Chapter Twenty
Beep beep.
My head shot up as I looked directly at the door.
That was the sound of a car locking and, hopefully, Odette making her way to my door.
I looked over to the clock on the microwave; it was most definitely her. She texted a bit ago that she was on her way over. That’s when I obsessively started to clean. Not like I hadn’t been doing it all day.
Ever since Odette left last night, I haven’t been able to sit still. I’d called Beckett after she drove away, and he came over to talk me off the ledge. I wanted to follow her. Wanted to explain more than I already had, but he’d blocked my exit and told me to give her space.
He’d also scolded me, reminded me it was too soon, and that we should have planned this out, but I just ignored him.
So, I waited. I didn’t go after her. I didn’t message her. I stayed off my phone until it lit up early this morning with a single text.
Odette: I want to see you.
My heart stopped as I read and reread the message, taking a good thirty minutes to respond, not wanting to seem eager that I wanted to hear from her.
I had only gotten three hours of sleep as I deep-cleaned the entire house, down to the floorboards.
I should have been working on edits or making content, but I physically couldn’t sit still, and the only reason I slept at all was because I was taking a small break on the couch and passed out around four in the morning.
We’d settled on her coming over around eight tonight, but hadn’t discussed dinner or anything else, so I wasn’t sure what might happen. Would she stay? Would she leave again?
No. She said she’d come back, and you have to give her a chance to take it all in.
In the panic of not knowing, I ordered dinner, just in case.
Chinese food was sitting on the island of my kitchen, still in takeout containers with plates laid out next to them. I wasn’t sure what she liked, so I ordered about five different things, including the ever-important crab rangoons.
Everyone loved those.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see a message from Beckett.
Beckett: Breathe, damn it.
I rolled my eyes at how much he knew me.
Ryker: I will after we talk.
Beckett: Let me know how it goes.
While Beckett hadn’t been the biggest fan of me telling Odette who I was, now that I had, he knew I needed to tell her everything else, and we both didn’t know how that would go. There was so much more to me than just who I was as a gamer, and tonight I was going to lay it all out for her.
Every. Single. Thing.
Knock Knock.
She was here.
I made my way to the door, opening to see Odette standing in front of me in a pair of leggings with an oversized sweater engulfing her. She looked stunning even when dressed down.
“Hi,” the word was raspy coming from me. I hadn’t spoken at all today.
“Hi.” Odette plastered on a huge smile and took a step toward me. I moved so that she could make her way into the house. She didn’t make it far before waiting for me.
“I’ve got dinner, but wasn’t sure if you wanted to eat or what you wanted to do, so I ordered Chinese, but we can also just sit and talk if you want to. We don’t have to—”
“Ryker.” Her saying my name shut me up mid-ramble. She took a few steps toward me and placed a hand on my chest. “Let’s talk first.”
“Okay,” I let out a breath and motioned to the living room. The couch was a neutral zone where we could both sit on opposite sides. Except when I sat down, Odette sat right next to me, not leaving any space between us. It helped settle my nerves about what we were about to talk about.
“So,” Odette broke the conversation first. “You’re CovertRetriever.”
I nodded.
“What made you want to play games anonymously?” She jumped right into the questions.
This was it. This is where I would be able to tell her it all.
“I loved the aspect of playing games, but not the social media piece of it. I’m not big on my face being out there.
Even with my personal social media, I keep posting to a minimum and am not on a lot.
Mostly, Beckett takes over with posting and captures content for me.
When it comes to my gaming, though, I do most of that content because I don’t need to be in front of the camera until I’m streaming.
” Odette nodded her head, listening intently.
“You mentioned the other night about your family; does that have any part of it?”
I took a deep breath before I answered this one. Because it had everything to do with my choosing to game anonymously.
“Yeah.” My knee was bobbing up and down, but Odette reached out a hand, giving me a small squeeze. I stared at where her hand was and then looked up to hear. She looked like she was all ears for anything I had to say. “My parents own the Black Bird Café in Nashville.”
“Oh.” Her face registered the name. Even if you weren’t in the music scene, almost everyone knew the café and its famous roots in the industry.
“Well,” I continued. “They owned it. The sale went through yesterday, which means it’s no longer family-owned.”
“That sounds like a big thing.”
