“No.” The answer was clipped, and Jemma avoided my gaze again.
“If you want me to cut off Ryker, I will.” I stood up from the couch and made my way over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She finally looked up at me, her eyes glossy. She didn’t look upset, but frustrated. “You’re my best friend. You’ll always come first.”
Jemma placed a hand over mine.
“I would never ask you to do that, but thank you.”
“Then how can I help?”
She took another deep breath before answering me.
“Fuck, I don’t know. Make Beckett disappear? Make it so he stops messaging me. I blocked his number, but he somehow got a new one and is messaging me on social media. I can’t fucking get away from him.”
“Wait, is he stalking you?” I was concerned now because I’d dealt with this type of behavior before.
“Yes, but no. I mean, I don’t mind that he’s messaging me, but could he just not be so persistent?” Jemma’s head leaned back, eyes closed, and she took in deep breaths.
“So, let me get this straight,” I kneeled in front of her. “You don’t want him messaging you or finding new ways to do so, but you also want him to?”
“I don’t know what the fuck I want.” She sat back up, eyes meeting mine. The glossiness from before was gone, and she was her stoic self again. Jemma didn’t give me much to work with since she didn’t want to talk about Beckett, but I’d never seen her like this, coming unraveled because of a man.
“Why don’t you message him back at least?”
Jemma stood up quickly, and I followed suit, making room for her to exit the living room.
“I just wanted to check on you and make sure you were still alive.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
She walked away from me, and my smile came back. She was running in the only way I’d even seen Jemma run before, from feelings she was too scared to feel. It happened on the night of her first gallery opening we went to, and it was happening again now.
“Let me know if you need anything, love ya.”
And then she was gone, and I was alone again.
My phone.
I looked down to see a new message from Ryker.
Ryker: It was very real.
That was it. Simple. To the point. Nothing more.
I didn’t have a response, so I grabbed my laptop instead. While I typically wrote in silence, I didn’t feel like it this evening. I reached for the remote, turning on the TV. I had no idea what to put on. Thumbing through different movies and playlists, I somehow ended up looking at gaming streams, until I stopped on one that I hadn’t really watched before but felt like clicking into.
I stared at my TV with half the screen showing my video game and the other with a blurred, unrecognizable figure. CovertRetriever had started his stream not even ten minutes ago.
I’d already given my viewers a quick recap of where we were in my current run onLeague of Witches. I’d be finishing the main story today and then focusing on all side quests that were not required under the main quest. It was a run I’d done many times before, but the goal was to complete everything in under ten hours of total gameplay, and I was close to hitting that mark, so I needed to focus today.
Which felt almost impossible as I watched the chat on my screen start to blow up ten minutes into the stream. A message popped up on my side screens from one of my moderators.
It only had two words, but it caused me to stop my character in the middle of a field, completely open to any attack.
Odette Reign.
She was here.
Watching me?
