August 30, 2012 at 5 PM, Seattle, Washington: Preston

I grab another handful of t-shirts and toss 'em over in what I think used to be the shirt box. I don't even know anymore. It's been a long two days at this table. I walk over and start rolling up the stack of unsigned posters so I can slide them back in the tube and I hear Vincenzio huff at me and stomp over to the t-shirt box. I look behind me and he's lifting the box up on the table and taking all the shirts back out, folding every single one in a perfect little square and sorting them by size like a complete pleb. What does he think this is? Freaking Walmart?

"You havin' fun over there?" He turns and looks at me while his hands keep moving, slow blinking at me like it's gonna make me feel bad. He's just one of those people where everything they do is funny, even when it's not supposed to be.

"I'm having the time of my freaking life, G."

"Great! I found some more!"

"Oh my lanta, Preston! Stop!" I chuck a big, mixed up pile of wrinkly black shirts at him and his eyes widen in horror as he tries to catch them all. He glares at me as he sets the ball of shirts down on the table, scrunching his eyebrows together and putting his hands on his hips like he's someone's mom. This guy, though. "Are there any other little surprises I should know about before I get my hopes up?" I look around and grab the stack of signed posters and pretend to throw those at him, too. He has that deer in the headlights look in his eyes and his mouth is open so far he looks like Kermit the Frog. "Oh, God! Oh, God!"

"Chillax, dude. I wouldn't actually throw the posters like a mad cow. Jeebus!" He just stares at me accusingly like he doesn't believe that. He's too much freakin' fun to mess with. And I thought Rob was high stress! He's chillin' like a villain compared to Vince! Even after a day and a half of teasing him and pulling his leg, it still isn't getting old. I can't wait to troll him on COD and DOTA – at this rate, a couple rounds of try-hard elimination against me on Black Ops will make him crap himself.

"Something tells me the cake is a lie."

"I told you, we can't talk about the cake."

"But... The cake..."

"Dad gommit, Vince! Don't talk about the frickin' cake!" He chuckles and starts untangling the big ball of t-shirts, jumping into action when one of them almost falls on the floor. He's got some lightning reflexes. That's how you can tell a gamer from a non-gamer: gamers live like they're Neo in the freakin' Matrix and non-gamers are just like 'Mom! It broke!' That's pleb status right there: breaking stuff and throwing away perfectly good food just because you're not a ninja.

I uncork the other poster tube and slide the signed posters in and drag the pile of lanyards and keychains and miscellaneous junk in a little box before he can have another heart attack and start sorting through those, too. I wanna get outta here before the convention hall opens again tomorrow morning. He's so concentrated on the shirts it's like he forgot I'm even here. I grab the giant cardboard lava mob Minecraft head from the opening ceremony and slip it over my head and I creep over behind him, slowly peeking over his shoulder so I can jump scare him. After a few seconds of him not noticing me, I start hissing like a Creeper and his eyes get huge and he jumps and shrieks like an old man. I'd almost feel bad if I wasn't laughing so hard. This guy's a riot!

"Preston! What did I ever do to you?" he whines as he pretends to brush himself off, his cheeks turning pink in embarrassment as he tries not to smile. He goes and stands on the other side of the table to finish folding the shirts so he can watch me better.

"Everyone knows you don't turn your back on a lava mob. Didn't your mama teach ya nothin'?" I shake my fist at him in mock anger before I slide the giant cube head off and set it on top of the table next to the boxes of merch.

As much of this stuff as we've got left for the last day of the convention, I already sold like ten times more. Mitch was right: I should've ordered a couple extra cases. I can't imagine how much stuff him and the Bacca sold – they're so popular they got a giant booth together in a completely different section of the convention hall from me, Rob, and Nooch. I wonder if they met up with that Vikkstar guy Mitch keeps going on and on about. You'd think he was gonna marry him, as much as he talks about him. I hafta look him up on YouTube tonight in case he's here. The last thing I need is a repeat of the whole 'Mysterious MrWoofless' fiasco where I tick off someone who's three times my size. I really don't wanna give the Bac a massive nosebleed just when he acts like he's starting to like me. I start grabbing all my signing supplies and I throw everything in the smallest empty box I can find, hoping I won't somehow lose it again and hafta run across the aisle to Rob's table to beg for some pens and see his dumb 'I told you so' derp smile. He gets on my frickin' nerves sometimes.

