7. Griffin
What are the odds?
Truly, someone must be fucking with me.
In front of me is none other than Lydia...whatever her last name is. DiddyLiddy. The same woman I have spent all night thinking about. Losing sleep over. Feeling like absolute shit over how I turned her down.
She’s beautiful. With her long, brown hair styled in waves. A slight hint of makeup adorns her face, a black blouse that helps brighten her slightly tanned skin, and jeans that hug her hips so well. God, how I’ve imagined touching those curves and now I’m seeing it in front of me. I had a slight picture in her head of what she might look like, but seeing what she actually looks like takes my breath away.
“You...you’re here. How did you find me?”
“I...I didn’t,” she whispers. “I had no idea who you were until tonight.”
“I...” I don’t know how to react. “Can we talk?”
“She’s not going anywhere near you,” the man shouting expletives at me says. “Not after the shit you put her through.”
I have to assume, based on how similar they look, that this is her brother. Explains the vitriol.
“Hey,” I hold my hands up. “I’m not trying to pull any funny business. I just want to talk.”
“Too late for that,” he says.
“Landon,” her voice is more stern now. She walks up to me so we’re inches apart. The only thing that separates us is the barrier put up to separate fans from players. “I think I know how to speak for myself.”
She peers into my dark eyes and furrows her brow at me. “You wanna talk? Guildhouse, tonight. Right after you’re done here.”
I sigh. I can’t argue with that. If that’s how she wants to meet, then I will risk being alone in public to do so. I could just say that I made my decision to let her go, but now, as I see her face-to-face, all of that changes.
“Lydia,” her brother starts.
She holds up her finger to shush him. “This is my life and my decision. I’m allowed to chase after what I want, and right now, I just want answers.”
“Okay,” he says, tilting his head down.
“Thanks,” she says. “Let’s go.”
She turns her back and starts walking towards the parking lot without a goodbye. I stay still, waiting to see her disappear from my view, still in shock that I can see her with my own eyes. That she’s no longer just a voice I can hear through a speaker.
I quickly get through the remainder of the fans who have waited for an autograph. They’ve probably witnessed what just happened and I’ll be on the cover of some trending topic online, but there’s no escaping it. It would have been worse if I completely ignored it and pretended that I didn’t know Lydia or she didn’t exist. I think I could have gotten her brother arrested for trying to mangle me.
I try to grin and bear it with the fans who are excited to see me, and I feel bad that I was smiling at seeing Lydia but these fans barely mean anything to me. I’m thankful for them, but I also want to go back into the arena and hide.
I head back inside once I reach my mental capacity and need to be alone again. I sit on the bench facing my locker and pull out my phone. It’s creepy to look up people that you have slight feelings for, but I need to know if there are any photos of Lydia out there so I can see her face again, not angry and not when it’s dark outside.
I type in “Lydia Director Esports” in the search bar. I should’ve thought about doing this sooner. The first search result comes up with an article titled, “Meet Los Gatos University’s First Director of Esports Gaming Lydia Goh.”
I click on it and read through the article published by Los Gatos University, which I believe is a small private university not far from here.
“Lydia Goh, ‘13, has been named LGU’s first Director of Esports Gaming. Goh, who was Vice President of Recruitment at LGU’s Esports Club when enrolled as a student, brings a wealth of knowledge in Sales, Business Operations, and competitive Esports as an online gaming influencer and commentator.
”I’m excited to be building the first competitive Esports League at LGU,” says Goh. ”Video games have been a consistently good part of my life, and I’m excited to see it grow at my alma mater.”
There’s a photo of her smiling, wearing a grey jumpsuit. She looks happy, and I ache a little, wishing that she’d look at me like that, but my rejection ruined that.
“Heeey,” Micah and Ross walk in and take a seat on either side of me. “Uh, we heard what happened.”
“Oh,” I respond while keeping my eyes focused on my phone screen. “Yeah. That happened tonight.”
“Out of all the people that could have been here tonight, it just had to be your...ex-crush? Still crush?”
I don’t know what to think of her anymore. No, I’m constantly thinking about her and nervous about what she might want from me when we talk later tonight. “I think I still like her, but I won’t force her to like me back. We’re seeing each other later. Not as a date,” I caveat. “I just asked if we could talk, and she agreed.”
