Chapter Nine
Rodney
I send a message to Gayle, telling him that I can’t wait to see him. It’s Saturday, a few weeks since that night we video called each other and got naked. I’ve been to his house twice more and we’ve met in the middle once for dinner.
I can say with full certainty that we’re officially dating. It’s been awesome. We hang out in each other’s streams, we call each other every night before bed, and spend most of the day texting.
I like him. I like him so freaking much.
We click together so well. It feels like I’ve known him my entire life despite it being like a month and a half. I guess when you click with someone, time stops mattering. Or something sappy like that.
I’m whistling as I step out of my room and into the living area, a spring in my step. I come to a halt when I see people already here. Maki, Kei, and Sullivan, a guy from Maki’s volleyball team are all in the living area, sitting on the couch together.
“Hey!” I say, walking into the living room and sitting on the floor across from them. “What’s up? We having a movie night or something?”
Kei sighs. He turns towards the kitchen, calling out, “told you he forgot!”
“Shit,” I say, desperately trying to come up with what I forgot. “What did I forget? Usually Azaad reminds me of important stuff!”
“We’re having a team meeting about this year’s fundraiser,” Rin calls back, walking into the living room with his laptop. “Tea and coffee is ready but you have to go get it yourself. I wasn’t about to carry all those hot drinks,” he says with a grin, stopping to kiss Maki’s head on the way through.
Rin sets down the laptop, getting it ready for a call with Azaad. He looks at me with a raised brow.
“You really forgot?”
I cover my face with my hands. “I did. Gayle is on his way here too. I am the worst. You should send me out onto the highway in nothing but a thong, covered with honey, while a bear chases me down.”
“What the fuck?” Sullivan breathes out before bursting into laughter. Kei shakes his head at me while Maki makes a confused noise. “Why would you say that?”
I pout at Sullivan. “It’s what I deserve, Sully. Don’t you see?”
“Right,” he says slowly, nodding his head. “Makes perfect sense.”
“Don’t question him. It’ll only make your head hurt,” Kei says as he stands up, tugging Sullivan along with him.
Their friendship is really cute. Rin and I keep needling him about whether or not he had a crush on Sullivan but it turns out, they’re just buddies.
I have a feeling they both have eyes on other people.
One of these days I’ll bully Kei into spilling the details. Today, unfortunately, is not that day.
As everyone is in the kitchen, grabbing their drinks, there’s a knock on the door. I scurry over, throwing the door open with a grin.
Gayle is wearing gray khaki shorts, a plain black tee, and a teal Hawaiian button up worn open. He looks like such a stereotypical dad. I need him. Carnally.
“Hi,” I say, pulling him forward and leaning down to kiss his cheek. Gods, I love how much shorter he is than me. “You look so good today. I’m so happy you’re here.”
Gayle smiles, pointing over his shoulder. “There are a lot of cars here.”
“Yeah,” I say with a wince, rubbing the back of my neck. “So, apparently, we’re having a bit of a team meeting today that I may or may not have completely forgotten about.”
“Shit,” Gayle says, his body freezing. “Do you want me to go? I don’t want to get in the way.”
“Absolutely not,” Rin says from the living room. “You can totally join and help us brainstorm, Gayle!”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive!”
“Your ideas are probably gonna be better than Rodney’s anyway,” Kei says, making me pout. Gayle just chuckles as we walk through the house towards the others.
“Coffee?”
“Yes please,” Gayle says before sitting on the floor next to Rin. Everyone welcomes him in, pulling him into their conversation.
I quickly make Gayle and I cups of coffee, his with extra creamer and some whipped cream on top. I even find some chocolate syrup to add to the top. My stomach is doing a variety of flips inside of me, watching as the guy I’m dating gets along with my friends, my pack.
I slide onto the floor next to Gayle, passing his coffee over. He looks down at it before smiling softly.
“Thanks, Rodney,” he says, just barely above a whisper.
I wink at him before turning towards Rin. I nod for him to start this whole thing.
“So,” Rin says, scooting to sit at the head of the coffee table.
The laptop sits in front of him, ready to call Azaad.
Gayle and I sit next to each other on the floor across from the couch while Maki, Kei, and Sullivan share the couch.
“For those of you who are new,” he says, looking at Maki, Sullivan, and Gayle. “Every year I host a giant fundraiser.”
