Page 3 of Sneaking Around with the Player
I look around us to figure out why she’s freaking out, but everyone near us is minding their own business and perfectly calm. “Are you okay?”
“My ex,” she whispers. “Two o’clock. Blue hat, standing a foot above everyone else. Cute blonde attached to his hip.”
I find the guy. He is tall. Lean and lanky, making him seem even taller. I’m six foot one, and I doubt he’s more than a few inches taller than me. The chick beside him stares up at him adoringly. She’s wearing a sweatshirt, just like the girl next to me.
“Are they gone?” she asks, still hiding.
“No.”
She sits up a little straighter and peers around me at the same moment he scans the crowd.
“What is he doing here?” She whisper-hisses and ducks back down, moving a little closer to me like she’s using me as a shield. She smells nice, like mint and flowers. “Our gate is all the way at the other end of the terminal.”
After a thorough glance around the gate (I’m half-convinced he’s looking for the girl hiding next to me), he walks in the opposite direction, hand in hand with his new girlfriend.
“They’re going,” I say.
She lets out a breath and sits tall, but still close to me. She has freckles across the bridge of her nose, and I’ve finally placed the minty smell—wintergreen gum. Her eyes lock on mine and we both freeze for a moment, before my phone captures her attention. “What are you watching?”
She moves away, but still stares down at the screen in my hand.
“Twitch.”
“Speedrunning?” she asks, still staring down.
“Yeah. You know it?”
“Beating games superfast.” She nods. “I’ve seen some of those. My brother was obsessed with it when we were younger. He used to drive me crazy when we’d play video games together because I’d be trying to get all the coins and check things out, and he was racing to the finish or finding glitches to skip levels.”
“You have a brother?”
“And sister. You?”
“No. Only child. Lots of cousins, though.”
“Can I creepily watch over your shoulder?”
“No need to creep,” I say, and angle my phone so she can watch. I take my headphones from around my neck and hold them between us.
With a smile, she leans closer, resting her ear to one side, while I listen through the other. And that’s how we kill the next twenty minutes.
It’s...nice. We only talk to comment on the stream, but I’m having a good time and can’t seem to stop stealing glances at her.
The lull of the airport noise around us just sort of fades away. After a game, I like to have space. I need time to get my head straight, digest the good and bad from the game, read through the texts my dad always sends with feedback (mostly criticism), and let it all drift away so I can go back to being the happy-go-lucky guy everyone expects. But right now, I’m not thinking about anything but the girl next to me.
When the attendant working the closest gate announces that we’re about to start boarding, we both snap out of our happy bubble.
“Looks like you’re about to leave.”
“Yeah,” I say, and swivel until I locate my teammates. They’re three rows over, a mass of red. “What time does your flight leave?”
She looks at her watch. “Oh crap. We started boarding fifteen minutes ago.”
While she scrambles to get her stuff together, I stand and wait for her. Something like disappointment tugs at me.
“Do you want me to AirDrop you the link to the stream?” It’s a weak attempt to prolong some sort of contact with her. She’s hot and I had a good time.
“Yeah. That’d be great. I have a feeling I’m going to need a distraction on the flight home.”