“What are you going to talk to her about?” Ross asks.
I didn’t have a script all drummed up yet. Hell, I was happy that she agreed to speak to me at all after what I put her through, compounded with the shock of seeing me everywhere tonight. On Gamers Night, ironically.
I shake my head. “I don’t know yet. I want to apologize, of course. And then we’ll see how much she’ll let me say after that.”
“Are you gonna ask her out?”
My head turns sharply at Micah, and I raise my eyebrows at him. “Do you really think that’s a good idea? I mean, I already said I didn’t want to go out with her because it’d complicate things. Is it going to be much better now that we’ve met?”
“I don’t know, maybe? The internet’s already made it a thing, might as well roll with it.”
“What the fuck?!” I grab Ross’s phone. “What are they saying?”
I read aloud the trending headline: “NHL All-Star Griffin Markey seen talking intimately with mystery woman.”
Damn. The whole reason I didn’t move forward with this thing with Lydia was that I didn’t want to draw more attention to myself and to someone associated with me.
I scrub my face rapidly with my hands. It’s too late now to deflect or deny. I’ll just need to explain to Lydia what’s going on and why I said what I did—to try and make sure she doesn’t suffer the brunt of the media attention.
“Great,” I wail. “This is exactly what I was afraid of.”
Ross takes a closer look at the photo on the phone. “I mean, it’s a dark photo. You can barely make out what her face looks like.”
But the problem is, I can notice everything. The brown eyes that are looking straight into mine. The plump lips of her open mouth. The way her hair drapes down her back and the curves that come into full view. While the rest of the world is dark, she shines.
“I guess we’ll just have to see what she says,” I admit. “I’m meeting her at Guildhouse. You know that bar that has the computer station where you can play games?”
“Oh yeah,” Micah nods. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“Me too. I was always weary, though, because of fans. Although, it seems like if there’s anyone that we shouldn’t be worried about, it’s fans who are just like us. The nerdy, game-loving fans who kick our asses at the same games we love to play.”
Still, I put on a beanie and a hoodie and hope that I can get through tonight without fan interruptions. I pack my things into my car trunk and begin the drive to Guildhouse. It’s a short drive: from one point of downtown to another, and I find street parking with it being late out.
I head inside the bar and see it’s decently full, with people mingling on couches and at the computer stations. The space is much larger than what you’d expect, looking at it from the outside. There’s a projector screen with gameplay footage and string lights canvassing the ceilings in a zig-zag pattern.
I spot Lydia sitting down at one of the high-top tables, sipping on a cocktail of some sort. She’s changed clothes and is now wearing an LGU crewneck hoodie with some leggings that are definitely testing my urge to not stare down at her well-sculpted legs.
“Hey,” I say.
Her response is a soft smile, not turning up to look at me from her drink. “Hi.”
“How are you?” I wince at how forced and bland that sounded. Like I already know the answer to how she’s doing.
“Alright,” she shrugs. “Honestly, there’s just a lot on my mind right now.”
“Same.” After a beat, listening to the sound of teens shouting at the computer area, Lydia excuses herself awkwardly to get a drink.
“Can I get you something?”
I gesture in the direction of the cocktail I ordered for myself immediately when I arrived at the bar. While they had a large menu of curated cocktails, I needed something strong, yet tasty. An Old Fashioned fit the bill well.
“I’m good,” I tell her, raising my glass up slightly. “Grabbed something as soon as I got here.”
Lydia nods and steps away to order at the bar on the other side of the space. She returns with a burnt yellow drink in a highball glass garnished with a pineapple slice.
“What’d you get?” I ask.
She eyes it closely. “This Red Bull cocktail, which maybe isn’t the best idea right now, but I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep anyway.”
“Ditto.” I give my glass a sheepish raise and motion to clink our glasses together. “Cheers to a restless night, and I guess the universe really showing us that we’re meant to meet?”
She lets out a soft giggle. “Yeah, cheers.” She takes a sip of her drink.
“Wow, that is sweet. It’s good, but...whew. I forget the last time I had an energy drink. Oh well, I don’t have to work tomorrow. Do you? Well, you actually have kind of a non-traditional job, so I’m not entirely sure.”
“I have practice. Then we have an away game in Vancouver, so we’ll be traveling that night. While I probably should be getting sleep, I doubt I will.”
