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Ever havesomething life-changing happen in your life, but you didn’t realize it was life-changing until much later?
That’s how I felt about meeting Emma.
For the first time in weeks I was looking forward to waking up in the morning and even to streaming. Ryan had called me earlier—and woken me up, and I had told him exactly that.
“I’m glad you found your spark again, man,” he said on the other side of the phone. “How’s your wrist now that you’ve had the brace on for some time?”
“It’s fine,” I replied. “The pain is nearly gone, but like the doctors said it’s unlikely I’ll fully recover. I need to start thinking about a career change.”
“Fuck, man, stop reminding me. I had to do try-outs for your replacement all week.”
“Did you find someone?”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah… I’m bringing in MalfRage. He’ll have to make some adjustments but it can work.”
A weight fell from my shoulders after hearing that. Dan—username: MalfRage—was a few years younger than us, but hewas one of my good friends and he knew his stuff. At least the team would be in good hands with him and he would get a chance to play in the big tournaments. Having two of my best friends team up was going to be interesting to follow.
“Dude, I nearly forgot to tell you but my mystery girl is actually a huge fan of yours. She totally fangirled when I mentioned you to her.”
“She better be. She’s stealing my Carry and my best buddy from me. Least she can do is try to imitate me,” Ryan shot right back. We both laughed.
Ryan and I said our goodbyes after a little more back and forth, promising to text each other later in the week.
As soon as I hung up, my thoughts drifted back to Emma. At first I thought I might have been exaggerating, but last night I became fully convinced—Emma was awesome. More than awesome, even. I couldn’t stop my thoughts from revolving around her. Maybe it was because I was bored out of my mind. Maybe it was because I had been isolated from all my friends this off-season. Maybe I was just lonely. But one thing was clear: I liked her company.
I had to keep this professional, though. Whatever this crush I was developing on her was, I had to bury it deep down while we were working together. Maybe after the contract runs out I could ask her out for real, but for now I had to keep it to myself. I wasn’t her boss or anything, but we were financially enmeshed. I guess that’s one way to put it. I didn’t want to take advantage of her or the situation so there was only one solution: I had to keep it hidden as best I could. I wouldn’t make even the slightest of moves. The thought of crossing that line, even unintentionally, made my stomach twist with guilt.
But what if she made a move? A stray thought bubbled up tothe surface. But she wouldn’t make a move because I wasn’t the type of guy women like her wanted. I was good for a night out, a one-night stand, a rebound sometimes, or as a friend they liked to keep around. But I haven’t had a woman agree to date me seriously since high school. And I wouldn’t call high school dating serious.
So I tried to keep myself busy during the day all the while doing my best to bury my crush as deep as the Mariana Trench.
When Emma arrived that evening, I was genuinely excited to see her again. The first order of business was agreeing on a different restaurant for dinner. She convinced me to try her favorite Korean place, so that’s what I ordered.
She asked about my day and I told her about the hundreds of emails I’d received and how I’d finally decided to clean out my inbox. When I asked her about her day she was way less wordy, saying it was fine and that there was always a lot of work every Friday at her warehouse.
She seemed eager to start playing so I pulled up my streaming program and we went live earlier than I had planned.
“Am I allowed to copy the new starting items PangoMango was buying on stream the other night?” she asked during the picking phase of her first game.
“Yeah, sure. Do you understand why he picked those items specifically?” I asked back.
“He goes all in for the first kill so he can give his lane an advantage. He prioritizes getting that early gold lead so he can snowball his Carry. Was that a satisfactory enough answer for you, coach?” She faked beingoffended.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “You’re a great student, Oracle. Let’s see if you can put that into practice.”
I talked her through some strategies but once the game started I saw that it was going to be a tough one. Her lane opponents had picked heroes that countered her own hero quite heavily and they knew what they were doing. I could feel Emma quietly seething beside me so I kept my engagement with chat to a minimum and focused on helping her navigate the game.
She didn’t win the lane, but they didn’t come out too far behind their opponents, all things considered.
I tapped her shoulder, and she nearly jumped in her seat. “Hey, you’re doing fine. The game isn’t over. You didn’t lose the lane outright which is more than what was expected of you. Look at the scoreboard and see where you can make the most impact.”
She blinked a few times as she thought over her options. “I ditch the Carry and go help the Top laner?” she asked, unsure. I nodded.
Their top lane teammate was snowballing his lead, so when Emma went to help them the whole team banded together and was able to pick off the enemies one by one. The game eventually ended in a win, despite the lackluster performance from Emma and her Carry teammate at the start.
“Fuck, this is so annoying,” she sighed and slid down in her chair. “I was tilted in the lane, too. I had zero impact on the game.”
I knew how frustrating it could be to feel like someone else had control of the game, but Emma’s reaction seemed a little extreme. Her frustration seemed to come from another place that didn’t have much to do with the match itself.