Gayle nods his head. “I always try to tune in,” he admits softly. “Last year was super cool.”
Kei chuckles and nods his head. “Last year we did a twenty-four hour sing-a-thon. We basically karaoke’d our way through as many songs as we could while having special guests show up periodically.”
“I remember that,” Gayle says excitedly. “Didn’t you guys manage to get that band to cameo last year? The Devastated? That was so cool!”
“We have a contract with them,” Sullivan says with a grin. “They produce music especially for our team because the lead singer is from around here.”
“Gods, they’re so cool,” I say, remembering how awesome it was to meet them. “We auctioned off the masks they wore to the stream.”
“Oh,” Sullivan says excitedly. “We could totally do something like that! I’d have to talk to a few people but it would be awesome if we auctioned off a signed volleyball or something!”
Maki nods his head.
“Wait, let me bring Azaad into this,” Rin says quickly, connecting the call.
It only rings for a moment before the screen changes, showing a man sitting at his desk, smiling at the camera.
Azaad lives a few towns away so it’s usually easier to have him here via video call rather than asking him to come all this way.
Azaad waves, his headphones featuring adorable pink cat ears on top of them.
“Hi, everyone! It’s so good to see you guys!” He squints at the screen. “Where’s Rin?”
“I’m right here,” Rin says, sliding over to Gayle so he’s in the shot as well. “Nice to see you again, Azaad!”
Azaad picks up a pen that has a giant fuzzy ball at the end.
He adjusts his glasses which have a pink beaded cord around them so he can wear them around his neck, reminding me of a librarian.
He’s adorable and always so prepared. I wish I could adult like him but alas, I’ll save such things for the experts.
“Big group today. Let’s start hearing your ideas,” he says, clicking his pen and starting to write things down.
“Sullivan just had a great idea. He thought maybe the Ninjas could contribute something for the auction. A signed volleyball from their team.”
“Oh,” Azaad says, “I love that.”
“I’m not sure what the theme should be this year,” Rin admits softly. “We had the live auction one year. Last year was all about songs and music. But this year I’m kinda coming up blank.”
Kei hums. “What about community? Our charity of choice this year is the children’s research hospital, so it might be interesting if our theme was just ‘community’.”
Azaad makes a noise. “Expound on that.”
“We could do another twenty-four hour stream,” I start to say, the idea building in my mind. “And we could all take a chunk of time to be in charge of. During our chunk, we get to be in charge of planning what to do. We could host it here and make it super cozy.”
“Instead of our usual set up, we could hook everything up in here and make the couch the main focal point,” Rin says, nodding his head.
“I like that,” Azaad says. “How do we bring community into it though?”
“I think each person’s section will have to determine that,” I say, rubbing my chin. “I think having another advice show would do really well but instead of it just being me and Kei, it could be a whole group of us taking turns answering donated questions.”
Azaad writes something down, the sound of his pen on paper loud in the otherwise quiet room.
“We could do some classic trends,” Rin says, unsure. “Like the hot chip challenge?”
Azaad is shaking his head. “No torture this year,” he decides. “We need all three of you up and going the entire time. Nothing that’ll put you down or stuck in the bathroom.”
Maki holds up his hand and Rin gets the most love-sick smile on his face at the gesture.
“Yeah, Maki?”
“We could host a volleyball game, streamers verses professionals.”
“Okay, hold on, you’re onto something,” Sullivan says right away. “What if people could donate to give the professionals hindrances to make it easier on you guys to win?”
“I love it,” Azaad says right away, writing something down. “Can I please have the number for your coach so I can get into contact with him and get everything okay’d?”
“Absolutely,” Sullivan says right away, already pulling out his phone and sending everything over to Kei so he can forward it to Azaad.
“One section could be a wheel of content section but it involves things for all of us to do in the future,” Rin says, rubbing his chin.
“I like it. We could spin it every donation milestone. Like every five thousand dollars,” I add in. Azaad nods his head, writing it down.
“I have an idea,” Sullivan says with a mischievous grin, nudging his elbow into Kei. “But you’re not gonna like it.”
Kei sighs. “Let’s hear it.”
“To give you guys a break off camera, you could host a mod takeover. That’s not the part you’re gonna hate though.
I think it would be hilarious if the mods did some sort of fighting game and whoever wins, gets to have an online date with Kei on stream,” he explains his idea, barely holding back his giggles.
