4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Locke

I had never been more relieved to end a stream than I was today. My focus was gone, and I struggled through the last thirty minutes.

It was my own fault. I shouldn't have messaged Adam while I was live. It was hard to keep track of chatters in the middle of streaming, so I have it set to release them in chunks which allows me to do a quick skim without killing my eyes as it scrolls endlessly. When I saw Keroppi_is_King pop up, my mind immediately went to the guy at the diner whose rosy cheeks looked just like the frog on his hoodie.

He had the default icon as his profile picture, and when I clicked on his profile page, he didn't have anything in his bio. The profile was blocked from receiving messages except from friends.

So I sent a friend request, which could have gone colossally bad if it had been a rando viewer, though I was prepared to unfriend or block immediately if it took a weird turn. It had, but not in the way I thought it would.

I had no plan and really had no idea what I was expecting would happen. Thinking back on the brief chat made me smile. It was simple, but nice. My inbox was full of messages from viewers and streamers, though I communicated with my closest friends on other sites like Discord or Instagram, since the chat features were limited and you couldn't share gifs or images on Twitch.

The chats from viewers covered a wide range from angry, to obsessively fanning, to ones that toed the line of uncomfortable. I'd had plenty that I blocked and reported. Unfortunately that came with the territory when you put yourself out there online. Reaching out to a viewer unsolicited was not the norm for me.

Adam had been excited and surprised to see me at the diner, but he didn't go overboard. Same in the Whisper chat. There was something about him that felt safe in a weird way. Maybe it was because he was trans, too. It wasn't just the pronoun pin he'd worn, but I could see things in him that I saw in myself, especially earlier in my transition.

For a brief moment, after a long day of putting on my streamer persona, I could let that guard down and just be me. Awkward though it was.

Somehow I had gotten caught up in the chat with him, and I was off my game…literally. It had been months since I had an on-air character death, and now that counter was set back to zero, which was regrettable. Talking with Adam wasn't, though. I would do it over again, but perhaps in a more casual game, or not…live. That would probably be ideal.

His tease at the end about me whispering to him could have been friendly and playful and without meaning, but something about it made my heart jump. Imagining him calling me ‘ baby ,' fuck that made my body heat up. I was certain he didn't mean it in a sexual way, but I was in such a long dry spell, I could probably read too much into anything and turn it dirty.

I wasn't one for casual hookups because I hated having to instruct people constantly and go through my no-fly zones. If I was going to go through all that effort, I kind of wanted someone who was sticking around, so I wouldn't have to start from scratch each time. With the general solitude I lived in, well…there weren't a lot of opportunities to meet people. Online, of course, but it was risky being someone that an entire community knew. I couldn't risk getting put on blast, or revenge porn, or anything made public that I wanted kept private.

My income depended on my followers and viewership, and it just wasn't something I could mess with. I'd seen other streamers have their entire career yanked out from them because of a jealous ex or scorned lover.

A notification sounded on my phone, and I saw I had a message from a streamer friend. Stubby primarily played Fortnite , a wildly popular battle royale game. I did squad streams with him and a couple other streamers sometimes, which allowed us to have multiple people sharing the same stream. It was a great way to cross promote each other's channels and introduce new viewers to other streamers. It might not have been my favorite game, and I never streamed it on my own, but it helped break up the monotony and was fun for us and the viewers.

DubDubMcStubbs: Bruh! I caught your stream.

Me: (Wincing emoji) Was it that bad?

Stubbs: I've seen worse, but not from you and not in a long time. What's up? Everything okay?

Me: Yeah. It's all good, Stubby. I was chatting with someone and lost my focus.

Stubbs: SOMEONE? Sounds mysterious. Do I know this…someone?

Me: Uh…probably not. He's a local.

Stubbs: Oh? Do tell.

Me: Nothing to tell, man. Just a guy I ran into.

Stubbs: Uh huh, sure. Just a guy. Just a guy that distracted you enough that you let yourself get killed.

Me: It was just an off day, it happens.

Stubbs: Okay, yeah, sure. Whatever you say. Anyway, that's not the only reason I'm reaching out.

Me: Oh? What's up?

