Strong Signal (Cyberlove #1) (3 page)

“Oh my God. You’re not running your creepy background checks on him like you do to my boyfriends. Cut that shit out.”

“Just do it.”

“You are so weird, Garrett.”

“Not as weird as your face.”

“Ha. Ha. I’m going. And I’m not doing your stalkery bidding, so you can forget it.”

She didn’t have to. I’d find a way. If our mother was going to subject herself to the freaks of the Internet, the least I could do was ensure she didn’t end up a case on
20/20
. Jesus. Who’d even taught her how to use OKCupid? I never wanted to see that profile. Never.

And speaking of Internet freaks….

As soon as Nicole disconnected from Skype, I found myself right back on Twitch. It was getting pathetic. After all the time and money I’d invested in a proper machine for gaming, all I’d done for the past two weeks was try to match Kai’s hours so I could hang out in his channel. The frustrating thing was that I still really wanted to level up enough to wipe the realm with his orc, but I couldn’t stop staring at him long enough to put the work in.

What was it about him?

There was no question that he was gorgeous. The inky black hair spilling around his face, bright eyes, wide mouth and that adorable upturned nose. And his body was just as amazing. On the thin side but really fit. Sometimes when he stood up in front of the camera, his pants slid down a little and I got an eyeful of hipbones and the barest hint of pubic hair.

God,
I
was an Internet freak. Crushing hardcore on some damn gamer kid. I was just as bad as Kai’s legions of fans. A third of them were die hard groupies looking to make a gay bestie or play momma bear, and the rest were split into people who showed up to watch demos and get game recs, or factions of homophobes who were likely closet cases. And of course the dozen or so clowns that came through in the middle of the night to beg Kai to show more skin.

I simultaneously hated those fucking guys and despised myself for…also wanting more skin. I was awful. And completely hardup. I’d blown off Costigan twice to stay glued to my computer, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d found another tour homo for some fun. It would serve me right. Other than my shifts, I’d only been leaving my bunk for food and exercise, and I’d considerably cut down on my PT.

On the screen, Kai’s lip curled subtly but he didn’t deign to respond. He didn’t have to. Several of his biggest fans flooded the chat with cries of “pervert!” and “ugh,” but it didn’t stop me from gritting my teeth, even when a mod laid down the ban hammer.

How did he stand this shit? Judging from the ads, subscribers, and the donation button, he had to be making decent money, but something about him struck me as…oddly vulnerable. As hooked as I was on his face, I’d also noticed that he never spoke about real life related things. Maybe that was on purpose, but he spent as much time on the laptop as I did. For me, it had a lot to do with complete boredom once I was done in the shop. But for him? A beautiful kid with a vibrant personality? It didn’t make sense.

“Chat, darlings,” Kai crooned. “I need supplies. Should I raid this neighborhood,” he pointed a long finger at his screen. “Or…” Kai gazed steadily at the webcam and cocked one eyebrow. “Should I venture into town and try the shops?”

The chat window went crazy. He engaged his viewers a lot, and it had to be the reason he’d amassed such a devoted fan base. They seemed to get a kick out of feeling like they were a part of his game, and he clearly liked involving them. They teased him, rooted out trolls for him, and cheered him.

Kai bared his teeth. “Shops it is. Fasten your seatbelts because it’s about to get bloody.”

A low chuckle filled the silence of my tiny room, and I nearly bit off my tongue. What the hell was wrong with me? It was one thing to admire some guy from afar, but this? This was getting weird. I was starting to look forward to his corny jokes and inside comments. And I was starting to feel a warm burst of pleasure when I understood them. Fuck. I’d watched a documentary on people who formed parasocial relationships with celebrities or social media personalities. Was I becoming like them? Maybe I’d bypassed the first two steps and was already immersed. Or maybe I was overreacting, like Nicole would undoubtedly say.

Kai trekked through a burned out forest on his way to about the shops. On the way, he clipped a zombie in the shoulder, so it spun away before it fell off a small outcrop of rocks. “Ooooh,” Kai muttered. “The zombie almost did a…what’s it called…
brisé.”

I had no idea what that meant, and I would have googled if the satellite Internet didn’t move at glacial speed. I didn’t have to, though. Chat was on the job.