"My mama don't know nothin' 'bout no lava mobs, P Dawg. When I tell her I met one in Washington, she'll probably think you're a figment of my imagination, or something out of a video game. She doesn't think I'm a gangster," he says, making an angry pouty face at the end. Like he could be anything but a character out of a Disney movie. "Actually, I'm not sure if she knows that I'm not still down in the basement. I should probably call her tonight..." I try not to laugh because I can't tell if he's being serious or not, but I can't help it. I'm a stickler for self-deprecating humor.

"Your mom doesn't know you're hundreds of miles away at a gaming convention?"

"I don't know. I left her a note on my door but she might not have seen it. She's so used to me disappearing in my computer room for days at a time that she just doesn't question it anymore. Wow. That sounded better in my head." He looks up at me and starts laughing at the look on my face. I know exactly what he means. I go over and start helping him sort through the last little heap of shirts, holding up one of each size while he watches me warily like I'm gonna try to sucker punch him in the side of the head. When he said he had a little social anxiety, I guess he wasn't kidding. Maybe I should stop scaring him every fifteen minutes. That can't be helping the problem. I finally find an extra-large and ball it up, backing up and acting like I'm gonna throw a football to him.

"Here." He catches it right before it hits him in the face and he just looks down at it and back up at me with his head tilted a little to the side. "Now you have proof to show her you actually left the house so she won't think you're completely crazy."

"You don't have to do that. I like helping you."

"No, take it. I give all my friends t-shirts. Besides, I want one of yours after you hit it big on the Tubez." His face lights up with the cheesiest smile and he carefully folds his shirt and sets it to the side next to his bottle of bright red pop. He still doesn't seem convinced about the whole YouTube thing, but I swear I'm gonna make him actually think about it. He'd be so good at making videos, and it'd help him out in so many ways.

"Thank you."

"Pfft."

"No, really. Thank you. You're one of the nicest, funniest, most optimistic people I've ever met, I'm serious. You have no idea how much that means to me."

"Don't be gettin' all sappy on me, dude. It's just a t-shirt." He grins and bobs his head as he starts folding shirts again, and I go over and tuck the flaps of the other boxes in so they won't come open when we try to pick 'em up.

" 'Just a t-shirt' my butt. Can't even take a compliment."

"Nope! None of that! I get enough condiments from Rob and those things don't taste good!"

"I bet you do," he laughs as he finishes up the shirts and starts putting them all in a big stack, turning every other size horizontally so they won't get mixed together again. When he finally folds the flaps of the box down, he lets out a sigh of relief and pretends to wipe sweat off his forehead like a dork.

"Onwards!" I bellow as I stick the poster rolls under my arm and stack up the smaller boxes with the cardboard head on top, and his jaw drops in mock disbelief, like he can't believe I'm making him move my crap. I kick him in the butt and he leans over and picks up the shirt box, eyeing his stuff as we walk away.

"Come on, you nerds. Let's get this over with."

"Hey, don't you talk to our people that way! All us nerds have gotta stick together!" We start carrying everything over to the storage room down the row of tables and behind the curtains. The security guard looks up from his paperback book and points us into the room, like there's anywhere else to go. Vince sets the big box down on the floor to the right of Rob's and Nooch's piles and I put all my boxes and poster tubes on top of it. "Can you hold these for a second?" I hand him the top three boxes of Nooch's stack with the Clockwerk head on top and I move the rest of his stuff away from the wall, replacing it with Rob's teetering mountain of little boxes and turning it so Rob's neat handwriting is back against the wall where no one'll see it. I shove Nooch's stuff where Rob's used to be and take the little stack of boxes back from my grinning comrade, placing them back on top of Nooch's hoard. To finish off our little prank, I switch the blocky Minecraft heads on top so it looks like nothing ever happened.

