Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
DakkyDuck: Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room.
TheRealCreator: You’re right. It’d make my life more difficult too. I’m forty-two this year. You must be twenty-three, twenty-four? I’ve never had much reason to think about age gaps in relationships before, and it doesn’t mean a thing to me, but people will judge. It’s just the way the world is. And with all the bad PR from my Emerald Cove blunder…
I smile. Is he flattering me, or does he really mean that?
DakkyDuck: I’m thirty, but thank you.
TheRealCreator: THIRTY?
I laugh, then quickly type in the command to make my avatar laugh too.
DakkyDuck: Have you lost interest now?
TheRealCreator: Shut your beautiful mouth. This makes things better. Ten years is better than fifteen.
I laugh again at his comment.
DakkyDuck: True, and thanks for the compliment.
TheRealCreator: If I can find a way for us to see each other, will you cringe at some secrecy? I don’t want to disrespect you.
I consider this, unsure. He’s telling me it’s because of PR, but what if it’s because he has other girlfriends? He could be saying this exact thing to half a dozen other streamers of Empire’s Fall.
DakkyDuck: I don’t know. Maybe we should have a few more e-dates?
TheRealCreator: Fine by me. But eventually, we’ll get sick of pixels. We’ll need the real thing.
DakkyDuck: I thought you felt realer in the game?
TheRealCreator: I do, usually. But something tells me you’re going to be the exception to that rule.
DakkyDuck: Hey, Jack. That’s so nice. I’m sorry, but I actually have to run.
TheRealCreator: Join me tomorrow to give your opinion on some other pieces?
DakkyDuck: Definitely. I’d love to! Catch you then!
TheRealCreator: See you, gorgeous.
I’m about to log off when a message comes through.
TheRealCreator: WAIT!
DakkyDuck: Whoa, what’s up?
Heart beginning to pound a little harder.
I imagine a twisted follow-up message, I’m not actually Jack, I’ve been lying to you…
TheRealCreator: I didn’t give you the full story before. My father didn’t just stop working away. He came home because my mother had died. She died… by her own hand. When her business failed. Dad came home, and he learned about me failing on purpose as we were grieving. He dragged me to my mother’s grave and made me promise her I’d never dim my own light just because I was shy or self-conscious. I promised, and since then, I’ve done my best to honor her memory.
DakkyDuck: Oh, Jack, that’s awful—
I stop typing, the message unsent, when a message pops up in the chat window.
TheRealCreator has left the game.
CHAPTER 10
JACKSON
Ispend the weekend in the design studio with the team, partly helping to craft the underwater dungeon and partly helping with the RP stuff. My lead artist, Michaela, looks at me as though I’ve grown a second head every time I make a role-playing suggestion. My team’s good. They push back when they need to. But this weekend, that only happens once.
In the break room, I can feel Michaela glancing at me as she talks with her wife on the phone. I’m on my phone, looking at Dakota’s stream. I’m appearing offline so she doesn’t know I’m watching her. Why did I tell her that about my mother? I never even talk about those things, and now, it’s like I can’t cram it back inside of me. It’s too close to the surface.
“Sir?” Michaela says, standing over my desk.
“Yes?”
“I want to say, we all think you’re doing the right thing with Cove. And we’re over the moon that you’re taking an interest in the roleplaying side.”
I smile tightly. Hoping I don’t look intimidating, knowing I probably do from the way she’s cringing like she thinks she’s overstepped. “Thank you. The team’s doing fantastic work. Please, speak up if it’s too much. I mean that.”
“We will,” she says. “But it’s not.”
When she leaves the break room, I put on my Bluetooth headphones and switch on the audio for Dakota’s stream, titled Sunday Funday. “I’m not really sure I’m cut out for that sort of thing,” she murmurs.
I quickly scan the chat for keywords. See the word relationship. I swallow a ball of emotion. I haven’t spoken to her for two days. I dropped too much on her. All that emotion and heartache, dragging it up from the past and using it as an emotional burden for a woman I don’t really know. But feel like I do.
“Life is so simple at the moment. Stream, sleep, hang with a friend or two. Repeat. Why complicate it?”
If I were a more superstitious man, I’d say the universe is giving me a sign. I should just message her and explain why I’m being distant. These things are difficult for me to think about, let alone talk about. Do I regret it? Am I worried she’s going to tell someone? No, hell no. So then, what?
That night, I lie in bed, phone in my hand. I quickly send her a message before I can wimp out of it again.