A
brisé
was some sort of ballet jump. I eyed Kai closer, the way his long legs were tucked under him, knees at his chin, his arms graceful as he reached up to brush some fallen locks off his forehead. He had to be a dancer—each movement was fluid.

There was a sound in the background, and Kai glanced behind him. “Chat, give me one minute. Groceries are here.”

With a leap, he launched himself off of his chair and out of the lens of the camera.

Groceries? He couldn’t leave his house to get his own? Must be nice to have everything at your fingertips. Except, he didn’t reek of the entitlement of so many other people who hosted Twitch channels and got rich off their viewers. It was a stupid assumption since I didn’t know a damn thing about him, but it was unlikely anybody knew Kai outside of the obsessions they’d developed after hanging in his channel. If I had to guess, I’d say a number of the regular users had likely gone far beyond
my
Internet checkups on my sister’s boyfriends. They probably had entire binders of information on Kai.

It took less than a minute for me to switch tabs and type a couple of keywords into Google.

Kai + Twitch + Fallen World Online brought up Pinterest pages, a Tumblr called FuckYeahKaiBannon, and fan pages on various social media websites. The number of people who were using his face as an avatar on their own Twitter accounts was alarming. This kid really was an Internet celebrity.

That was the point when I almost said enough was enough. He didn’t need yet another hard up homo salivating over him online. Especially not one who secretly wanted to murder his orc and steal all his gear.

I told myself to cut this stupid shit out, move on, and return to the comfort of
FWO.
Things made sense in
FWO.
I had an entire queue of quests ready to be ticked off one-by-one, thousands of experience points to gather, and plenty of junk to sell in the game’s auction house. But instead of investing my time in those things—things that would bring me a tiny measure of entertainment on this base—I was doing
this.

And even that awareness didn’t stop me from going to FuckYeahKaiBannon.

I was so screwed.

The page was a wall of Kai’s face. Various expressions ranging from puzzled to sleepy, him wearing a fuzzy bear hat with long flaps over his ears, and various other outfits. Apparently these people preferred him in some colors over others. Like he was their Ken doll.

A feeling of discomfort curdled my stomach, but I kept scrolling. That’s when things got really weird.

There were pictures of his body parts. His legs folded in a way that showed the flex of muscle in his calf, his ass as he faced away to leave his desk, the bulge of his bicep when he leaned forward to stare intently at his monitor, and other…totally objectifying moments. People had screencapped every second he spent on camera, dissected it, and put it on Tumblr for others to analyze, salivate over, or critique.

“What is this shit….”

I scrolled faster, wondering how much there was, before my finger froze on the mouse. A flash of something had caught me—a GIF. And a lot of…bared skin.

The trepidation I felt as I inched back up to the GIF could probably match the sick feeling of anticipation I’d felt after first stepping foot on this base. Not knowing what to expect. Afraid of what I would find. Worried I’d made a mistake. And great—now I was trivializing my service and comparing it to some Internet twink, but…all of this was too much. Too much for a guy who went through life being wary of stalkers and perverts. A guy who’d once made the teenager mistake of going to see a guy he’d met online, and had gotten stalked by a creep as a result.

Damn it. That had nothing to do with this.

Taking a slow breath, I scrolled one last time and stared at the screen. Once the image fully loaded, and was moving seamlessly, I shoved myself away from the desk in shock.

It was Kai. Naked. Arched against his wall with his thighs spread open as he jerked himself off. And there was no way this was a random act caught on camera by some lowlife who’d uploaded it out of spite. This was…staged. I could tell by the way Kai’s head was thrown back, his mouth parted, and the angle he was holding his body.

But as staged as it was, Kai was very clearly getting off on it. Two seconds of him tugging, a second of his toes curling, and then he hunched forward with his inky hair falling over his face. The loop replayed before he came.

And I kept watching. Over and over until my dick was so hard the tip was sticking to my boxers, and my breath was coming in harsh pants. I rested one palm over my crotch and used the other to click to the notes on the GIF. Because…what the hell? What
was
this? I’d thought he was some nerdy Internet kid, but now? Now I had no idea. But the comments from other Tumblr users spelled it out.

