Page 48 of One More Round

The next morning, my parents eat a quick breakfast with us before heading off to the hospital. I don’t know what changed with my mom, but she doesn’t give me grief for not going back to the hospital. Once they leave, we don’t waste much time getting undressed and having another romp, but in the bed this time. After we are finally able to pull ourselves away from each other, we pack up our bags and head back to Chicago.

Our hands intertwined, we find ourselves in easy conversation for most of the drive. When we aren’t talking, we are listening to music.

“So, I have to ask, Simon. Why gaming?” I’m really curious because while he played a lot when we were younger, he never talked about wanting to pursue it professionally. I didn’t realize it was a thing.

“What do you mean? I’ve always loved video games, you knew that.” He cocks an eyebrow my way.

“Yeah, I remember, I mean, like how did you get into it? It wasn’t on your radar at all before I left.” I try not to cringe when I mention my leaving but I can’t help it. However, he doesn’t flinch.

“Well, when I found myself with suddenly nothing to do with my free time,” he looks over at me with a knowing smirk, “I started gaming more. I was already pretty good, the more I played, the better I got. Obviously.

“I built up a reputation pretty quickly and the summer before I was set to leave for college, Dex reached out to me about a new team opportunity. It was really low-key at first. At the time,” he pauses and thinks for a second, “Dex, Link, Chuck, Bernie, and myself were all in different places. Chuck was the only one not enrolled in college. I was already going to The Illinois Institute of Art, so it was almost like fate that Chicago became our home base of sorts. We just started out practicing together between our classes. We had scheduled times and somehow made it work. We all even managed to graduate. I’m pretty sure Bernie graduated early,” he chuckles.

“So, you’ve been in Chicago for about six years now?”

“Yup.”

“Do you think this is where you will stay for good?” I wonder.

“I do love it here,” he says.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how do you guys make so much money? Ruby said that, as a team, you guys bring in millions a year. That’s impressive but when you split it five ways …” I trail off.

“Almost ten million in the six years we’ve been doing this. If we branched off and competed in more than one game, it would be more. One of our competitors participates in seven different games and I think their more recent tournament earnings total was almost twenty million.” He says all this stuff like it’s not a big deal he’s a freaking millionaire.

“We get sponsorship deals, that’s part of that ten million. As a team we are sponsored by Vertagear, which is gaming chairs, and SCUF, which is gaming controllers. And then individually, we also get our own deals. Like I have a contract with Gunners, the gaming glasses. Dex with Turtle Beach. Bernie is with Jinx, which is apparel, but she’s always turning companies away since she is one of the few women in the industry right now. Even though he isn’t on the team anymore, Link makes a killing on advertising on his YouTube channel and writing strategy guides for the game publishers. He also has a sponsorship with Turtle Beach.”

“Well that’s really cool, Simon. Color me impressed.”

“So, you don’t mind that your boyfriend plays games all day and gets paid for it?” He turns a lopsided grin my way.

Hearing him refer to himself as my boyfriend makes me a bit giddy. I like it.

“Nope. But that’s only because you make so much money,” I say as nonchalantly as possible.

“Ha-ha. Real funny, well I guess I’m just gonna have to make you earn nice things and romantic gifts,” he says mimicking my tone.

I try to remain unfazed, but I see the biggest grin on his face and I can’t help but laugh.

“Whatever. I don’t need gifts.” I lean over and kiss his cheek. “I’m just happy to be your girlfriend.”

“Yeah, well what if I still want to make you earn it?” he teases.

I playfully punch his bicep.

“So, you guys are like in your prime right now? How long do you plan on pro gaming? What happens next?” I ask.

“Well, honestly, we’ve probably got another year or two in it. Well, when I say ‘we’ I mean Dex and me. We are getting kinda old for the industry.”

I snort. Since when is mid-twenties old? But he continues.

“When we are ready to retire though, I wouldn’t mind putting my degree to use. My degree is in game art and design, so I’d love to design a video game. We’ve tossed around an idea for our own video game company, but it's a huge undertaking, one that we just don’t have time to get started on now.”

“Well, it sounds like you’ve got your life pretty much figured out,” I offer.

Chuckling, he nods his head. “Yeah, but only until recently.”

~~~

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