"Aren't their booths at opposite ends of the room?"

"Yep. They shouldn'ta been plebs and left an hour ago. What'd they think would happen?" I dust my hands off and we walk back out of the storage area, thanking the guard who's still glaring at us for interrupting his giant war novel. We walk back over to the table so Vince can grab his stuff and we head out through the maze of booths, passing the most popular Tubers' spots on our way out. We both turn to stare at the huge, empty black booth two down from Mitch-and-Jerome's red and black checkered one.

"He really didn't show, huh? I thought that was just a rumor on Twitter," he says as he finishes the rest of his rank black cherry Fresca. I don't get how he can drink so much of that nasty stuff. It's like air to him.

"It's probably a good thing he cancelled. Can you imagine how sucky that woulda been, him sitting like ten feet away from the BenjandBac? I can smell the awkwardness already, and I'm not even talkin' about Mitch's feet." He smiles weakly and tosses his pop bottle in a recycling can, our eyes scanning SkyDoesMinecraft's empty booth as we walk by.

After the Great War of 2012 went down last month, I guess it wasn't that big of a surprise he didn't come. When everyone realized they couldn't keep pointing fingers at Mitch for everything bad that was happening online because someone'd hacked him, they started trying to find out who'd been behind the whole thing. And all the arrows pointed to Dawn, and soon all the hate did, too. According to one of Jerome's ninja hackers, Dawn swiped a chunk of cash from Sky's bank account and used it to hire LeetFire to take some of the other big YouTubers out, including Mitch and the Bacca. I guess she thought she and Sky would get more subs if there was no one else to sub to. When he found what she did, they had a huge fight and she walked out and called off their engagement. Out of everyone involved, there's no doubt Sky lost the most. Subs can be replaced pretty easily but love is harder to come by. I don't blame him for not wanting to show his face at a big convention so soon, especially when two of his ex-fiancée's biggest targets would be within speaking distance of him for three days.

"Is YouTube always that stressful?" Vince asks with his eyebrows bunched up in concern like he's afraid to even ask. Is he really thinking about starting his own channel? It'd be freakin' awesome to have someone else to record COD and other non-Minecraft games with. Kenny's too lazy to get his butt outta bed half the time. Like Mitch keeps saying, we need to start building up our own community far away from the smoking ashes of Team Crafted, and Mr. Vincenzio seems like a pretty good place to start. The guy's so freakin' honest he helped me sell merch for two days without getting paid, and he didn't steal a single red cent of the money. He just walked up the first morning and started talking to me about games and life and epicness, and when I offered to let him chill with me he geeked out like he'd just won the lottery. You might think I was taking advantage of him, but he's free to leave if he wants and we're both having such a blast it's like we're at Six Flags.

"Naw. Not for me, at least. Besides that whole hacker thing last month, I've never had any problems with anyone. The comment trolling isn't even as bad as some people claim it is. It's harder to come up with good video titles than it is to work with other Tubers. It's the best job in the whole frickin' world, I'm tellin' ya." He nods down at the floor and digs his wallet out of his pocket while he walks, stopping to buy more grody Frescas out of the vending machine by the front doors. He catches me watching him and shrugs.

"Hey, my hotel doesn't sell these. I have to grab some while I'm here." I grin and lean against the doorway while I wait for him to get his dumb pop, thinking about how I could persuade him to join the team.

"So you're really thinking about it, then?" I ask as I check my phone to see if anyone's texted me. Nothing yet. He sighs and bends over to pick up his fourth bottle of red liquid of the day, then he fishes around in his pocket for another quarter.

"I don't know. I really, really want to, but..."

"But?"

"I'm not a people person like you. I can't do the whole meeting-people-at-conventions thing. And let's be honest: I don't have the most exciting stories, either. My life's nothing special. I live in my mom's unfinished basement with a plastic coat rack that I hang all my clothes on. I don't even have a pet. Nobody wants to see that, including me and my mom. There's a reason she doesn't question my comings and goings and activities down in the depths: she's too afraid to look down into the pit I call a bedroom." A snort of laughter escapes me and he gives me a sad smile before he goes back to feeding the vending machine.