Stubbs: The Play OUT Loud Awards nominations are coming up and rumor has it your name has been mentioned.

Me: Shut up! Are you serious?

Stubby replied with a GIF of SpongeBob whistling innocently. Holy shit! Play OUT Loud was an annual awards ceremony that celebrated queer streamers and content creators. The people they've recognized in the past were huge names. Names that were known even beyond the inner circles of Twitch, TikTok, and Youtube, which often had a lot of overlap. Having my name brought up for such a big award could be life-changing.

Me: Like how serious is this?

Stubbs: I'm just saying that you should be aware that there might be extra eyes watching (winky emoji)

Me: Fuck.

Stubbs: Just keep being yourself, Locke. There's a reason people are talking about you. Proud of you, friend.

Me: Thanks, Stubby.

I sat back in my chair and pushed my hands through my hair. Fuck, this was huge! How soon would they make their decisions? Have they already been watching? What would they be looking for?

This seemed unreal. I've been working my ass off since I was eighteen, trying to prove to everyone that I could make a career out of gaming. In the five years of doing it, I had. Enough to live on comfortably, but it was a lot of work, and I was only one man. Ideally, I would have people on my team that could handle all of the behind the scenes stuff like editing, marketing, contracts, and sponsors, so I could focus on the streaming side of things.

Suddenly, with the possibility of the Play OUT Loud Award, that vision seemed almost attainable. I stood up and began pacing around the room. Nothing was certain. I was getting way ahead of myself. If I had any hope of getting this thing, I had a lot of work ahead of me. With a glance at my monitors, I felt like I needed to do something, but was feeling too antsy to focus.

A part of me was eager to call someone to freak out with. I couldn't tell my parents, because they would assume it was a done deal and they would tell everyone they know, as if to prove I wasn't just a game-obsessed loser instead of a doctor or lawyer. It wasn't a done deal, far from it. At this point, it was purely a rumor. Although, Stubby had been in the game for a long time and had connections. He wouldn't have told me unless it came from a reliable source. I was tempted to ask him where he'd heard it, but if it was meant to be on the down-low, I didn't want to put him in a difficult position.

I needed to tell someone. All the other people I knew were gamers, and it wouldn't be good to get them all hyped about it on a remote possibility. Besides, if someone else was in the running for it, or hoped to be, I shouldn't go running my mouth off about it. There was no one to tell, leaving me to sit with this information all by myself.

Unless… Would it be weird if I messaged Adam again? Not to hear him call me baby, but to have someone to talk to? Sigh . No. I couldn't do that. We'd barely talked, and while I felt safe with him, I didn't think I could just jump back into the Whisper chat and drop this on him. Although, maybe if I happened to run into him once more? What were the chances that he would be at Randy's again? He had been watching my stream, but did he do that at the diner, too?

Giving myself an out in case I changed my mind, I placed my order ahead this time. After a quick change and with a specific destination in mind, I left in a hurry and walked straight toward the diner.

Luckily, my order was ready when I got there. Unluckily , I couldn't see that short dark blond hair, soft rosy cheeks, or Keroppi hoodie. There were others with computers set up, but they looked like they were busily typing away. Writers? Interesting. I wondered what kinds of things they wrote and if I knew of them. Not that I would because I didn't give myself a lot of time to read, but when I did, I usually went for fantasy romance or alien smut.

With another glance around, I couldn't hide the disappointment I felt that Adam wasn't here. Feeling a little out of sorts with the strange direction the day had taken, I decided to step out of my comfort zone. I stopped the server walking past me.

"Excuse me?"

Henry looked at me through long, fake lashes. "Yes?"

"Sorry to interrupt, I was just wondering if you knew the guy that was here with his computer yesterday?"

He waved his hand around, the acrylic nails fluttering. "A lot of folks have computers here."

Right. "Yeah, I meant the one that had the full set-up. Like monitor and everything?"

One brow arched sky high as he smirked and folded his arms across his chest. "Uh huh, I know the one you mean. What of it?"

Shit. I didn't know. What was I trying to get at here? "Is he a regular?"

"He might be. You know who you should ask about it?" His eyes flashed with amusement.

