3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Adam

M y concentration on the game was shot after watching Locke walk away, and okay, I might have enjoyed watching him walk away, too. Locke! Holy shit ! God, he was even hotter in person, and I had totally fanboyed all over him. Embarrassing .

I saved my game, closed the window, and pulled up the stream I'd missed earlier. When Locke appeared on screen, I got giddy all over again. It was surreal having someone online become a tangible, real person. I looked at my hand as if there was visible evidence that his skin had touched mine, which admittedly, was ridiculous. I still felt him though, that current that had passed between us.

With my headphones on once more, Locke's voice in my ears made me shiver. His tone was different in his stream, which made hearing him sound less certain and confident in person feel like a secret shared between us. It also made him more real. Did I really turn down his help? I could have played along. How many people got the chance to learn directly from a pro like Locke in person? I really did prefer to figure it out, though. I'd seen his play-through for this game, which had been what inspired me to invest in it. I might not be quick, but I was in no rush to get to the end. The longer it took me to play a game, the more I felt I got my money's worth.

With Locke's narration of his gameplay in my headphones, I couldn't keep the excitement to myself any longer. I pulled out my phone and shot off a text.

Me: Car!

When I didn't get an immediate response from my best friend, I kept going.

Me: Carmen!

Me: Carmen Barry!

Me: Carmen Marten Barry, this is an emergency. I NEED you!

Carmen: What?! What happened? Are you ok?

Me: Yes! OMG! You won't believe it!

Carmen: What is it?

Me: I just had a close encounter.

Carmen: Like…with an alien?

Me: No! It was so much better than that. I just met Locke.

Carmen: I'm sorry, not following. Who is that?

Me: Carmen, I'm so disappointed in you. How can you call yourself my best friend?

Carmen: Hey, I didn't choose you, you were just given to me. (Winking emoji with tongue)

It was an old joke between us. We'd been assigned as roommates when we first started college, but the random pairing had turned into a special friendship, a bond made even tighter as Carmen helped me unpack my identity and had been by my side through it all.

Me: True, but it was the best thing that happened to you.

Carmen: It was. Well, maybe after marrying Steve.

Me: Yeah, yeah. You're happy and in love with your new husband, big whoop. Can we get back to me? (Winky emoji)

Carmen: Such an ass. What's up, tell me everything. Who's this Locke person?

My eyes slid back to my monitor where his face appeared in the corner of the screen, a trans flag behind him. I felt a smile stretch at remembering him commenting on my pin. It wasn't about the button; it was an I-see-you moment, and it felt like we had something unique that connected us.

Me: He's only my FAVORITE streamer. No big deal.

Carmen: Oh…wait! I think I remember you mentioning him once.

Me: Ha. Ha. You're so funny. Unless you were busy sexting Steve the entire time, I've shown you clips. You KNOW who I'm talking about.

Carmen: Can I help it if you're across the country so I have to make sure my snark can reach you from afar?

Me: Don't worry, Car, your snark has infinite reachability. There is no out-running it.

Carmen: Good, just had to make sure that was established. Ok. So…Locke? You actually met him? Was it like a gaming event or something?

Me: OMG!! No! I met him at Randy's. I didn't notice him because I was busy playing, but HE came over to ME.

Carmen: (Eyes Emoji) Really? To do what? Did he look at your adorable face and fall madly in love with you?

Me: Sigh. I wish. No, he was just offering to help me with my game.

Carmen: Oh?! Did you take him up on it? Is this going to be a whole hot for tutor deal?

Me: Uh…….

Carmen: Oh no, what did you do?

Me: I turned down his offer.

Carmen: (Facepalm emoji) I'm surrounded by gay nincompoops. Why would you turn him down? He's your ‘favorite streamer.'

Me: It's a principle thing. FWIW- he seemed to appreciate that.

Carmen: Okay, fine, have your principles, whatever.

Me: Wait…who's the other nincompoop?

Carmen: My brother!

Me: Derek? What happened with him?

Carmen: So apparently he has a boyfriend he forgot to tell us about.

Carmen's brother had seemed pretty unattached a few months ago at her wedding. He'd looked fairly unhappy, too. As handsome as he was, he seemed to have a resting grumpy cat face.

Me: Really? Why was he hiding him? Your family is supportive.

Carmen: He wasn't intentionally hiding him, just like…oops…slipped his mind. But I can't really stay mad at him because you'll never guess who he's with.