"You don't hafta do anything you don't wanna do, and you can leave out anything you don't want people to know about. Everyone does that. The Lord knows you'd save an epic butt ton of money on travel costs and hotel rooms and taxis and food by not going to expos and meet-ups. Plus, you wouldn't hafta spend money on a hi-def webcam if you aren't gonna do facecam. All you need is a hard drive with like a terabyte of memory, a good microphone, some sound foam, and some decent editing software. If you can hit up 5K subs, I could even help you get an ad sponsorship with Ironside Computers. It's the best feeling in the world, waking up every morning and knowing that you get to hang out with your friends and play video games for a living. You should give it a shot." The bottle of orange pop falls down to the little plastic tray and he just stares at it, thinking.

"Yeah, but-"

"Just try it. Just for a month or two. If you don't like it, Amazon has a ninety-day return policy and you can send everything back and I'll pay you back for the software. It'll be like nothing ever happened. Even if it doesn't work out like you wanted it to, at least you can say you tried it and you can scratch it off your bucket list."

"How am I supposed to record videos for hundreds of people if I can barely handle having a three-way Skype call with my extended family at Christmastime?"

"Pretend you're talking to me. That's all you hafta do. You turned into a freakin' chatterbox the second they kicked all the fans outta here, and even after closing time this place still has a lot more people in it than your house would." He smiles at that and bends over to pick up his two bottles of pop, his new t-shirt tucked under his arm.

"You really want me to do this, don't you?"

"Of course I do! You'd be an awesome YouTuber!"

"What's the catch?" he asks, watching me sideways as we walk down the front steps of the convention center towards the parking garage.

"Well, you hafta do at least the first video with me. I wanna be able to brag and say I was the first one you collabed with when you get your gold plaque."

"Aww... How could I say no to that face?" He reaches over and pinches my cheek, his eyes widening in uncertainty when I glare back at him. I pretend to try to bite him and laugh when he pulls his hand away at the speed of light.

"You're such a pleblord!"

"OMG, IRL OH-KO. MLG pro, bro!"

"GG, dude. G frickin' G."

"I'm a poet and I don't even know it. Or a rapper," he chuckles, pretending to punch me in the arm when we reach his part of the parking area. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"If you're up for another day of hard labor. But don't tell Rob: he'll try to take your job."

"Gotcha. Ciao for now, P." Vince waves as he walks down the huge aisle of empty cars, his curly, feathery hair flying around in the warm breeze. I turn and start walking towards the main road while I pull my sunglasses off of the neck of my shirt and slide them on. It's just like a ten minute walk to our hotel and it's pretty nice outside, so why waste money on a smelly taxi?

Besides, I wanna see what they have around here for food other than that stupid chicken place the Bacca's obsessed with. The guys haven't called or texted me about going out to dinner yet, so I'll just hold off until we can come up with something. There's a Starbucks like right next to the convention hall, though... It's calling my name. Maybe I'll hit it up before I head back to the room and hafta fight Nooch for the last bottle of free water again. I swear, his screen name shoulda been 'Spongeboob No-Pants.' Why'd the BenjandBac get to room with the Husky Mudflapper while I get stuck with Admiral Chug-a-Lug and the Rob-a-Dob-Flob? Not that I really mind him, though. Dangit, Preston...

Rob or no Rob, I can't complain. Life's been great since the war ended, for me at least. I got a few scrapes from Rob's coming out video and I lost a couple thousand subs, but everything's back to normal for me now. Between my two channels and all the merch I've sold at PAX so far, I'm doing pretty good moneywise. I'm gonna head home and pay off that freakin' credit card so it won't be looming over my head anymore and I'll put the rest of the cash back until November rolls around. With the holidays and all the end-of-the-year game releases coming up, I'm gonna need every cent I can scrounge up or I'll end up eating dessert ramen and cans of jalapeño Spam like Rob.