“It is. That café has been in our family for generations, and the expectation was that I would take it over, but then I didn’t want to.
I wanted to do something else, anything else that wasn’t attached to that damn café.
It was cool growing up, but then once I was old enough to see the manipulation that came from people, I wanted nothing to do with it.
I never wanted to guess in life if people were friends with me for me or because of who I was. ”
“Which is how you came here,” Odette added.
“It is. Beckett’s backstory is a little more hectic, but we both needed out, and New York was that place.”
“Something I know all too well.”
Odette squeezed me again, and I placed my hand on top of hers. She did know what it was like to run away, to find something that was just hers, just like I wanted and needed in my own life. After a moment, Odette continued her interrogation.
“What made you pick up League of Witches?”
Here it was. The start of the rest of our story. It was one thing to talk about why I chose to be an anonymous gamer or talk about my family and that aspect of my life. This was something completely different. This was my life interwoven with Odette, and she had no idea any of it had happened.
“Would you like me to start at the beginning?”
Odette nodded her head. “Yeah.”
“I’ve been playing your games since before League of Witches.”
“What?” Her eyes were wide with surprise.
“I saw your first one, Creature Cottage, pop up as a new game, and I loved the art style, so I clicked into it and was sucked in. I wasn’t a huge gamer at all, so I always tried to pick up new indie games when I could.
” I intertwined my fingers with Odette’s hand as I continued.
“Then League of Witches released, and I dropped everything in my life after I started playing that game. I quit my job and invested every moment I had playing, streaming, and getting it out there. I dropped almost every penny I had to my name, investing in a gaming setup, and somehow, somewhere, along the way, even with your updates and social media becoming different for gamers, I stuck. More and more people started to watch, and my anonymity became the talk of the gamer chats.”
“Wow,” Odette looked mesmerized by what I was telling her, but this didn’t even cut the surface. “You played Creature Cottage?”
“Yeah,” I laughed and rubbed my thumb over the top of her hand.
“And while I was enamored with your games, I became even more so with the person who created them. I followed her journey on social media. I found out she wrote books; I bought them. I followed her press release tours for new books and went to every signing I could get to. I watched from afar and saw her soar to new heights that I couldn’t even fathom.
Even though I knew I had my own backing at the same time, it was never the same type of love her fans had for her. ”
“Wait.” Odette held up a hand. She rearranged herself on the couch to face me now. “You went to my signings?”
“I followed you where I could, and I know that makes me sound like a complete stalker, and it probably actually makes me one, but I was so proud of you and what you had done with your success that I couldn’t help it.
I wanted to support you in every way that I could.
” Odette took her hand away from mine and ran it through her hair and then down her face.
“I made sure never to step over any boundaries, like following you to where you were staying. It was strictly supporting you at events and your work. I’ve purchased every single book and have all of them signed. ”
“I’ve never seen you at a signing.” Odette’s tone seemed frustrated, and I couldn’t tell if it was from me telling her all of this or the fact that I was there, but she didn’t see me.
“I told you.” I reached out and placed a hand on her cheek. “From afar.”
Odette’s eyes searched mine.
“My mother is also a huge fan, so she made sure to always get my copies signed with hers. I never went to your tables and always sat in the back of the rooms.”
“Really?” The one word from her was soft, disbelieving. “Why didn’t you say anything? Come up to me? Why stay away?”
“In those moments, I felt like it was something that I was selfishly doing for me, that you had no idea who I was, just a fan. And truly, somewhere in my heart, I knew I had feelings for you. To me, it wouldn’t have been fair to you.”
Odette was still staring at me. She looked like she was trying to process what I was saying.
“You were there. Every time I thought to myself, who even cares, who would stay through this chaos or traveling, being in front of people this often, being all over social media. Every night I felt like I wasn’t good enough, and then I went on to stages and signed books just to prove myself wrong.”
Tears started to well in her eyes as she laid it all out for me. Her insecurities about her writing and her career.
I reached out to wipe away a lone tear that slipped down her cheek.
“If you had looked harder last night, you would have seen that the bookshelves in my office are all of your books. Multiple copies. Indie versions, special editions. All of them. I will continue to be there for you, be there for every release, for every doubt. I want to give you the support you’ve always wanted and needed. ”
She took my face in her hands and pressed her forehead to mine.
“You’ve been here the whole time.”