Good Game (The System, #1) (95)
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
He places a kiss on my forehead, and the seed of guilt dissolves.
“I already told the boys, but it’s going to be a hard couple of weeks.” Sydney is tapping away on her phone. She hasn’t looked up from it since we got in the car, busy dealing with all the attention from the reveal. Even my phone’s been blowing up, but it’s just texts from Deanna screaming at me. I owe her a huge explanation and probably a nice bottle of wine. “The media is already in a frenzy over this. The boys are viral on every platform, hashtags trending, the full nine yards—and it’s only been an hour.”
“Everyone’s debating whether they’re Team Blade, Team English, or Team Shield. Although there’s really no competition; we know I’m the most attractive of the group.” Parker smugly scrolls through his phone.
“I’ll remind you that I’ve ranked in the Top 10 Most Attractive Streamers more times than you have,” Aleks taunts him.
“Ah, yes, but just watch, this year I’ll finally rank above you.”
“Want to make a bet on it?”
“The Aprilia?” Parker smirks.
“You fucking bet.” Aleks grins.
They’re children, I swear. I also don’t understand their bets. It’s always Parker betting something, but never anyone else…which isn’t how a bet works.
“Anyway,” Sydney cuts in, rerouting the conversation, “once they get a whiff of you, it might get a little dicey. I don’t expect a lot of issues, but you should anticipate some backlash from a few of the more intense fans. It’s an unfortunate reality for a lot of girlfriends.” Syd finally looks up from her phone. “But don’t worry. I’ve got your back.”
I know she does. They all do.
“I’m not worried. If I can handle the politics of the Californian elite, I’m sure I can charm the rest of the world.”
This is what my mother raised me to do. I can work a room with my eyes closed. I haven’t spent years battling against Felicity Taylor just to be bested by some online trolls.
Aleks pulls me into his chest, and I snuggle into him.
“That’s my girl.”
“Always.”
THIRTY-THREE
* * *
ALEKS
“Are you lagging or something, English? Your shots are shit.”
“Well, maybe if someone wasn’t camping out by the weapon drop, I could get a better fucking gun.”
“I’m not camping.”
I’m totally camping.
I watch as Parker’s character comes ducking and rolling into the loading dock. I snipe him with a headshot. Again. He cusses me out, and I laugh back at him.
Then the screen switches perspective, and I watch as Jackson’s character assassinates me with a knife.
“Asshat.”
“The karma of camping,” he drawls.
“Oh, yeah, that’s great coming from the guy who keeps using his invisibility shield.”
“Don’t be bitter, it’s unattractive.”
While I wait to resurrect, I scan the chat. At least half of the messages are asking me to turn on the camera. BladeGurl69 is asking for “some of that eye candy,” while ProFly_1 is arguing that our video was AI-generated and “there’s no way all three of them could be attractive.”
It’s been two weeks since our reveal, our video having reached over twenty million views, but I’ve yet to actually stream or post any videos with my camera on. It’s just not my instinct.
I have taken off my gloves, though. Baby steps.
We’ve had hundreds of sponsors reach out offering us new filming equipment, gaming gear, and merch. Parker was on the money when he said we would hit new levels. All of our subs went up, and my average stream views are nuts. It doesn’t look like it will be slowing down any time soon. Sydney has had to hire an assistant just to help field all our social media and publicity requests. The three of us sit down for our first interview next week, and tomorrow night we’ll be heading to the Gods League Champion Series opening event.
Four weeks ago, Stevie and I thought we would have to sneak around the event. Now, she will be riding in the limo with the rest of us.
Stevie lounges on the bean bag I bought her, sketching away in her notebook. She’s been camped out at the apartment for the last four days ever since the media eventually got wind of our relationship and her place got mobbed. One of the outlets had finally gotten around to using the information Decker had scrounged up. We upped security for her, but she said it was just easier to stay here.
I stream with the boys for another hour before logging off and switching over to Death Valley to film some role-play content for my channel. I film around two hours’ worth of content, messing around with some new people I brought into my server, then send the footage to our editor. He’ll edit it into four separate videos to be posted over the next week.
It’s only ten, but Stevie’s knocked out on the beanbag. I go to move her sketchpad so I can carry her to bed but pause when I see what she was working on. It’s a graphite half-body image of me gaming, my expression pulled into a smirk. It shocks me. Not that she sketched me, but the image itself. I’m so used to seeing myself playing in the mask that the simplicity of it just being me and my headset throws me off.