Azaad taps his lips with his fuzzy pen. “I think that could be super fun but only if I get an okay from Kei. We can talk about the details later.”
“It’s fine,” Kei says right away. “I trust all the mods not to be fucking weirdos even if we go on a pretend date. You can mark that down, Azaad.”
“Got it! For the auction, did you guys wanna auction gaming time again with the highest bidder? That went over really well a few years ago.”
“Sounds great,” I say, giving a thumbs up. The other two signal that they’re down.
“I’m not sure anyone would bid on me, but I would be okay with that as well,” Gayle says from beside me. “I also have some merch I would happily donate.”
“I’ll mark you down, Snow,” Azaad says.
“You can call me Gayle.”
“Gayle,” Azaad corrects himself with a grin.
“We can also do some in person console games between the bigger events,” I say.
“Like Go-Go Karts and as donations come in, we take on harder maps and give each other harder debuffs and stuff like that. Balancing books on our heads while playing, drinking a glass of water before we can start. Just silly shit like that.”
“Love it,” Azaad says, nodding his head. “And it goes with the whole ‘community’ theme we have going on.”
“I was thinking two weeks from now exactly,” Rin says, pulling out his phone and checking his calendar.
“That should give us plenty of time to get everything planned, merch donated and settled, and the site all set up. We can start reaching out to anyone local we think might be interested in joining us as well.”
Azaad murmurs under his breath, his eyes scanning his screen. “Exactly two weeks doesn’t work for me. That’s when Wizard’s heat is supposed to hit.”
Just then, Wizard’s head pops into the screen. He’s got a wide grin. It’s funny, the way these two are polar opposites. Azaad is soft and pink and bright while Wizard is always wearing black, his lips and nose and ears pierced, his eyes always covered in black makeup.
Wizard ducks into the shot, kissing Azaad’s cheek, making our head mod giggle.
“I heard you talking about me.” Wizard turns towards the camera, waving at us. We all wave back.
“Hi, Wizard!”
“We’re talking dates, darling. I’m just telling everyone how I’m busy with your heat on the day they planned.”
Wizard’s face turns bright red, his eyes widening. “And that’s my signal to leave the country! Bye, guys! Nice seeing ya!”
We all chuckle. Azaad mutes his mic for a moment, looking over his shoulder to talk to Wizard before coming back.
“Anyway,” he says brightly. Heats and ruts and everything else that comes with living doesn’t really phase any of us.
It’s not taboo or anything, but still, it’s understandable that some people don’t want to just openly talk about things like that.
It’s cute how red Wizard got, especially with the whole emo style he’s got going on.
“Does the week after work okay for everyone?”
Rin looks over at Maki. “That’s not too close to when practice starts up, is it?”
Maki shakes his head. “It should be perfect.”
“Awesome. Then I think we can mark it down and start properly booking people.”
“I’ll do whatever I can and contact all of you if I have any questions or concerns,” Azaad says, writing one last thing on his paper, pulling his pen back with flourish. “Then I think this meeting is done and dusted!”
“Thanks again, Azaad,” Rin says softly. “We really appreciate everything you do for us.”
“We love you, Azaad,” I say, waving at the screen.
Kei just sighs. “Yeah, what they said.”
We disconnect the call shortly after that. I pull Gayle into my room, closing the door behind us.
“Hey,” I say softly, holding his hand in one of my own, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry that today wasn’t like a proper date or whatever.”
Gayle steps into my space, bringing his free hand to my face. He leans up on his toes, kissing my lips. I make a surprised noise before surging forward kissing him back.
“That’s okay,” he whispers against my lips. “I think this was even better. I got to spend time with your friends and see you guys working together. I hope I didn’t overstep by offering to help with the fundraiser. I know this is like your guys’ baby.”
I shake my head. “No, no. You didn’t overstep. It feels right to have you involved. I want you involved. I want you as part of my life, Gayle.”
He smiles up at me, the sight making my heart warm. “I want that too, Rodney.”
Clearing my throat, I tentatively ask, “would it be okay if I started calling you my boyfriend?”
Gayle’s cheeks turn pink. He stares at me for a long moment before finally nodding. “Yeah. I’d like that. As long as I get to call you mine.”
I pull Gayle into another kiss, this one broken only because neither of us can stop smiling.