Fudging Rob. I still can't believe he ate plain canned tuna for two days before Mitch showed up to stay with him. He didn't even have any mayonnaise! I've never met a more stubborn man in my whole freakin' life, and that includes Daka. Rob would rather eat clearanced out pleb food than ask anyone to loan him a couple bucks until payday. I'm kinda worried about that, though. If he was barely making it before, what's it gonna be like now that he lost like twenty thousand subs from coming out? He doesn't tell anyone ish like this. I wouldn't even know it hit him that hard if I didn't keep tabs on his account without him knowing about it. He acts like everything's fine, but it's pretty clear it isn't fine. It's like playing freakin' Sherlock Holmes with that guy! If he keeps it up, I'm gonna end up on some kind of happy pills, too. All plebiness aside, at least he's back to normal now and he isn't twitching and counting blocks like he just found the meaning of life. That was scary as hell and I could go the rest of my life without ever seeing him lose it like that again.

And then there's the BenjandBac. Mitch finally found a house to rent and he moved outta Rob's place like a week or two ago after they went and got all his junk from his old apartment. Someone stole his flat-screen TV and his dead computer, but they were nice enough to lock the door behind them after they filled his toilet and sinks with sun-dried dog crap. I think Mitch got a bigger laugh out of it than whoever did it, and even the Bacca seemed impressed. I'm still surprised he didn't turn it into a vlog or take a selfie with it. They got his car fixed and bailed it out, too, so it's like nothing ever happened if you ignore the huge net loss of subs on their channels. Even then, Jerome and Mitch were never bottom-feeders to begin with – I feel like a newspaper boy with a couple bucks in my pocket compared to them. I guess it's a good thing I can coast along on Benja's coattails while he sets up his Team Crafted 2.0. Hopefully it'll work out better the second time around. Watch, Nooch'll be the next one coming up with conspiracy theories and master plans. All he needs is a gallon of chocolate milk and a tin foil hat and he'll be halfway there already. Heh. I crack myself up sometimes.

I finally make it to the Starbucks and I slide my sunglasses off as I open the door, pleading that fate'll be kind and there won't be a massive line from here to Sweden. Nope. Looks like I'll be meeting Pewdiepie today. I take my place in the great circle of life at the end of the little green rope thing and I pull out my phone, trying to decide whether or not I should ask the Flob-a-Dob-Knob and the Nooch Bot if they want coffees. Just as I'm about to start texting them, I hear something hard hit the floor right behind me and I turn to see what it was. The girl who'd walked in right behind me just dropped her phone on the tile floor and she's staring down at it with that horrified look people get when they're convinced they just cracked their screen. I bend down and pick it for her, and she looks at me like she's surprised I have any manners. Come on, my mama raised me better than that!

"Thanks," she says with a small smile as I hold it out to her, and she takes it and checks the screen real quick before she stuffs it back in her purse. She turns and looks back at me, brushing her long brown hair behind her ear as she blushes. She's one of the prettiest girls I've ever seen – even Keeley'd be jealous of her, and she's a mirror-aholic.

"No problem, Hannah." Her sky blue eyes widen in shock and I laugh at the look on her face while I point down at her wrist. "It was on your bracelet."

"Oh. Yeah," she giggles nervously and her face turns bright pink while she messes with her hair again. We stand next to each other in silence for a few seconds, waiting for the lady in the business suit at the front of the line to stop bossing the barristas around. "You know my name, so what's yours?"

"Preston." I hold out my hand and she takes it gently, laughing at the silliness of the whole thing. Her skin is so soft and warm and her perfume smells even sweeter than the coffee syrups. Everything about her is pretty.

"Nice to meet you, Preston."

"So... Do you come here often?"

----------------

August 30, 2012 at 7 PM, Seattle, Washington: Rob

"Two at towers, two at towers."

"Got one. Is the other one still there?" I lower the gun and run forward to the stone pillar, listening for gunshots or footsteps from the courtyard.

"Yeah, he's heading for left stairs. Don't peek it – stay by the statue and we can trap him at crossroads."

