent this whole time bursts with laughter. The sound is so infectious and the situation is so ridiculous that I can’t help but laugh as well.
“My mic was unmuted and you heard that? Oh my gods, Blue, shoot me. Put me out of my misery. Let me get out of this game. Oh my gods.”
No way! He can’t just kill himself and get out of this. My interest has been piqued at the very least.
“Wait, you can’t leave yet,” I blurt out. “I wanna hear more!”
The third guy is laughing his ass off until he’s literally wheezing. I can’t help but join him, crouching even closer.
“The three of us against the rest?”
I do a little crouching dance with my character, mimicking a nod. “The three of us against the world!”
billstopay(mod): What the hell was that?
SnowsOffspring(vip): I don’t know if I should be here for this…
billstopay(mod): *covers your ears and your eyes*
JumpingforJoy: those voices sound SO familiar
SnowsOffspring(vip): I think I know who’s sexually harassing my dad but I don’t know if I wanna tell him
PearlyWhites: Snow you’re BLUSHING
SkateboardKid: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh that’s ADORABLE
“Oh, sweet child of mine,” I say to my stream. I’m always careful to make sure I’m muted in game. They can only hear me talk if I press a certain button on my keyboard. “Please tell me who that is! I need to getcha a new stepdad!”
I belly laugh as chat goes nuts. I laugh even harder when Calloway starts screaming in all caps at me to not even think about it or he’ll run away.
“Do you actually know who that is? Are they a streamer too or something?”
My eyes drift back to my game. I send my character around a corner, seeing movement in the far right of my stream. I crouch down and pull out the sniper rifle I picked up earlier. I aim and fire, getting a headshot.
“Okay, wow,” one of the guys I’m currently teaming up with says, letting out a long whistle. “Okay, cool. Sick. Amazing. Not only do you have the voice of a literal god, but you can also play well. I’m fine. Totally fine. My heart isn’t going a thousand miles an hour or anything.”
I know my cheeks are heating but there’s nothing I can do about it.
I really wish I had decided to go camless today because chat keeps teasing me about the blush.
In my defense, it’s been so long since I’ve even thought about anyone in a romantic sense, let alone get so thoroughly hit on by a stranger! Of course I’m gonna blush!
“Bro,” the other guy says, laughing all over again. “Rodney, you know I love you but holy shit. You’ve got to learn how to mute your mic!”
Rodney. The guy’s name is Rodney.
“You’re kidding. You’re actually kidding. This has got to be a joke. The universe hates me. I’m going to throw myself into the next person we see so that I can die and get thrown into a new lobby.”
“I’ll take that as a personal challenge to keep you alive,” I say quickly, not really knowing where this confidence is coming from. “It’s not every day I have my own personal hypeman.”
Rodney runs his character closer to mine, tossing a bunch of rifle ammo at my feet.
“Okay, bet.”
“Stay behind me, babe. I’ll protect you,” I tell him, picking up the ammo and adding it to the stack I already had. We move through the town we’re in, picking off anyone else we run across.
SnowsOffspring(vip): You’re flirting! Right in front of my salad??
JumpingNinja: No way!! I thought I recognized your voice from Rodney’s stream!
CJforMayor(mod): Stream hopping is kinda cringe normally but I’m willing to make an exception. Who’s Rodney?
DesperateDanny(vip): I wanna know so bad he sounds like such a disaster LOL
MatchMaker001: Does that other guy kinda sound like the CringeFailKing??
JumpingNinja: That’s BlueStreamer and RodKneeonComs!
SnowsOffspring(vip): No fucking way
“Hey!” I say, looking over at chat. “Language! Yeah, I see you. Don’t think you can hide in chat like that.”
Normally, I don’t catch little things like that.
Even with my chat on a special mode that makes everything come through slower, it’s still a shit ton of messages.
My viewer count usually sits around fourteen thousand and when I’m streaming in an actual tournament, it can get all the way up to forty thousand.
On those days, I don’t even try to read chat. It’s way too overwhelming.