My mind was trying to flip through all of the people we both knew in California, which wasn't a lot, since I'd only really spent time with her family and bridesmaids while I was out there.

Me: I literally can't think of anyone.

Carmen: Remember the guy I introduced you to at the wedding? My florist?

Me: Wait…Marley?

An image of the man with magenta hair and the brightest smile I'd ever seen popped into my head. He was a bigger guy but he radiated with confidence. We'd danced and flirted, and I had even been considering sneaking off with him, all revved up on wedding vibes, but then he disappeared like Cinderella.

Carmen: Yes! I don't know what such a sweet man sees in my grump of a brother, but Derek seems infatuated.

Me: You know what? I can actually picture it, sounds like the exact type of person he needed. Makes for a cute image.

Carmen: Yeah, it does. Doesn't make him any less of a nincompoop though. As for you! Normally, I would say you should never compromise who you are and what you stand for, but how many times do you get to meet your celebrity crush?

Me: Fuck. I blew it, didn't I?

Carmen: Nah. You did good. Sounds like it made for an exciting evening, at least.

Me: Yes! I'm never washing my hand again.

Carmen: Eww, you can keep your plague hand to yourself.

Me: I should head home, TTYL, love ya

Carmen: Love ya, too. Talk soon.

After I put my phone away, I unplugged and packed everything back into my handy-dandy crate, and walked back home. As I laid in bed that evening, I stared at my hand that had touched Locke's—yes, I had washed it—and I could swear I still felt his skin against mine. Which was utterly ridiculous. I was being ridiculous. Like Carmen said, though, how often did you get to meet your celebrity crush? Maybe it was fine if I allowed myself to get carried away, just a little.

I was so tempted to post about it, but I wouldn't. Locke had simply been there to pick up food, which didn't give me the right to announce a potential sighting location. The man deserved to have some privacy. At least I'd been able to talk to Carmen about it, because if I had to keep it to myself, I might have exploded. She knew of him because of me but would have no care whatsoever about his whereabouts, and she wouldn't say anything.

It was a moment, just one fleeting moment, that made my otherwise typical day something I would remember. Maybe it would become the story I told during the holidays or as a playful anecdote. A sigh let loose as I stared up at the ceiling. It wasn't only that I enjoyed watching him online. It was also how open he had been through his journey.

Watching the incredible amount of support he'd received, especially after his top surgery, had been truly touching and inspirational. As far as I was concerned, Locke had played a huge role in the change of climate in the gaming world. There were still trolls, but it felt like people were quicker to stand up against them than they might have been before.

It didn't hurt that the man was hot, too. Like…haawwwt. Seeing him up close was even better. The way his bright blue eyes zeroed in on me had my cheeks burning. Locke had this silky, platinum blond hair that fell longer on one side, and cheekbones that made me want to run my tongue along them. Under the neon lights of the diner, it looked like he had some faint stubble along his jaw. I didn't have any facial hair but loved me some stubbly men.

The next day at work, in between showing the graves of Paul Revere and Samuel Adams at the Granary Burying Grounds, my mind wandered as the tourists did. Just casually strolling about in my head. It was ridiculous that I was so fixated on those two minutes at the diner with Locke, but I just couldn't shake it. My focus was shot today, but luckily there was never a shortage of questions from the tourists to pull me back to the past.

When I got my phone from my locker, I checked my notifications to see I had a message from Avery asking if I wanted to join them at the club tonight. It would probably be a great way to get all this weirdness out of my system, but I knew Locke had a stream starting soon, and I wanted to live in my little fantasy for a bit longer. It might end up backfiring and make it harder to shake the encounter, but I was dying to see his face, wondering if I had imagined all the details of it.

I rode home as quickly as I could, and practically ran up the stairs with my bike, surprising Kris when I came into the apartment with a crash.

"Everything okay, Adam?" Her eyes scanned over me in that motherly way of hers, assessing for damage.

"Yes, sorry. I'm just in a hurry. I have a…meeting….thing." I glanced at my watch and saw I had two minutes until the stream would start. A meeting? Seriously? It sounded a little better than the not-at-all urgent livestream that I was trying to catch in order to drool over someone I'd met for five seconds. Still, I felt bad for lying. It wasn't even anything worth lying about.

