TheRealCreator: You’re more understanding than me.
DakkyDuck: You don’t need a lot of patience with your job?
TheRealCreator: Are you fishing, Dakota? Trying to find out more about the viewer you can imagine falling for?
DakkyDuck: I told you, that wasn’t about you!
TheRealCreator: Then you better tell me who this lucky man is so I can find him.
DakkyDuck: Oh yeah? And do what, huh?
TheRealCreator: Explain to him calmly and logically that he needs to back the fuck off.
DakkyDuck: LOL. That sort of thing could get you blocked. And yes, I was fishing, actually. So, take the bait.
I grin. She’s keeping me in line, talking about bans, despite the fact I just donated a thousand dollars to her. That says a lot about her character. Many streamers would say whatever they think I want to hear after that.
TheRealCreator: My job requires patience. But it’s a lofty goal I don’t always reach. Or ever, honestly. At the start of my career, impatience was my superpower. I had to get things done—yesterday. Now? It’s meetings, boardrooms, and conference calls. The spirit is gone.
I regret the message the moment it’s sent. I shouldn’t even be watching her streams, let alone speaking with her, let alone hinting at whoIam. I can just see the headline now…
Power Imbalance: His Empire Fell When He Fell for the Streamer.
Or something more vicious. Something about me being a desperate forty-two-year-old man who couldn’t keep his hands out of the cookie jar.
DakkyDuck: Would you care to get more specific?
TheRealCreator: I can’t. Which isn’t fair, Dakota. You’ve got every right to tell me to go to hell.
DakkyDuck: You work for Halcyon. I know that for a fact.
I grind my teeth.
TheRealCreator: Is that so, you beautiful detective?
DakkyDuck: You don’t want me to know who you are, but you’re happy to call me beautiful? Does that seem fair?
TheRealCreator: You want to see a picture of me, eh?
DakkyDuck: It only seems fair.
I swallow. Knowing this might be the end. I might be reading this wrong.
What if she doesn’t find this thrilling and exciting, but instead thinks I’m the king of the creeps?
TheRealCreator: I can’t show you my face. But I can show you something that proves I’m real. Give me a phrase, random, anything you can think of.
DakkyDuck: Please don’t send me an unsolicited dick pic.
TheRealCreator: I’m keeping it above the waist, beautiful.
DakkyDuck:
Her message sends a jolt of heat through me. She’s responding, then. She feels it too somehow.
DakkyDuck: Okay, NOW I’m interested, stranger. Uh, my phrase? How about today’s date, with a drawing of two people shaking hands written underneath it?
TheRealCreator: What if I can’t draw?