"Roger." The room falls silent while Nooch and I wait for the last enemy player to reappear, our final victim in this round of elimination. I don't know where our last teammate disappeared to; maybe he got tired of being the third wheel and went to camp in a corner for a free win. It was for the best: knowing Mat, he probably would have killed the poor guy if he got in the way of our plan. I crouch next to the crumbling statue and watch for movement inside of the dilapidated building. Thirty seconds pass and I consider moving closer to the doorway just before Nooch starts clicking furiously, his laptop bouncing precariously on his lap. Suddenly, he throws his hands up in the air, bobbing his head with a big, shitty grin on his face.

"Boo-yah, bitches! Lag and all! Now that is what I call a duster! Who fucking camps under the stairs in elimination?" he jeers, picking up his bottle of complementary water and draining it dry while we wait to be transported back to the lobby screen.

"What about our guy, eh? He disappeared into the shadows three minutes ago, never to be seen again." Nooch shrugs as he swallows his mouthful of water, chucking the empty bottle over onto Preston's couch bed for him to find later.

"He probably heard the gunfire and got scared. See, Robbie? This is why I always say not to play COD on weekends – all the fucking casuals are lying around with a Red Bull in one hand and a triple cheeseburger in the other, watching us raise their win-loss ratio."

"Brutal, man. Absolutely brutal."

"Is there another way to play, oh peaceful Flower King? Bigfoot plays better than these idiots!"

"He should start his own YouTube channel."

"That's what I've been telling him!" The door pops as someone unlocks it with their keycard, and we turn and watch Preston wander into the room, his eyes wide in suspicion at our stares and our silence. He turns his head and looks behind him before meeting our gazes, nodding uncertainly when we don't say anything.

"It took you long enough to answer our texts. Where have you been all afternoon?" I ask as he shuts the door behind him and slides the keycard back into his new green Creeper wallet.

"You'll never guess."

"The convention center," Mat answers while he shuts his laptop and puts it beside him on his loot-covered bed. Preston glares at him and kicks his shoes off in the corner, throwing his black PAX lanyard down on the little table next to the door. "No? The bathroom? Wait, I know! You found the secret sewers!"

"No. I met a girl." Mat starts clapping sarcastically and I have to fight to keep a straight face at the look of ennui on Preston's face.

"GG, dood. There are only a few billion of those on the planet. We're so proud of you for finally leaving your room."

"Yeah, boy!" I cheer and Preston looks at me with his Grumpy Cat face, as if that would convince me to try to shut Mat up. The only person with that power is Jerome.

"Is she made out of plastic, or cardboard?"

"She's real. Her name's Hannah and I met her at a coffee shop."

"W-ow. I hate to break it to you, Einstein, but girls drink coffee, too," Mat says slowly, dragging out every syllable as if he was talking to a small child.

"Shut the fudge up, Nooch. No one asked you, anyways."

"Pics or it didn't happen, man," I joke, causing him to cross his arms and tilt his head downward to look at me, trying to intimidate me into silence. Preston is probably the least threatening person I know.

"Here's a question for you: how long did you talk to her? Was it longer than fifteen seconds, or did she just take your drink order and peace?" Nooch cackles, and Preston runs over and starts smacking him in the face with one of the many scratchy decorative pillows we had thrown on the floor.

"Didn't I tell you to shut the frick up?!"

"Never!"

"You two are going to get us kicked out of here," I laugh as I set Procyon on the bedside table as far away from Preston as possible, carefully closing the screen while I watch them wrestle pathetically amid Mat's piles of goodies from the convention.

"Sorry, Dad," Preston sighs as he throws the ugly tan pillow at Mat's head and walks over to my bed, flopping down almost on top of me. How does he think this is going to work, with two grown men trying to squeeze onto my twin-sized bed? He scoots closer to me and presses his arm against mine, adjusting himself so he won't fall off of the bed.

"Excusez-moi, monsieur. Last time I checked, your couch was over there."

"Yeah, but the couch sucks even more than you, so..." I make a hurt face at him and Nooch snickers, still fondling the starchy pillow and waiting for his chance to strike.

"Can you two turn the Poofless down until we make it to the restaurant? They have a bathroom over there that you can use to settle your differences." Preston sits forward and peers past me, glaring daggers at Mat and his trademark Joker grin. If I hadn't been sitting between them, they would still be trying to suffocate each other with the toss pillows.

