Strong Signal (Cyberlove #1) (22 page)

“Likewise,” I managed.

My mother’s eyebrows flew up. She likely thought I was a pod person. Richard, on the other hand, beamed.

We shot the shit for a few minutes while my mother made me Hamburger Helper. She always made a big deal about wanting to make me a “real meal,” but I’d grown up on Hamburger Helper and it was my one true comfort food craving when I was overseas. Richard helped himself to a bowl, and I figured that made him a potentially all right human.

When he was gone, Nicole took his place at the table and cleaned out the pot.

“Verdict?”

I shrugged. “He may not be a serial killer.”

Nicole gripped her heart while my mother threw her arms up as if praising Jesus.

“It’s because he ate the Hamburger Helper isn’t it?” Nicole asked.

“No. I’m just trying to do this new thing where I don’t let my paranoid shit turn me into an overbearing jackass.”

“Wow.” Nicole licked her spoon. “Who are you?”

Our mother pulled up a chair and leaned in to study me. “Are you seeing someone?”

“Ah…about that.” I’d prepared a speech days ago, but I couldn’t remember it following the shitshow that had just occurred in Philly. “I am sort of seeing someone I met online while deployed.”

“Online?”
Nicole cackled and slapped the table. “After all of your shit talk about Ma meeting Dick on OKCupid?”

“Don’t call him Dick,” Mom said. “He hates it.”

Nicole smirked. “Don’t deny this is hilarious, Ma. It’s gold.”

“I don’t find it funny. You know why your brother is leery of the Internet.” The words sobered Nicole, and our mother went on. “But it is a surprise.”

“Yeah, more of one than you think.” I blew out another breath and rolled my eyes up to the ceiling. How to be delicate? “Look, I’m gay, okay? It’s a dude. I met a dude while playing a videogame, and now we’re together.”

I kept staring at the ceiling as they watched me. There was complete silence. I could hear a horn honking down the street and the neighbors screaming at each other next door. Apparently Jeremiah kept forgetting to take out the garbage and the dogs had torn the bag open. Serious shit.

“Garrett, I’m not your father.” Mom’s voice was soft. “Didn’t you see the pictures of Nicole and I at the marriage equality celebrations? It was all over Facebook.”

Someone grabbed my hand. A peek away from the ceiling showed me it was Nicole. She was grinning so widely it had to be false, whereas my mother just looked kind of peeved that I wasn’t up to date with her Facebook.

“We always figured it was possible you weren’t straight,” Nicole admitted. “You had zero interest in girls even though they had all of the interest in you.”

“Oh.” That was fucking anticlimactic. “Well, that’s what’s going on with me.”

“Tell us about the boy,” mom demanded. “He’s a video gamer?”

“He’s a
gay
mer!” Nicole crowed.

“Wow.” I shook my head. “He’s…” I couldn’t believe this conversation was happening this easily. I’d expected tears and a random proclamation about religion despite none of us having ever gone to church. “Are you seriously cool with this? I expected you to say I’m a sinner or complain about no grandchildren.”

Mom sneered. “I resent that you expected your only mother to be a bigot—”

“Oh fuck, just keep talking about the guy. Don’t get her started,” Nicole advised.

“Fine. Shit.” I shifted in the chair, squirming under their scrutiny. I’d survived IED explosions on patrols before my mechanic abilities had primarily kept me on the base, but a serious stare from a Reid woman had me sweating. “He killed me on a video game so I stalked him to his social media, found his stream channel, and ended up messaging him. The rest is history and whatever. We really like each other.”

“Stream channel?” mom sounded out the words like they were a different language.

“People pay a monthly subscription to watch him broadcast himself playing video games on his webcam. He’s made an amazing career out of it.”

“Like those YouTubers!”

“Yeah, Mom. Like the YouTubers.” Snickering, Nicole turned to me. “So is that where you’ve been since you got back to the States? With him?” She shoved me. “You liar.”

“I didn’t lie. You asked if I was with a girl, and I said no.”

“Okay, liar by omission. So what, you spent the last week or so fucking like beasts?”

“Nicole!” Mom yelled.

“What?” Nicole was all innocence.

My face was hot and my family was ridiculous. “Can we change the subject now, please?”

“Well,” Mom said. “Do we get to meet him?”