“Got it,” she nods. “Yeah, the last few days have been... a whirlwind, to say the least.”
I take a sip of my drink and nod to agree. Vancouver is currently at the top of our division, and I am trying to figure out a game plan, one that will get us the win, but my mind is entirely focused on Lydia’s face, staring off into the distance.
“Yeah,” I sigh. “That’s mostly my fault.”
“Yeah.” She doesn’t even hesitate. “But now I can give you the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I did not think that I was talking to a superstar hockey player.”
“Yeah, so you can kind of see why it’s complicated.”
“Yeah...” She makes a pouty face and stares into her drink. “But is it?”
I choke on my sip and start coughing. “Wait, what?” She shrugs, and I’m starting to feel nervous about what kind of idea she has up her sleeve now that I notice her cheeky smile.
“You didn’t want to go out with me because why? You’re scared of the spotlight?”
“Um...”
“And you didn’t want anyone who might be seen with you to also be the subject of everyone’s attention?”
My eyes start to widen. “How...”
She gives me a stern expression. “Look, Griffin. What you did to me hurt. And I can give you the benefit of the doubt and say you did it because you’re a big hockey player, and you want to keep me safe from the spotlight. But you didn’t even ask me if I was afraid of the spotlight.”
I mean, fair. But...why would she want the attention? She seems like the kind of person who doesn’t like to be involved in drama, and that’s exactly what I don’t want to give her because my life is full of it!
“Are you afraid of the spotlight?” I ask.
“Not really,” she shrugs. “I have to talk to strangers all the time. And I have to learn how to publicize myself and what I’m working on. So, I’m thinking it could be good practice.”
“Wait...” I am somehow fearful of what that little brain of hers is thinking. “What are you proposing?”
“I think we should fake date.”
I stare at her blankly for a second while the background of music and people exclaiming over whatever game they’re playing fill my ears. This is definitely not the direction that I was hoping our conversation was going to go. I can’t even remember if I got around to apologizing, which was the script that I was reciting along in my car on the drive here.
“Fake date?”
“Yeah,” she nods. “It benefits both of us. You’re trying to help yourself be more comfortable about being in the spotlight to get more brand deals, and I need someone I can latch onto to help my colleagues and donors respect me.”
“How would fake dating do that?”
“Fans are a sucker for a celebrity romance. You’re going to get so much attention for having a whirlwind romance. And icing on the cake? We can tell people that we met on Hero Seek. Can you imagine the attention that it would draw to the game? Everyone will flock to it like it’s the hot new dating app.”
But there’s still one confusing part that I am trying to understand, and I don’t know why it has to be this way. Admittedly, her idea is a really good one. It’ll drive more fans to games and Hero Seek, which I know is trying to bolster its competitive gaming front to be in the likes of the big three. And Lydia benefits greatly from this, because being with me will help more of her students and peers respect her.
“Why fake, though?” I thought we had feelings for one another, and I might argue that we still do. Does she not anymore?
“Because I think this just needs to be an experiment. If it works, great, but after what you did, I’m not really interested in dating anyone for real.”
Okay, sure. Maybe she’s on to something. And maybe I’m not, either. She does make a good point about how this will be in our best interests. Mine for getting people excited about Hero Seek and hers to get attention towards her school’s esports program.
“Yeah, I suppose that wouldn’t be in either of our best interests.”
“Then let’s try it. Until the end of the hockey season. Which is when...February?”
“April.”
She leans back her her stool. “Ah. Well, I guess that’s not too bad. Six months, give or take? That’s a good time frame to work with.”
“Okay.” This is weird. I didn’t think I’d date, but I sure as hell wasn’t expecting to fake date. How do you fake your feelings for someone while still having your mind think you really like them? Separating that is going to be hard, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to ignore the very real feelings I have for Lydia and fake the rest.
She holds her hand out. “Okay.” My hand envelopes hers as we shake on it. Her small hand, cold from holding her drink, feels safe in mine, and I’m already having trouble reminding myself that this needs to be fake.
“So, uh, what’s step one, fake girlfriend?”
She looks around the bar, fixing her gaze on the LAN stations over to the left of us.
“Do you wanna play a game?”
My head turns up. “Actually, yes. I’d really enjoy that.”
