I rolled my eyes at how much he knew me.
Ryker: I will after we talk.
Beckett: Let me know how it goes.
While Beckett hadn’t been the biggest fan of me telling Odette who I was, now that I had, he knew I needed to tell her everything else, and we both didn’t know how that would go. There was so much more to me than just who I was as a gamer, and tonight I was going to lay it all out for her.
Every. Single. Thing.
Knock Knock.
She was here.
I made my way to the door, opening to see Odette standing in front of me in a pair of leggings with an oversized sweater engulfing her. She looked stunning even when dressed down.
“Hi,” the word was raspy coming from me. I hadn’t spoken at all today.
“Hi.” Odette plastered on a huge smile and took a step toward me. I moved so that she could make her way into the house. She didn’t make it far before waiting for me.
“I’ve got dinner, but wasn’t sure if you wanted to eat or what you wanted to do, so I ordered Chinese, but we can also just sit and talk if you want to. We don’t have to?—”
“Ryker.” Her saying my name shut me up mid-ramble. She took a few steps toward me and placed a hand on my chest. “Let’s talk first.”
“Okay,” I let out a breath and motioned to the living room. The couch was a neutral zone where we could both sit on opposite sides. Except when I sat down, Odette sat right next to me, not leaving any space between us. It helped settle my nerves about what we were about to talk about.
“So,” Odette broke the conversation first. “You’re CovertRetriever.”
I nodded.
“What made you want to play games anonymously?” She jumped right into the questions.
This was it. This is where I would be able to tell her it all.
“I loved the aspect of playing games, but not the social media piece of it. I’m not big on my face being out there. Even with my personal social media, I keep posting to a minimum and am not on a lot. Mostly, Beckett takes over with posting and captures content for me. When it comes to my gaming, though, I do mostof that content because I don’t need to be in front of the camera until I’m streaming.” Odette nodded her head, listening intently.
“You mentioned the other night about your family; does that have any part of it?”
I took a deep breath before I answered this one. Because it had everything to do with my choosing to game anonymously.
“Yeah.” My knee was bobbing up and down, but Odette reached out a hand, giving me a small squeeze. I stared at where her hand was and then looked up to hear. She looked like she was all ears for anything I had to say. “My parents own the Black Bird Café in Nashville.”
“Oh.” Her face registered the name. Even if you weren’t in the music scene, almost everyone knew the café and its famous roots in the industry.
“Well,” I continued. “They owned it. The sale went through yesterday, which means it’s no longer family-owned.”
“That sounds like a big thing.”
“It is. That café has been in our family for generations, and the expectation was that I would take it over, but then I didn’t want to. I wanted to do something else, anything else that wasn’t attached to that damn café. It was cool growing up, but then once I was old enough to see the manipulation that came from people, I wanted nothing to do with it. I never wanted to guess in life if people were friends with me for me or because of who I was.”
“Which is how you came here,” Odette added.
“It is. Beckett’s backstory is a little more hectic, but we both needed out, and New York was that place.”
“Something I know all too well.”
Odette squeezed me again, and I placed my hand on top of hers. She did know what it was like to run away, to find something that was just hers, just like I wanted andneeded in my own life. After a moment, Odette continued her interrogation.
“What made you pick upLeague of Witches?”