"Don't let me keep you. Good luck." Kris waved as she headed to her room with a barbell in hand. She never mentioned it, but I noticed that she had picked up a few weights since all of the time she spent watching the muscly Neve at Randy's. Was she trying to impress her? I shook my head with amusement. Hopeless, the both of us.

In my room, I leaned my bike against the wall, kicked off my shoes, and practically dove onto the bed, laying on my stomach and propping myself up on my pillow. I opened the Twitch app and clicked on the channel.

"Welcome to Locke_N_Load. It's indie game day, and as promised, I'll be demo-ing and reviewing a few different indie horror games."

My heart skipped a beat at seeing his face and hearing his voice. With his video in the corner and the game screen front and center, he was too small on my phone to really examine and memorize his features. I wished I was on my monitor, but it could get awkward if I was ogling him in the middle of Randy's with the way I already felt my cheeks warm.

"Alright, the first game I'll be playing is called Patty's Attic. The description says, ‘You are locked in the attic, and you aren't alone. In order to escape, you'll have to find clues and solve puzzles before the shadows reach you.' Okay, sounds fun. Remember, I'm going in blind with you all, so it may take me a few minutes to get my bearings on the gameplay. Here we go."

I was captivated as he worked through timed puzzles, racing against the clock, as the room grew darker. The graphics were okay, but watching him play sucked me in. Locke was so quick. He took a brand new game he had never touched before and was able to work through logic and speed challenges before I could even figure out what was happening. The shadows were looming in around his body-less character, and I was on pins and needles. Locke put in the final code, the door opened, and he escaped with seconds on the clock.

"Yes!" I shouted to myself in my room, feeling like the kid reading the NeverEnding Story , as if he could hear me. So ridiculous. I decided to add a message in the chatbox. I sent a Poggers emoji, which featured Pepe the Frog—a popular Twitch emote—with wide eyes and an open mouth. After the frog, I typed in, ‘ Locke, bringing us home at the last second .'

"Alright, that was Patty's Attic . I think it was a pretty solid game. Without any instructions or guidance, it took a minute to figure out where to start and where to find the needed clues, but I think it worked. Once I got into it, it had some pretty clever puzzles. The keys were a little tricky, but overall, I had fun, had to work my brain a little and…" his eyes slid to the chatbox and something caught his attention. His eyes rounded, and he stared at it for a moment, before shaking his head and returning his gaze to the camera. "Sorry. Yeah, decent. And for the price point, I think it's a good value. Well done, thanks to the makers for sending it to me. Up next, I have something a little different. This one is simply titled, ‘ Run, Bob .'" Locke chuckled. "Okay, Bob, let's see how this goes. Who's ready?"

A sea of emotes popped up. Locke's eyes drifted over, stalled for a moment, before centering. I scanned through the chat to see what was giving him pause but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Not until I got a friend request. A request from the very same streamer I was currently watching.

My heart leapt in my chest and was speeding out of control. I panicked for a moment before finally accepting it, not sure what was happening. Hell, yes, I'll be your friend, Locke . As soon as I accepted it, my inbox showed I had a message. I clicked on it, and a Whisper chatbox popped up with a direct message from Lock_N_Load.

Locke_N_Load: Adam?

"Holy shit!" I pushed myself up and sat cross-legged on my bed. He said my name! He actually remembered me and my name.

"Instructions are basic key controls for movement, an action key, and a long-hold to run key. Let's check it out," Locke narrated as he began the game, his eyes darting to the lower corner of his screen.

He remembered me and messaged me in the middle of a livestream? What the fuck?

Me: Yeah, hi, that's me, I'm Adam. How did you know?

"Okaaay, so I guess this is Bob. I don't see an option to change the camera view, so it looks like we get the forehead angle; that's an interesting choice. Here we go, walking along on a dark, deserted highway, wind blowing in our hair."

The chatbox exploded in lyrics from the Eagles song. My DM pinged, even as Locke's character wandered around looking at abandoned cars.

Locke_N_Load: Your username. I wasn't sure, but I haven't seen many like it, so I took a chance.

I stared at my username—Keroppi_is_King—and was flabbergasted that he somehow figured it out. Of course, I had been wearing my Keroppi hoodie when we met, but it had been such a brief interaction. Butterflies took flight at him noticing that detail.

Me: Looks like you got lucky.

Shit, shit, shit! Come back! I did not mean for that to sound as suggestive as it did, but there was no undoing it.

Me: I didn't mean that how it sounded.