We walk over to a pair of computers.
“What are you thinking?” I ask. “Wanna play Hero Seek?”
“Nah, that feels like it’s too much strategy for me right now. Also, something to know about me is that one drink is enough to make me feel some kind of way. Let’s play Mario Kart.”
Huh, I think that might be the perfect game. It requires little strategy and just offers good vibes.
“Um, sure. Mario Kart works.”
“Did you used to play as a kid?” Lydia says, returning with a console and a few controllers to can hook up to the computer.
I nod. “Not much, but I had a Nintendo 64 as a kid.”
“That’s...wait. How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Huh, is it weird I thought you were in your late twenties? I didn’t know how old you were when we played Hero Seek, but I was kind of afraid you’d be like, my brother’s age. Sorry about him earlier. He just wants to be a good brother but he kind of has a temper. He’s been taking care of me since, you know, what happened.”
“Yeah. I’m kind of old to be in the NHL. I’m one of four players on my team that are over thirty. A lot of my teammates are fresh out of college. Or a few high schools.”
I forget that my body is starting to deteriorate a little every day, and I have to hope that I won’t run into some kind of career-ending injury that will throw off the trajectory I’ve set for myself.
“But yeah, I mean, I wasn’t mad at your brother. I wasn’t going to get him arrested or anything. He had every right to be upset.” I take a seat in the comfortable gamer chairs and scroll through games on the console until I find the one I’m looking for. “So, are you guys close?”
The intro music for the game starts up and I’m in awe at how crisp the picture looks. For someone whose last memory of this franchise was a 64-bit game where every face and body had edges to it, this is a beautiful sight to see.
We each choose our character, and Lydia sets up the match for us: four courses, and at least forty to choose from with the expansion pack included. I’m tempted to just choose a course that I’m familiar with, like the iconic Yoshi Valley, but instead, I choose a new one from the game.
“Yeah, we’re kind of close,” Lydia says. “We are pretty far apart in age, so growing up, it was hard to get along. I always wanted to do things that allowed us to be best friends because I was jealous of all my girlfriends at the time who had tight bonds with their sisters, but you know how boys are. They get older, and they don’t want to be the kid that plays with his sister. But now he’s older, and he goes to the same college that I work at, and also graduated from, so it’s impossible to escape one another. We get lunch once a week. I bitch about the mean people in esports that he also knows because he’s a part of the club. And uh, yeah. He kind of surprised me, too. With that whole spat. Mostly because I didn’t know that he cared about me that much to stand up for me like that. How about you? Do you have any siblings?”
“Yeah. Two older brothers. Neither play hockey. One of my brothers works on Wall Street, and the other one is a conductor on Broadway.”
“Holy shit,” she says. I don’t know if it was from my family confession or the red shell that I just threw at her. “Fucker.”
I laugh. That one was from the red shell.
“Sorry, not sorry,” I cackle.
“Okay, but your family sounds really successful though. Your parents must be proud.”
I shrug. They might be, I’m sure they are, but I kind of got cast aside because I live the farthest away from my family. I thought that I would get more love because of the distance like my parents telling me that they want to come visit for a week and see me play, but they never want to leave their home. Well, no, they’ll always go into the city to see Graham and Gordon, but they’re never “free enough” to fly to California to see me.
“If they are, then they don’t tell me. The only time I see them is if I’m in New York or New Jersey for a game.”
“I’m sorry,” she tells me. “That’s not very fun then.”
“Yeah. Tough part about having brothers: it always felt like a competition with one another.”
Although we’re all in very separate industries, any time we are able to have a family gathering, it feels like it’s just a debate on who can one-up the other with their accomplishments. When I was selected to the All-Star team, my family barely celebrated because, at the same time, Graham’s company had a huge spike in their stock price, and Gordon got selected to be conductor for the revival of Sweeney Todd. Maybe that’s where my desire to stay away from the spotlight stemmed because I never felt like I had the chance to be in the spotlight in the first place.
I cross the finish line, and the flashing “1st” lights up the screen.
“Hey,” she elbows me. “Looks like you won something!”
I smile at her. “Yeah, looks like it.” I might’ve won in other ways, too, but I’m going to have to fight the urge to keep whatever this is fake if that’s what Lydia wants. And I’m starting to believe that might not be so easy to do.