Page 76 of Don't Hate the Player
“My guess was carolers,” Dad adds, bringing coffee to my friends at the kitchen table. “Then I remembered it’s October.ThenI thought: Halloween carolers.”
“Okay, that’s genius, Mr. Romero,” Bob says. “I’m stealing that. Doing it next year. Watch me.”
“Uh, can I come?” asks Penny.
This is surreal. It’s entirely possible that I’m still in my bed thinking about Egyptian burial methods and spiraling into a wild hallucination where Jake’sGLOteammates are best friends with my parents. I still haven’t said anything. That’s definitely a sign this is a dream; I never talk in any of my dreams.
“Em, why don’t you sit down.” Jake got up without me noticing and—if this is a dream, it’s a great one—takes my hand to lead me to an empty seat at the kitchen table. His hands are sweaty again, and I love it. Damp hands for life, sign me up.
I find my voice once I’ve sat down. “I still don’t know what’s going on here. You all got together to ask me to join Team Unity? That’s not . . . Don’t you already have a guy?”
Team Unity exchanges an uncomfortable look.
“About that,” Bob begins.
“No, Jake should tell her,” Ki blurts out from the counter, then addresses me. “It’s a long story. You’re gonna hate it.”
Mom sets a glass of water on the table before returning to Dad’s side behind the counter. Thanks for remembering, Mama.
“I’m sorry, Em,” Jake says. This time I think he really is. “Muddy—our DPS—convinced Byunki to dox you. He found out you and I . . . know each other. He thought I was jeopardizing the team and jumped ship to Fury knowing they’d think the same thing about you.”
Jake looks nervously at my mom, who I’m sure got an abridged version of this story earlier and is getting the equally abridged recap now. I can read between the lines, though. Somehow, Muddy knew about me and Jake. I’d often wondered what Byunki would do if he found out, and now I have my answer: he’d betray me in a fucking heartbeat.
You’d think a week of processing the fact that Fury dropped me when I got doxxed would prepare me to be less angry at the revelation that the team I’d sacrificed so much for was a bunch of turncloak bastards, but I don’t work that way. I put the glass down on the kitchen table so I don’t squeeze it to death and grip the sides of my chair instead. Byunki may have made the call, but everyone else on Fury went along with it. Ivan could have quit when he knew Byunki was going to hurt me. Han-Jun and Erik could have tried to make him see reason. They didn’t, and even if they tried, they failed me.
“It’s my fault, Em. I let too much slip and blew it up again,” Jake says quietly.
“No,” I reply less quietly. “You were—you’re the . . .” I take a deep breath to force the anger out of my voice. I’m furious, but not with Jake, or Unity, or even with myself. Muddy screwed him over too. I know where to aim my fury. “Rotten people are never your fault, Jake. It’s not your job to fix what’s bad in them. You’re so good; I wish I could trust people like you do. I can’t be mad at you for that.”
I feel a sweaty hand reach into my lap and gently squeeze my fingers. Jake doesn’t have to say anything else. It’s super cool being real friends again, or more, who knows? No one’s ever diverted an esports coup to my doorstep before, but if that’s a love language, I’m pretty sure I speak fluent Jake.
“We all trusted Muddy for too long,” Bob agrees. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine for thinking we could work on him. I owe Ki and P an apology too; they weren’t his biggest fans from the start, and I’m the one who asked them to try harder.”
“Apology acknowledged,” Penelope says. “You’re gonna work on listening to women, though.”
“Hear, hear,” my dad interjects. “I’ve undone most of that little punk’s damage, by the way. Got that whole forum taken down. The pictures they had were from Wizzard’s tournament photographer, so I worked with the company to ding the posts for copyright violation. That Thibault guy is nice, took my call as soon as he knew what I was calling about.”
Uh, holy shit, but I’ll need to save the story of how my dad got on the phone with Thibault Adige for later. We still have details to discuss here, and I need to make a decision about Unity.
“They’re helping us keep you safe,” my mom says.
“That’s good,” I say, still high key stunned.
“We want you to be happy,” she continues, “but you also messed up. So like I said upstairs, you are the most grounded child in America.”
“Themostgrounded,” Dad echoes. “You live in the ground now, as our mole daughter.”
“Except . . .” Jake looks up at me. Whatever embarrassment he was feeling has obviously passed.
“Except for next Saturday,” Mom admits. “The blue shirts said they need you in this tournament, and I willnotlet the people who tried to hurt my baby come out of this thinking they won.”
Jake can barely contain his grin. Penny and Matt are smiling too. A quick look over my shoulder shows the rest of Team Unity looking nervous but ultimately beaming. Everyone from every facet of my life is here, smiling. Happy for me. I never thought I’d see them together, let alone happy for me about the same thing.
“If you do win, the money is going into a savings account for college,” Dad adds. “We have some money saved to help you either way, but thereisa student loan crisis in this nation and—” Mom cuts him off with a glare.
Listen, I’m with Dad here. Even when I thought the pot was 200k split five ways, I was going to put the money toward college.
“Only if you want to,” Jake says suddenly, because he’s just remembered the most important part in all of this. “It’s your choice, Em.”