I played with my keys in my pocket for something to do, while my other hand held the bag of food. "Who?"

"Ask for Randy, love." He gave me a wink before walking away to take an order.

"Randy?" As in the owner? Fuck me! I really didn't want to talk to anyone else.

"What did you say?" I must have said the name louder than I realized. Another server nearby looked up and caught my eye.

"Oh…um, is Randy here?"

Their eyes rounded. "What do you need with Randy?"

"I was told to ask for him. Or her, or them. I'm sorry I don't know their pronouns." And now I wanted to crawl into a corner and die. But maybe not a corner in the diner, because I really needed to get away from there.

"Yup, that's right."

"Oh? Which one is it?"

"Any of them, all of them. Whichever pronoun you use is fine. What did you need to ask Randy?"

"I was inquiring about a guest that was here. The server, Henry, told me to ask, but I probably should just go."

They walked over and slapped a hand on the counter. "Hey, we got someone looking for Randy."

Fuck! This really wasn't what I wanted. I was wishing more than ever I had grabbed my food and left instead of opening my mouth. "It's not that big of a deal."

One of the cooks came over. She wore workout clothes, had short hair, and ripped, muscular arms. A look of concern crossed her face. "You the one asking for Randy?"

My skin was crawling with how much I wanted to escape the situation. Everyone had always been really nice here, but something had gotten their hackles up, and I was feeling all kinds of ready to leave my body. "Actually, no. I was looking for someone, a guest, but was told to talk to the owner. I don't actually need to, though. I'm sorry to have bothered you all."

"It's no bother. What did you want to know about this guest? Was there a problem? Randy and the staff here take safety very seriously; physically and emotionally. If anyone is giving you a hard time, we'll do whatever we can legally get away with to ensure it doesn't continue." The cook straightened, and her name tag showed as Neve, AKA, also not Randy. Who the fuck was Randy, anyway? Not that it mattered.

"No. No! It's nothing like that. I simply met someone and was curious to see if they were a regular. I don't know, I guess I was hoping to run into them again."

"Well, see, that protection spreads to all of our guests, so we wouldn't give out information easily."

I shook my head, imagining I was dealing with NPC's—non-player characters—who were not controlled by the player. Out of control was definitely what I was feeling as they were locked into pre-set scripts waiting for me to ask the right question.

"Understandable, and I can appreciate that. Really. I'm just going to go." I held up my bag of food that was growing colder and left before anyone could say anything else.

I saw Henry, the server who started this whole wild goose chase, wave and chuckle as I fled away. What the hell was that all about?

The whole thing kept playing over and over in my head. I couldn't be mad at them because I really did respect that they were protecting a guest. I could have been anyone, and with being a known safe space for LGBTQIA+ folks, having protocols in place was commendable. Had I been the one needing help, it felt like they were ready to go to war for me as well, and they didn't even know me.

Maybe Henry was jerking me around, which didn't make me feel great, but at the same time, I was asking something I shouldn't have been either. Am I the asshole in this situation? Well, maybe not the only one, but I felt like crap, anyway. At least it took my mind off the award for a moment. Though, I really wished I had been able to tell someone about it. I was also more bothered about not seeing Adam than I had any right to be. There was nothing between us. He was a fan I happened to run into, plain and simple.

When I got back home, I opened my pot roast meal—yes, I was having it again. It happened to be delicious, and I knew I liked it. The first bite of rich tender beef melted in my mouth, easing some of the horror that had happened. Bite after satisfying bite, my thoughts shifted away from the diner, which would have been great, except they returned to the news I'd gotten from Stubby.

On my phone, I looked up the award to see the list of previous recipients. The names that were mentioned were all well-known and represented a wide variety of online personalities. One was a drag queen who had blown up on TikTok for her drag queen storytime. Another was a deaf bisexual woman who had an ASL Youtube channel. The winner a few years ago had been a gamer, but he had played a big role in getting a popular game to rewrite their coding in order to have same-sex love interest options.

Who was I to be listed among all of these amazing people? What had I accomplished that would consider me in the running for the award? I had no fucking idea, but what I did know is that I had to push myself harder than ever and show them I had something to offer.