Page 42 of Totally Fanatic

LION

The bar is prettybusy and loud with a bunch of people from the game choosing to also stop in for a drink and bite to eat. Tim isn’t here yet, he’s on his way, though, and I order us some breaded vegetable rice balls and a club soda. He played amazing tonight, just like he does every game. His flip-and-split catch is getting more shares and comments than any of my other recent posts. He’s going to get such a boost from seeing how much everyone loves him. He probably hasn’t even seen the buzz around him given his rule for staying off socials unless he’s eating. I’m not sure I could be that disciplined. I am always checking my phone to see if he’s posted, but to also message the posts about him and share them to boost the engagement. It’s really great seeing the number of Tim’s fans grow.

When he walks through the door, he doesn’t look happy, he looks worried, and Duckie and Ian are behind him, but when he spots me and doesn’t flash that glowing smile, I know something has to be really wrong. He makes his way over, and my stomach churns. Something isn’t right. Duckie and Ian move off to thebar, and Tim shakes a few hands, forcing a half grin for a couple of selfies on his way over to the booth, then slumps into the seat opposite me.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, reaching across the table for his hand. He moves it back before I can take it, probably a good thing with all the people in here. I mean, he isn’t in the closet, but we haven’t really talked about what we are yet, so it’s probably not great to end up with a photo of us holding hands out there before we announce what we are. “Are you okay? I ordered you a club soda. Oh, and we have the veggie ball things coming. You like those, right?”

“I do, yeah, thanks. Umm, Lion…” He looks over his shoulder, and I follow his gaze to where Duckie and Ian are sitting. They are both looking over at us like they are waiting for something.

“Did you want to invite Duckie and Ian to eat with us? I don’t mind. I know this was supposed to be just us, but I like your friends.”

He lets out a tiny laugh that only slightly brightens his face. This is not like him at all. The last time he looked so down, so tired, he was overworking himself trying to beef up after some douchebag posted a comment about Tim, saying some shit like them, making them smaller in Aus. I reported the post a bunch of times from all my accounts until it was removed. Fuck that guy, Tim is amazing. No one should be able to post shit that makes someone feel bad about how they look.

“No, it’s okay. They are just grabbing a drink. I have to talk to you about something I found out today.”

Fuck, they are not cutting him from the team, are they? He’s playing the best he’s ever played. They can’t do this. Shit. If that is what it is, he’ll be okay. He can start his business earlier than he planned. I already found a bunch of secondhand food trucks that could be awesome for him. I was going to show him tonightafter dinner. Once he told me about his dream to have his own truck, I started looking at what he would need to get started. It will be okay. He will be okay. Fuck those guys if they can’t see how amazing he is.

“Lion, do you have more than one profile online?”

“Yeah, I do, why?”

He looks up at me, a deep frown across his forehead.

“Do you have twenty-three profiles?”

I shrug. “Maybe. I lost track after the first couple.” His flushed face grows into a deeper red, and his frown becomes a scowl. “Are you mad? You look mad.”

“You set up a bunch of profiles to post about me online.”

“Yeah. It’s pretty clever, right?”

He glances back over his shoulder at Duckie and Ian, shaking his head a little, then turns back.

“Clever? I’m going to need you to explain this to me,” he says with a sigh. “Why did you create twenty-three profiles?”

“Well, at first, I got locked out of my main profile on my phone, so I created another one on my computer because I had a bunch of photos from the game, and I wanted to share them right away. But then when I got back in and shared the photos to my main page, the views and comments on it were so much higher than I had before. So, I tried it again, and every time I shared one of the posts from one page on the other, the views, the people seeing how awesome you are, just got bigger. So I set up a few more profiles to see if I could get it to go even bigger, and it did. The more of my profiles I messaged and shared, the more other people saw the posts and engaged, too. It was great.”

He rakes his fingers through his still-damp hair and then massages the back of his neck.

“You wanted other people to see the posts, not me?”

“I wanted you to see them, too. The comments as well, so you would see how wonderful you are. You were starting to worry you weren’t. I wanted you to know that you are.”

“So, you did it for me, but not because you wanted to… because you wanted… this?” he asks, gesturing back and forth between us.

“I don’t know what you’re asking.”

He leans forward across the table, and I do the same, his big blue eyes glassy and peering right into my soul.

“Did you do this to try to get me to notice you?”

“What? No. I… I never,” I say, sitting back, and he rubs his hands over his face before grabbing the soda water I got him and drinking it down in one go. “I didn’t, I swear. I just wanted everyone to see how amazing you are.”

“You just wanted other people to like me?” he asks, resting the cup down and staring at it for a second.

“Yeah. I wanted them to see you how I see you. The number of fans following my feed is in the thousands, now. That’s thousands of people all supporting you. I didn’t try to sleep with you.” I lean forward again. “You kissed me, remember? Then you… you know.” I glance down to my crotch, then back up.

“I know I did, it’s just. There was the wedding, then the soup and now these accounts, It doesn’t look great. It looks like you’re…”

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