On screen, Locke's lip twitched in amusement, when there was nothing happening in the game that would earn such a look. Fuck! This was so surreal. He was reacting on screen to my message. His character opened the trunk of a car, only to have an arm reach out and grab him.

"Oh, shit! Run, Bob, run!" Locke shouted as he sprinted away. The chatters were all shouting, ‘ Run, Bob !'

Once he was far enough away, he stopped running and looked around to see that he was no longer being chased. "Phew, okay. So, we have zombies. Speedy fuckers, too. I'm not sure the objective yet, but it looks like it's going to come down to quick reactions. There aren't any fighting controls, so the only defense is running."

Locke: Maybe not so lucky.

Me: OMG, I would die so fast in that game.

Locke: LOL, not to agree, but yeah, probably. Hey, did you ever beat that dragon?

Me: No, not yet.

"It won't let me go any farther, so I'm guessing that there's something I missed, and it's probably got a shit ton of ghoulies hiding behind it. I'm going to scope everything out but will be ready to sprint." Locke kept playing, walking a grid over the area to find what he missed.

Locke: Oh? How many more times did you try?

Me: None, SOMEONE interrupted me, and then I lost my groove.

Locke: Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't really intend to, I just…got caught up.

Me: Oh yeah? Rescuing damsels in distress, is that your thing?

Locke: I didn't see any damsel.

My heart did a pitter-patter again. Before I could figure out how to respond, my eye caught a lot of ‘Run, Bob! Run!' and Pepega emotes filled the chatbox, reacting to the bad call.

Locke's eyes flashed to the screen where six sets of hands reached for him, and he sprinted. "Oh, shit!" The zombies stayed right on his tail, but he waited too late. Red filled the screen.

"Suck a duck!" Locke exclaimed. Suddenly all was forgiven. As long as he said that phrase, he could do no wrong, even die in an indie game because he was distracted by me.

Me: OMG! Did you just die because of me?!

Locke: No, I died because I wasn't paying attention.

Me: Because of me. Sadness.

Locke: No, I was just…distracted. But maybe we can call it Karma if that makes you feel better.

Me: You know what? Kinda, yeah. You totally deserved that.

A smile stretched wide across my face. Here I was shooting the shit with Locke while he was streaming. No big deal. Though my racing heart and fluttering belly gave away how big a deal it actually was.

Locke: Probably did.

"So the quiet, casualness of the game is deceiving, and things go to hell fast. I'm going to try this again and see if I can keep Bob alive," Locke said into the camera as he restarted the game.

Me: You should maybe go, though. I can't have two of your deaths weighing over me, my hands are too cute and little to have blood on them.

Locke: LMAO, alright, TTYL

Me: Yeah, absolutely.

Locke didn't return to the chat and stayed focused, kept Bob alive, and played through another indie game. At one point, he winked at the camera at a mention of Karma, and I knew that wink was for me. My butterflies had fluttered so hard, I thought they might burst through me like a xenomorph. Right as Locke was signing off from the video, I sent him one more message.

Me: Hey, thanks for reaching out. It was nice chatting with you.

I saw his eyes dart down and a crooked smile appeared on his face that made me feel all gooey. He finished his sign off and ended the stream. I could no longer see what he was doing or how he reacted, and I didn't like it. How rude to go from breaking the fourth wall to having to continue on like a normal human, sitting and waiting for someone to respond. Luckily, I didn't have to wait long, or I might have started overthinking it, more than I already had.

Locke: Yeah, same. Thanks for letting me Whisper at you like a creeper.

Me: You can Whisper at me any time, baby.

Shit! That was probably too much and way too familiar. I let my head drop onto my pillow.

Locke: I'll keep that in mind.

Not knowing what else to say or do, or how he'd read into it, I decided running away was the best option. I closed the app and turned over in my bed, flopping onto my back. If I had gone into a frenzy over the brief encounter at the diner, then knowing that Locke had purposefully sought me out had my mind all over the place.

Maybe he did that all the time. Maybe I was just one of many that he happened to message and connect with. Although, I had seen a lot of his videos and had never seen him get distracted unless he was playing with other streamers.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't typical, but it didn't mean anything aside from satisfying his curiosity. I wasn't mad about that, though. Not when I was still riding the high of the exchange. I was beyond happy that I decided to stay home tonight instead of going out to the club. There was a chance I could have spent the night having hot, sweaty guys grind against me on the dance floor, but this was way better.