It seemed that before Kai had gotten famous on Twitch, he’d made money uploading videos to XXXTube. The account wasn’t listed under Kai’s name—but it was definitely him. Just from the discrete angle of the profile picture and the name “Gaymer Twink,” it was obvious it was him without clicking on any of the videos.

And I wasn’t going to. I fucking refused. The still images were enough to flood my mind with complete filth.

I slammed my laptop shut and jumped to my feet.

No. I wasn’t going to look. I wouldn’t.

Pacing, I bit my knuckles and tried to think of something else.
Anything
else. Shit, I’d rather think of Costigan, and he was just one in a long line of straight assholes looking for a convenient hole. Anything but the idea of Kai putting himself out there for all of those creepy late night Chat people to stare at and obsess over. I wasn’t like them. I
wasn’t.
I had a beef with him and that was it. All of this other shit was unnecessary. And it was going to stop.

Except, when I lay back on the tiny twin bed and crushed my hands against my face, I couldn’t get that GIF out of my mind. Or the stills of him naked and touching himself. Had he only done solo porn or were there videos of him with someone else? Each question brought to mind more questions until I was wondering about the contents of the videos, and vividly imagining what he was doing in them.

It damned me. Those videos and pictures and that stupid fucking GIF. I was hard, so hard I was
aching,
and all I could think of was the last second of that file when he’d hunched forward with his lip caught between his teeth. Right before he’d come.

I bit my fist again, and slid my other hand into my boxers. I’d meant to adjust myself, but one graze of fingertips against my throbbing flesh, and I was gone. Jerking off so tight and fast the motions were nearly violent. My gut tightened and my balls drew up, but I bit harder into my fist rather than releasing a single sound.

I thrust up into each pump of my hand, but it wasn’t enough. It was nothing compared to what was happening in my mind—the fantasy of my hand being Kai’s hand. Him smiling at me while he got me off. Staring into my eyes the whole time. And then kissing me….

Muffling the sound that ripped from my throat was impossible. Half the base had likely heard me come. At first, I didn’t care. Not with my toes clawed in the sheet, my ass arched off the bed, and my hand still clutching the base of my dick. But then I came down off the high of my orgasm and my body cooled.

Guilt kicked in.

With a slow exhale, I relaxed against the bed and shut my eyes.

I’d tipped the scales in an already imbalanced situation, and now…. Now it was time to stop. From now on, if I interacted with Kai or went to his Twitch stream, it was for the sole purpose of learning his PVP rotations and his weaknesses, and beating his ass in
FWO.
This one-sided infatuation was over.

But was it? Was it really?

My mind flew back to XXXTube. Gaymer Twink. Not Gamer Kai. What if he hadn’t intended for people to connect his two identities? What if the armchair detectives of his fanbase had done it for him? Worse—what if they’d found out
more
than that? There were ways to find someone’s home address and phone number if they used the right websites, or looked at domain information.

What if he didn’t know?

Wiping my hand against the already grimy sheet, I pushed up off the bed and went back to my desk to fire up
FWO
.

“I already crossed one line,” I muttered. “May as well go out with a bang before I put this crap behind me.”

Kai

Watching Shawn eat was always an event, and right now he was housing an entire plate of spaghetti. I’d had a couple of noodles and one meatball before shoving everything from my plate onto his. He hadn’t even noticed.

Teenage boys.

“So have you talked to Keandra yet?”

“What?” he asked around a mouth full of food.

“Keandra? Your chemistry partner? The one with the big boobs?” Of course, I hadn’t seen these boobs. But Shawn had told me about them. Numerous times.

Again—teenage boys.

He stared down at his plate, his thin dark braids hanging down to his chin. “Nah.”

“Why not?”

“Uh, dunno what to say.”

I dropped my feet to the floor. “Compliment her on her clothes or her hair.”

“Girls like that shit?”

I never said anything about his swearing. In this apartment, I let him be whoever he wanted to be. I wasn’t his dad. Friend didn’t really fit either. I guessed I was sort of like a scrawny, white older brother. Except sometimes I thought he did more for me than I ever did for him. I sighed. “Humans like that, you dumbass.”