"I don't know what you're talkin' about, Nooch, but you have fun with that," Preston replies as his ears turn bright pink, whether from embarrassment or rage, I can't tell.

"Oh ho ho! Don't turn this around on me! How else would you know how well Rob sucks?"

"Okay, why are you dragging me into this? I didn't try to smother you," I counter, watching Preston turn steadily redder with each passing second. Nooch looks away from Preston's scowl and grins at me, like he knows something he shouldn't.

"I can't drag your Perston into anything without dragging you into it, too. You two are stuck together like glue."

"We are not!" Preston shouts as he straightens his back and sits crosslegged right next to me, his knee halfway on my lap. Mat just raises his eyebrows and blinks at him.

"Can you not see yourselves right now? If you were any closer together, you would be writhing around and moaning each other's names."

"Can't two people be friends without you fantasizing about them getting it on, Nooch?" I ask, and Preston laughs. Mat finally stops fingering his pillow. He looks over at us, his eyes switching between our faces like he's trying to find something that had always been there but had suddenly disappeared.

"Wait, you can't be serious. Poofless isn't real?" Preston snorts and grabs my half empty bottle of water from the table and chugs the rest of it down, much to Mat's amusement.

"No way, man. I just babysit this thing," I reply, poking Preston in the ribs and causing him to punch me gently in the shoulder while he peels the wrapper off of the empty bottle.

"Hey! I'm not a thing!"

"How is Poofless not real? Nah, you're just fucking with me," Mat laughs while we look at him, his face twisting up in confusion when we don't laugh with him. "Wait, so you're being serious?"

"We aren't dating, Mat."

"Why would I go out with this fudging pleb over here? He even forgets to eat half the time."

"Yeah, like you're one to talk."

"Okay, time out for a second and stop bickering like an old married couple. You two seriously aren't dating? How the fuck did that happen?"

"It just did, okay? Why're you so worried about it?"

'Why is Preston getting so defensive? Does the idea of people shipping us together bother him that much, or is it just because Nooch said it?'

"Why wouldn't I be worried about it? Poofless is the sweetest fucking thing since Merome, and everyone knows how sugary that is. We've got ships for days, boys."

"Mat, is there anything you don't ship?" I ask, trying to change the subject before Preston starts turning purple; he's already gone past any identifiable shade of red.

"Pooch would never happen, for obvious reasons. Everything else seems like fair game."

"What the frick is a 'Pooch?' "

"You and Nooch," I answer and Preston holds his stomach and pretends to throw up next to the bed. It would have been hilarious if he hadn't accidentally grabbed my wrist on the way back up and caused me to flinch – I can't stand it when people touch my scars.

"Sorry," Preston mutters, looking down at my hands in my lap and rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment.

"Don't worry about it."

"Poofless! Poofless! Poofless!" Mat chants, cupping his mouth with one hand while he fist pumps with the other.

"This isn't a hockey game, bro. No one is going to score if you cheer."

"We can't give up hope yet! There's still plenty of time on the clock for you to score a couple of goals. I've seen you checking him out – Woofless wants a piece of that chocolate lava cake." I can feel my face burning like the surface of the sun and Preston facepalms so hard next to me that I briefly wonder if it will leave a bruise. "And here I thought you two were being nice and sharing a room with me because I'm broke as shit. You were just asking for my matchmaking services. I accept your challenge, MrWoofless." I can't tell if he's being an irredeemable troll or if he's actually convinced that Preston and I would work out.

'He has to be teasing us. Mat is the least serious person I have ever known.'

"Rob, if you say one single freaking word, I swear I'll kill you in your sleep."

"That's not very nice, Preston. Kiss your boyfriend and make up." Mat leans across the little gap between the beds and starts pushing the top half of me closer to Preston, and I can't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation.

'What did you expect from a Nooch?'

"Come on, kiss him!"

"Oh my God. No!" Preston hops off of the bed and scurries into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Nooch settles back onto his bed and slips his shoes on, grinning like a maniac.