“Ah….” Should have seen that one coming. “I’ll have to work on that. He’s kind of a recluse.”

“Makes sense if his job keeps him on the Internet several hours a day.”

Of course Nicole would get it so easily. For as much as I hated living in Rickston, I loved my family. Even though I knew this confession would have gone down a lot differently had it happened with my father present.

“Promise you’ll work on it,” mom demanded. “I want to meet this guy. You’ve never liked anyone before.”

“Romantically, or just in general?” I asked with a smirk.

“What do you think?”

We laughed and some of the tension unknotted from my chest.

Kai

I was mad at Garrett.

Okay, well not
really
mad, just kinda mad. Because he was gone, yet he was everywhere. I couldn’t do anything without being reminded of the imprint he’d left on my life in a mere week.

I couldn’t shower without being reminded of the many times he’d fucked me against the wall, my face pressed against the tile as he slid in and out of me. I couldn’t eat without thinking about the time on the couch when he’d he licked ice cream off my chest. I couldn’t sleep without my bed feeling huge and empty without him in it.

And my job, my refuge, had been invaded by him because I couldn’t even get on Twitch without my viewers asking where “Garrett with the abs” was. And then MitchMatch asked about his bulge and shit went downhill from there, with Garvy slamming down the ban hammer left and right as Chat went crazy.

This was my life now, and I blamed my stupid Army boyfriend who I missed like air.

We’d texted a couple of times since he’d gone back to Rickston, which had been my call. He’d neglected his family to surprise me at my doorstep, which was romantic and all, but his family was…his family. I didn’t want them to resent me because Garrett was spending all his time there talking to me. He said he’d visit with them for a little, and come back to me. I had to have faith in that despite my doubts.

After nearly a full week, I couldn’t take it anymore. When Garrett asked for the millionth time if we could Skype, I agreed.

I sat cross-legged on my bed, my laptop in front of me, as the Skype call connected. Once Garrett was there on the screen, smiling, I realized how tense I’d been since he’d left. As soon as I was able to see him, my whole body went slack.

“Hey, baby,” he said. “How you doing?”

I stretched out a finger, as if I could touch him. “You got your hair cut.”

“Yeah, Ma did it. It was driving me crazy. Does it look okay?”

Garrett could dye his hair bright green or shave it all off and I’d still get hard just looking at him. “Of course, I was just surprised. You look good. Are you eating better?”

“Yep. And they’re trying to teach me how to cook.”

“How’s that going?”

He waffled his hand, which made me laugh. “You keeping busy?”

Sure, I’d been busy eating ice cream and wallowing. “Yeah, but I want to talk about you. Did you…tell them?”

The question earned me a rueful grin. “I should have just told them earlier. They were fine with it and not too surprised given my lack of interest in females for the past twenty years. And they’re happy that I have a boyfriend. Nicole wants to meet you.”

I bit my lip. “Um…”

There was a voice behind Garrett. He looked to the side, frowning. “Go away!”

A woman’s voice rang out. “Can’t I just peek at him?”

“He’s not a fucking sideshow, Nicole!” Garrett’s scowl was firmly in place. “I told you that you can meet him when he’s ready. Go shoot some cans or something.”

“It’s okay,” I blurted out.

Garrett did a double take. “What?”

“That’s your sister?”

“Yeah.”

Well, since I wasn’t getting myself to Rickston anytime soon, I could compromise. If his family wanted to meet me, well…I was here. I smoothed my hair out of my eyes, then straightened my shirt.

“First, do I look okay?”

“Seriously, Kai?”

“What? I don’t want her to see me when I look like a slob.”

Garrett scoffed. “You look perfect as always, but are you sure this is okay? I didn’t mean to bombard you but there’s limited privacy here.”

I hesitated for only a moment more before sucking in a deep breath. “Yeah.”

Garrett still looked skeptical but he called Nicole from wherever she had gone.

“What?” a voice screeched back.

“Get over here if you want to see Kai.” There was a pause, then the pounding of footsteps. “Christ. Quit running, you’re gonna break—”

He was shoved out of the frame by a hand tipped with red nails. Nicole really was…a female version of Garrett, but with a gigantic smile. She had long, dark wavy hair, those gorgeous warm brown eyes, and full lips. Her jaw was a little square, like Garrett’s, but it suited her. She blinked at me with eyes heavily rimmed with eyeliner.

