Page 14 of Balance

Even after I’d acted like a total asshole, he’d been nice to me. Sure, at first he was pissed, and he basically muscled his way into my hotel room, but I did kind of owe him. But he’d said I was good. And smart. And he’d liked my ideas about the game, and that should’ve made me want to stay, but it only made me panic more.

Because I wasn’t any of those things. I wasn’t smart like he thought I was. I was just a guy who hadn’t been smart enough to get into college. I’d barely scraped by in high school. The only thing I knew was video games. And I knew I was lucky that I was one of the success stories when it came to streamers. Not everyone amassed a big following. Some people struggled for years and never really took off.

Sometimes, someone showed up on the scene with the right content at the right moment, and they exploded. It had been surreal, going from a handful of loyal followers to having hundreds of thousands almost overnight. Then I hit a million. And from there it was like I was a snowball rolling down an endless mountain gathering more and more snow as I went.

Part of me wished I hadn’t left the room or that I’d at least gotten Matthew’s number. But if I really wanted to contact him, I knew where he worked. I could contact him at Gemstone Games. Not that I would. But it was an option that kept me from feeling too sad that I’d walked out without even a note.

The other part of me was just as glad that I left before he could realize how wrong about me he was.

I caught a glimpse of him later as he strode through the airport, his hat on backward this time, towing his suitcase behind him. He looked good. Amazing, actually. Tall and kind of moody, and I hid behind my beer, desperate for him to not see me. His flight would be leaving soon, and then I could slink down to my departure gate and wait for mine.

The minute he slipped out of my view, my chest, previously tightly wrapped, clenched with held breath, exploded on my exhale. And I was empty. Bereft, even. Leaving had been cowardly, but Matthew had given me things I never knew I wanted. Hell, I hadn’t known it was possible to feel that way. Like my skin was too tight on my bones. His praise made me feel like my bones were made of air. Like I was made of nothing. Like I wasn’t even myself anymore, but just the idea he had of me.

I wasn’t good like he said. I wasn’t smart like he said.

I was just a guy with a stream who got lucky. Why Matthew had taken one look at me and convinced himself that I was more was beyond me.

I wasn’t.

After his flight boarded, I went down to his gate and watched his plane taxi out to the runway. I imagined him sitting on that plane in a window seat, watching me watch him leave.

It was a cowardly goodbye, but it was all I had in me.

I was none of the things he wanted me to be. And he… well, he was everything.

Matthew was capable, in bed and out. The way he’d touched me, held me down. Spanked me. Fuck sake, I could still barely breathe when I thought about it. Each strike of his hand on my flesh knocked me another degree off my axis. And then he fucking… that shower kiss. I might have been okay had it not been for that.

The wall was the only thing holding me up as he kissed the daylights out of me. I’d never been kissed like that before. Like it was worth kissing me just to kiss me. Just to taste me. To have me. It was as if he simply wanted to be near me and, well, I was a bit fucked up about it. Because he should hate me.

I got him kicked off a plane. They could’ve banned us from the airline. Or from flying altogether. Sure, he’d demanded that I share my room with him, but it was the right thing to do. Even if it had annoyed me at first. He should hate me.

But he didn’t. He kissed me and told me I was good. And getting spanked felt like its own kind of praise. Like he was proud that I’d made myself ask him, even though it had taken all my strength to get the words out.

I stood by the window and watched his plane disappear into the sky, and I stayed there even after it was long gone. I tried to picture what he was doing. What he was thinking about. Was he mad that I’d ditched him? Was he secretly relieved?

Eventually, I made myself wander down to my gate and waited there, sitting in those shitty airport chairs until my ass went thoroughly numb. This time, when my flight boarded, I made sure I wasn’t the last person on. If there was going to be a repeat of the seat fiasco, I didn’t want to be the one left standing.

My luck held out because not only was the flight not full, my seat was at the window, and the middle seat was empty. A girl who looked no older than eighteen sat on the aisle. She fidgeted a bunch, adjusting and readjusting her lap belt. Her feet slid back and forth on the floor, and she couldn’t sit still.

“Nervous?” I asked her.

She gave me a half-smile. “I’ve never flown before, but my dad moved last year and this is my first trip out to see him.”

“Did you want the window seat?” I asked her. It was her first time flying, and even though she was obviously anxious, she also looked excited. Other people would remember me as that weirdo who had caused a scene on a plane and gotten kicked off. But hopefully this one would remember that nice guy who traded seats with her.

“You can do that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t see why not. It’s just a seat, and I’ve flown before.”

“That would be really nice. Thanks. I’m Janessa, by the way.”

“Troye. Good to meet you, Janessa.”

She got up and slid out of her seat. I grabbed my backpack from under the seat ahead of me and moved so Janessa could take it before sitting back down.

Her nerves seemed to calm down a bit once she was in the window seat. Her attention was glued to the window and whatever was going on outside of it. She let out a startled squeak when we started to move.

When we got to the runway, we had to wait a few minutes for another flight to take off. Janessa looked over at me. “Thanks for switching with me. It was really nice of you.”