"He really likes you, Rob."

"Let's not talk about that, yeah?"

"He's just in denial. He'll come around eventually. You two are too cute together not to be a thing. Poofless will be real, mark my words." I just shake my head and cover my face with my hands, trying to get rid of that horrible blush. Mat snickers and I can hear him digging around for something on his bed before he walks over to the bathroom door and starts knocking on it incessantly until Preston yells at him. "Come on, Pressy Wessy. Robbie Dobby wants us to go on a dinner date."

"Oh, so this is turning into Poochless now?"

"Do you want it to?" He grins and continues pounding on the door until Preston finally opens it, his bangs and shirt soaked from him washing his face over and over again. "Let's go get some food with the guys before your boyfriend tries to eat your face off in the elevator." With that, Nooch turns on his heel and marches out of the hotel room, holding the door open as he waits for us to get our shoes. Preston won't even look at me the whole way to the other guys' room, and Nooch keeps glancing over at me like he's expecting something magical to happen.

'So Preston might actually have feelings for me, even though both of us know that it would never work out. That's unfortunate.'

-----------------

August 31, 2012 at 1 AM, Seattle, Washington: Preston

Freakin' Nooch and his freakin' plots to get me to go on a freakin' date with freakin' Rob. Look, I have nothing against Rob and I never will, but there's no way in the seven Nethers I'm gonna go out with him. He's nice and he's smart and he's fun to be around and he's handsome and kind and... and a bunch of other things, but it's never gonna happen. There're just so many reasons not to let it happen. And as soon as I started to persuade myself that it didn't matter and that maybe it was just a bro-crush all along, here comes Nooch with his stupid evil grin and his stupid curly hair and his stupid wolf eyes ranting on and on about how it's time for us to kiss. No, it's not time for us to kiss! It's time for you to die, motherclucker! He had to go and drag all that trash right back up to the surface just when I couldn't smell it anymore, and it really ticks me off. Yeah, I might've thought about Rob as more than just a friend for a little while, but it's not like that anymore.

That's all in the past now. I met Hannah today and she seems to like me, and I'd rather have that one percent chance that she'll wanna be my long-distance girlfriend when we meet again for coffee tomorrow than just sit around for another year wondering if I like Rob or not (even when it doesn't mean anything if I do). I could actually build something with Hannah while all I'd have is a lot of anger and worry and confusion with Rob.

But the fact that I like her at all kinda solves that problem, huh? I can't be gay if I like girls, and now I like a girl. I can't like Rob if I'm not gay. I must've been wrong about that the whole time. There's nothing wrong with other guys liking guys, or with girls liking girls, but I can't like guys. I'm not like that, and I'd be screwed if I was because I probably wouldn't have a family or anyone else in my life left except the one guy and some of my online friends. And if Rob was the guy I was dating and I fudged up our relationship, I wouldn't even have my best friend anymore. It's just not worth it. But it doesn't matter, anyways, because I obviously never liked him in the first place. I'm not gay.

Rob can find a nice guy to settle down with and have kids with and do whatever else he wants to do with, and I'll fall in love with Hannah or another girl I meet and find my own happiness. We'll still be best friends no matter what and our kids can be friends and play games with each other online to continue our legacy, and we'll just be one big, huge, happy extended family. Rob's my brother, not my boyfriend, and that's all he'll ever be so I need to just forget that any of that crush stuff ever happened. I was wrong and I was confused and I was scared and tired from the whole hacker thing. My brain was really screwed up when I had that dream, and I haven't had it ever since everything went back to normal.

Nooch lets out a big snort that makes me jump and he turns over for the thousandth time and keeps sleeping. I hear Rob sigh over on his bed by the door and he reaches over and grabs his phone and headphones off the nightstand. The little screen lights up under his blanket tent and he looks he's scrolling through Twitter for a while before the light shuts back off and he lays still and pretends to be asleep. It looks like he's not gonna sleep again tonight. It must be nice, not having to worry about what your mind's gonna make you dream about. I wish I never had to sleep. Freaking Nooch.