CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #2
“Okay,” she said, rising to her feet and stretching. She turned to face the other girl, who seemed to be regarding her somewhat cautiously. He wasn’t sure, but Gabe had the notion that she might also be a streamer, just something about her presence. Chloe offered her hand. “Good game.”
The girl relaxed and smiled. “Good game,” she agreed, shaking it. “You are really good at this.”
“So are you.”
“Yeah, but you’d never played it before.”
“...fair point,” Chloe conceded, smiling a little awkwardly.
“We should collab some time,” she said.
Gabe almost chuckled. So, he’d been right.
Chloe raised an eyebrow. “You know me?”
She nodded, herself a little awkward. “Yeah. I found your playthrough of Godforsaken last week. It was really cool. Here.” The other woman passed her a card. “Shoot me a message if you want to. I’ve got a handful of co-op horror games I’ve been meaning to get to and you’re really cool.”
Chloe took it and looked at it for a moment, then nodded. “All right, yeah, we can figure something out.”
She smiled, nodded back, and then headed off.
The person running the Descent competition gave Chloe her prize: fifty bucks in the form of a temporary credit card.
Not bad for a few hours ‘work’. Chloe thanked them, accepted the congrats from the people who had gathered, and then spent about five minutes answering questions and talking with the crowd.
This was honestly a side of Chloe he hadn’t seen much of. If anything, she seemed to not like attention from people that didn’t live in their house. But here and now, she was cool and calm and charismatic.
“Okay, uh...I appreciate the attention, but I’m afraid I’ve got the Ataxia tournament coming up and I need to just sit in a quiet corner and unscramble my brain before then if I’m going to have any kind of a chance,” she said.
The others seemed vaguely reluctant to let her go, which he understood. Gabe would sure be sad to see a girl like Chloe go. Especially holding another guy’s hand. But luckily, that guy was him, so he was glad to let himself be led away by her.
“Holy shit, babe,” he said when they were more isolated.
“What?” she replied with a slightly frazzled grin.
“That was amazing. You kicked that game’s ass.”
Now the grin grew a bit firmer. “Told you.” She stopped and looked around for a moment, then spied a big beanbag not currently in use. “Come on.”
They both grabbed it and hauled it a little farther away, against a nearby wall. She flopped into it and then groaned. “Fuck, that was a lot.”
“Yeah, two hours straight.”
“Sit,” she said, patting the beanbag.
“I gotta take a leak,” he replied. “I’ll be back in a minute. And congrats.”
“Here, wallet,” she said, passing him the card she’d won.
“Oh, yes mistress,” he replied, taking it from her and shoving it into his wallet.
She giggled. “Hey,” she said as he began to turn away. Gabe turned back, eyebrow raised. “I love you.”
He smiled at her. “I love you too, Chloe.”
Gabe headed for the bathrooms. So far, this was going extremely well.
Chloe was happy, she’d won, the people liked her.
Not that he’d doubted that. And that collab she’d scored herself might be a good opportunity.
As he stepped up to the bathroom door, he paused as his cell started ringing. He checked it.
Unknown number. Unknown area code, even.
He wasn’t sure where it was. Which meant it was almost certainly a spam call.
Fine by him. He hit the ignore button (not the hang-up button, that was a little trick he’d learned for scam callers, if you hung up on them, they knew there was someone on the other end and would keep calling back), then headed inside.
A moment later, he was done with his business and even more curious.
They had left a message.
Gabe stepped back out and began heading for Chloe, then hesitated. He was too curious. It was probably just some bullshit automated recording or ten seconds of silence, but...what if it wasn’t? He called his voicemail and listened.
A few seconds of silence passed, though he could faintly hear someone breathing. Not creepy or anything, just hesitant. Finally, right as he was prepared to delete the message, the caller spoke.
“Hey, Gabe. Uh...it’s been a while. Um...sorry I haven’t called you for so long, I’ve been...busy. Uh...your mom and I split last year. Divorced.” Another awkward pause. “I was hoping to talk with you. Maybe meet up somewhere. Maybe sometime soon. Uh...you’ve got my number...bye.”
Gabe stood there for so long staring at his phone that he didn’t really come back to reality until he realized someone was standing in front of him and trying to talk to him. He looked up. It was another gamer, looking a little awkward.
“I, uh, need to get past you,” he said.
“Oh...shit. Sorry,” Gabe replied, realizing he’d actually stopped in front of the bathroom door like an idiot.
He began walking back towards Chloe, putting his phone in his pocket.
Well, that was about the last thing he’d expected to happen today. He hadn’t actually heard his father’s voice for years now. Maybe four years total. And he had been happy to keep that streak unbroken.
What the fuck did he want?
It didn’t surprise him that his parents had gotten divorced, they were as horrible to each other as they were to him, but why did his dad want to talk to him?
Gabe knew he wouldn’t be able to keep this from Chloe, it was too obvious that he was shaken up, but he made a promise to himself then and there that he wouldn’t let this ruin the day.
And as he thought that, he was surprised to find that the tumultuous emotional storm that had begun churning deep in his gut began to subside.
Shit, did he actually have more control over his emotions now?
Well, good then. He’d just explain the situation to Chloe, probably reassure her that he was fine and he didn’t want to leave, and-
Gabe finally came into view of Chloe again and felt a bolt of a fresh new emotion shoot through him as he saw her.
Some guy was standing worryingly close to her. She was standing now, looking angry and a little frightened.
Gabe began striding rapidly towards her, his hands slowly clenching into fists.