Blue and Rodney. I’ve seen them a little bit. I’ve watched a few of Blue’s streams, especially when he’s doing one of his huge charity events. I think I’ve even played against Rodney a time or two during tournaments. This is the first time we’ve ever interacted though.
“I really don’t want people jumping between streams but if you guys wanna go give Blue and Rodney some love and follows, that’s totally fine. Just don’t be annoying, okay?”
I know I have a bigger following than Rodney but Blue, I’m pretty sure, is a bigger streamer than both of us.
They seem like cool dudes, so I have no issue sending some of my followers over there.
Now, if they jumped in and were assholes to me, they’d get absolutely no shout-outs.
We don’t platform assholes in this house.
I shoot another player. Looking at the top of my screen, I see we’re down to the final ten.
Sure, I’ve been carrying these two but that’s okay.
I kind of expected it since I’m playing on my smurf account, or the account I use when I’m not on my main account.
This way, I’m not automatically put into ranked matches and I can hide my username so that viewers are less likely to jump into matches and try to target me.
“This way,” I say in game, leading Blue and Rodney into a warehouse. “So I hear we might know each other.”
“Wait, what? I think I would remember a voice like yours.”
I chuckle softly. “My chat seems to know you two.”
The person I assume is Blue says, “Chatters are such tattle tales!”
“They are,” I agree, “but in this one case I don’t seem to mind. I have to find my hypeman after this, after all.”
“Oh god,” Rodney says and it makes me snort. My chest does a funny little flip at the sound of his voice, sounding so endearingly embarrassed by everything that’s happened.
The door behind us opens and I turn around, caught off guard. Gunshots ring through, the two of us shooting at the same time. Blue is out of the game, leaving only eight people left including Rodney and I.
“I guess it’s just the two of us,” Rodney says, looting Blue’s body. “Oh, he had more ammo for you! And a flash grenade. And more soda than a guy could ever need. Why does he have so much soda on him? What the heck?”
“He knew he couldn’t bathe in the blood of his enemies so he decided warm soda was gonna have to do. Don’t step on his dreams, man.”
“Great,” Rodney grumbles. “Your voice is hot. Your gameplay is hot. And you’re funny? This is not fair.”
I clear my throat. “Did you mean to say that out loud?”
Instead of answering, I just hear the man start screaming through his mic. I laugh my ass off, so much so that I almost miss when the map starts to shrink again, pushing the remaining players closer together.
We sprint out of the warehouse and I angle myself to dart towards the treeline, hoping the others don’t have the same idea as me.
“Dodge and weave,” I call out.
“They’re coming from behind! They’re on our asses! They’re coming on us!”
I look at my camera. “Do you think he’s doing it on purpose, chat?” Then I unmute my mic. “Over here. Crouch down and let me do the rest.”
“Oh, yes, daddy!”
“Oh my gods.”
“I’m going to run into that field. My brother in Christ. I have never been so embarrassed.”
“Don’t call me that,” I giggle.
“Sorry, I guess I assumed.”
“It’s fine,” I tell him quickly, keeping my eyes on our surroundings. “I’m a guy, but I’d rather not have you call me brother in the same breath as us flirting.”
There’s a pause before he snorts. “Yeah, okay. That’s so fair. I’m still going to run into a bullet real quick to end my misery.”
“Not until after I take out these other people real quick. As a professional streamer, it’s kinda wild you don’t know how to mute your mic.”
“I know how to do it! I just… you know, forget!”
Two people are fighting each other across the field from us. One takes out the other and I quickly shoot the one left over. We’re down to six people remaining.
“You’re really good at this game. How did you end up in this lobby of noobs?”
“You’re not a noob either,” I say right away and then find myself blushing. “We’ve played in tournaments before.”
“Oh,” Rodney says, “we have? Really? I think I would have remembered meeting you. You’re so--” his voice cuts off.
“Did you finally mute?”
There’s a pause. “Maybe.”
I chuckle as I get my character to lay on its belly, crawling between trees. I see someone running and I shoot, nailing them and taking them out. There’s another fight going on and instead of waiting, I take shots at both of them.
“The way I would absolutely--”
“Rodney!”
“Right. Sorry.”