“Oh my gawd!” she cried. “He’s so caaa-ute!”

There was a brief tussle as Garrett shoved his way back into the camera frame so I could see both of them at once.

I waved. “Um, hi, I’m Kai.”

Her hands were fluttering near her face until Garrett forced them down.

“I’m Nicole, and oh my God, we need to become friends. I have to know how my grim faced bro scored such a hottie.”

Garrett was starting to look like he thought this had been a very bad idea. “Nicole, ease up, will you? Goddamn, you’re even scaring me.”

“Look, I’m excited, and I had a lot of Pepsi today.” She turned in a swirl of hair, and shouted over her shoulder. “Ma, come meet Garrett’s boyfriend. He’s fucking adorable!” After a muffled reply sounded, Nicole turned to me again. “Okay, so tell me about yourself. Garrett said you’re this big time gamer.”

Maybe she knew how nervous I was, or maybe she really did want to know about my job. Either way, that was the best way to put me at ease.

I launched into describing how Twitch worked (people were always confused by why some people watched for free while other people subscribed for extra perks), how many subscribers I had, along with the games and equipment I got to demo. It could have been boring as fuck, I wasn’t sure, but Nicole listened the entire time with rapt attention, and Garrett smiled his quiet smile while looking at me proudly.

“Wow,” Nicole said when I finished talking. “So you’re basically famous.”

“I don’t think I’m famous to anyone but my subscribers.”

Another face appeared on camera, and I met the gaze of the Reid matriarch. She was an attractive older woman, with dark hair streaked with silver and hazel eyes. Her one arm was tattooed with large colorful flowers.

“Hello, Kai.”

“Hello, Mrs. Reid. Nice to meet you.”

Her smile was kind despite the aura of take-no-shit badass emanating through the screen. “Thank you for making my son happy. I’ve never seen him scowl less than seventy-five percent of his waking hours.”

My heart thumped loudly in my chest, and I actually wished for a minute that I was there with them, that I could hug her for saying something so sweet. “You’re welcome.”

“And I told my son, I don’t care if you’re man, or woman, or whatever else.”

“For God’s sake, Mom.
Whatever else?”
Garrett dropped his head into his hands. “Please don’t try to ally so hard. You sound ignorant as fuck.”

She swatted the back of his head. “You watch your mouth in this house. I’m not good at this PC shit, and you know it. I’ll do better.”

Nicole snickered as Garrett shot their mom another warning glare. She exchanged a grin with me.

Was this what family was like? Camaraderie and support and love? Sure, they weren’t perfect, but after growing up and living in a town like Rickston—where gays were likely run out of town if they came out—I was shocked they were willing to try. I was so glad Garrett had these women, and their love, in his life. He deserved it.

“Okay,” Garrett said with authority. “Both of you, get gone.”

“How about you get gone, and I spend more time with Kai?” Nicole suggested.

“Dude. Seriously. I haven’t seen him in a week. Get lost.”

Mrs. Reid looked to the ceiling. “You two still fight like you did when you were kids.”

Nicole stood, then leaned down again to wave at me. “It was nice to meet you, Kai. I look forward to seeing you in person.”

“You too, Nicole,” I said.

She shot me another smile, then flicked Garrett’s ear before walking out of frame.

Mrs. Reid patted Garrett’s shoulder. “I’ll send some food home with Garrett. You look like you could eat more.”

Right, my diet was ice cream, coffee, and whatever else I could scrounge up. “Thanks, Mrs. Reid.”

“See you soon, Kai,” she said.

I waved, and then it was just Garrett and I again.

“Sorry, they’re overly excited and a little nuts. And…really fucking ignorant about a lot of LGBTQ stuff. God, it’s embarrassing. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I get it. They’re…new at this. But I love them,” I said, because no way should he think he had to apologize for a family that actually cared about his life. “We can help them, uh, not be totally offensive and uneducated.”

“Seriously?” My Garrett. So skeptical. “You like them?”

“Yeah, they love you, clearly.”

“Yeah. They do.” Garrett started to say something, glanced down, and then flashed a quick reassuring smile. “I have a couple of things to finish up here and at the base, but I’m coming back soon. I promise.”

God, how badly had I needed to hear that? But instead of jumping up and down on my bed, like I wanted to do, I played it cool. “Okay.”