Page 26 of Don't Hate the Player
“Kind of? Actually yeah, no that’s it. I don’t get to choose a lot, and I chose this. Is it like that for you too?”
“Nope,” he says with a shrug, “but I get where you’re coming from. I just don’t, like, uh. Um.” He rubs at the back of his neck. I remember that habit from when we were younger. “I’m better at being Pythia than I am at being Jake. I’m not good at a lot of stuff, and I don’t want to be this dumb, awkward guy all the time, so Unity and all of them are, like, they know the best me, and it feels nice? To know there are people who know the best me even if that’s not, like,meme.”
“You’re not dumb,” I say reflexively. I don’t know what his report card looks like, but hearing him talk like this makes it abundantly clear that Jake Hooper is not dumb at all. “You are hella awkward, though.”
Jake groans and slides his fingers under his glasses to cover his eyes. “Urgh, I know. I’m the worst.”
“That’s not what I meant! Everyone’s awkward.”
“You’re not awkward. You’re a fricking Targaryen. Whenever I see you in school, it’s like ‘Make way for the queen!’ ”
“First of all, rude. I’m a Martell. They’re racially ambiguous in the show, but they’re the only Latinos in Westeros and I identify with them very strongly. Second of all, that whole queen bee thing is, like, seven years of me trying really hard to show people what they want to see. Nobody wants to see all of me; they just want the parts that make sense to them. Stereotypes are easier for people to understand.”
“I get that,” Jake replies, then backtracks. “Not for you, I don’t get that about you, all of you seems pretty gr—fine. But the general idea.”
“And where did you get that general idea?”
“Ki and P talk about it a lot. I didn’t really get what it was like to be, like, queer or not white, and they’re both, so they schooled me good. They’re two of my best friends, and I’d die for both of them. Pushy Tumblr girls, you know.”
“Those two girls on your team?”
“Ki and Penelope.” He affects a sports announcer voice and repeats their competition names: “KIKI and LMNO.” He pronounced it like the alphabet song, el-em-en-oh.
“Are they . . . ?together?”
“Ki and P? No, dude.” Jake shoots me a look that says I really ought to know better. “They’re gay, not pandas.”
He’s right. I should have known better. There just aren’t that many gay girls inGLOas far as I know—then again, I don’t play with any other women, so I wouldn’t have an idea either way. That’s the other hard part of keeping myself isolated on the Philly servers; I can’t get to know anyone else beyond the realm ofGLO, let alone make friends with other players and find my people like Jake has. He’s luckier than he thinks he is, having a team like Unity.
“I was just wondering. They seemed close.”
He’s quick with his answer. “We all are. Ki and P knew each other before we formed Unity, but Ki didn’t transition until we had already been playing for a year or so. We all stuck with her when stuff was really hard at home, and then Bob brought Muddy onto the team—”
Bob. That’s the name Byunki freaked out over. I wonder if Jake knows anything about that.
“Bob’s your captain?”
Jake laughs and pulls out his phone. “Bob’s basically our dad.”
Now that we’re on more local roads, there are stop lights, and he waits until I pull up to one to show me a selfie he must have taken earlier at the tournament. Jake, Ki, Penelope, and that good-looking dude from earlier are bear-hugging the tall guy I saw on-screen at the end of Jake’s match.
“We literally call him dad because he’s older than us and using his gap year to hustle for Unity. You know how they keep hinting thatGLOis going to put a league together? If it does, Bob has sponsorships and stuff lined up.”
Those rumors have been around since launch, but Wizzard’s press team straight up said they planned to test out renting the space to other tournaments before they commit to a real esports division. If other teams are taking the pro league rumors seriously, I’d be very surprised if Byunki wasn’t as well. He just didn’t tell us anything about that—or maybe he just didn’t tell me. Byunki planning out a big reveal for Fury’s first female player, him hiding my spot on the team until it was guaranteed to get the most attention, and then getting angry that I was stealing his spotlight in our debut match all makes a lot more sense now. He’s building a narrative in case Fury goes pro. Problem is,GLOdoesn’t have any plans to develop a league.
I’ve gone quiet again, but Jake snaps me back. “Vibe check? Did I say something wrong?”
“No, you’re good. I was just thinking about your team. You guys are so close, it’s really cute. Dad-Bob and all that.”
“Yeah, we’re a family. Even Muddy.” Jake looks like he wants to say something else but decides against it. “Muddy’s a great DPS.”
“Should I be worried?”
“Dunno. Haven’t seen your Pharaoh.”
A little spicy, but I’ll take it.
“You better hope you never see my Pharaoh.”
