“Okay, okay, what’s he like?” She breathed, leaning in so close to Mateo that if it had been me, I would’ve screamed.
“Um...sombreroy?” Mateo tried.
She gave him a threatening look.
“Okay, he’s a cool dude.” Mateo hurried to elaborate. “He shared those RPGs after all.”
“With you!” She said, reiterating an earlier point.
“Yes.” Mateo agreed warily.
“I need to meet him.” She said. “I must. You will arrange this.”
Mateo shot me a look that read “help please.” I sighed. Distraction tactics time. “Who’s this you’re talking about?”
“TheGreatCon.” She blew out an exasperated breath, and gathered in another to launch a fusillade at Mateo.
“Who?” I screwed up my eyebrows.
“Only the most famous, illustrious, amazing, totally incredible gamer ever!” She said, an odd look crossing her face that looked halfway between a swoon and hero-worship. “Sounds like a stuck-up jerk.” I said, and turned away.
She promptly hit me in the back of the head, and I toppled off the crate. I landed on the ground in a heap, my leg twisting a bit beneath me. I drew in a ragged breath. Lesson learned, never insult her current crush.
“Are you alright?” She glanced down at me, realizing that this was her handiwork.
“Yeah, peachy.” I said through gritted teeth, picking myself back up.
“You need to get over that bum leg already.” She thrust her hair back, and went back to ignoring me.
Now, if she hadn’t been a girl, I probably would’ve challenged her to a gaming duel, loser goes to school in his boxers next day, but that wouldn’t work out well for obvious reasons.
Instead, I meekly sat myself back upon my perch, and sulked as only I know how.
I guess Alejandro does know how to sulk like a pro...
“Alejandro, I didn’t tell her! I swear! She tracked me here, you can see your friends on the map!”
The main chat pod pulled up.
Catvideos157: Con! Hi!
I just stared at the message. What was I supposed to do? This was the girl who hated me. And she was sitting on the other likely chewing on her lip waiting for a response from her idol.
It felt wrong, but I typed a reply.
TheGreatCon: Hola.
Catvideo157: I’m like, a huge fan! You’re great! (catch my pun?)
Yep, sure did. “Mateo, she’s messaging me.”
“Yes.” He said. “Is that a bad thing? Maybe you two can finally get along on here!” He seemed to be drifting off point to me. “You two can become friends, and then you can just reveal to her who you are, and presto! All my problems are solved!”
“Mateo, she just sent me a friend request.”
“Oh, good. See, it’s working out!” Mateo paused. “You are going to accept, right?”
“Mateo, I turned down an invite from Webby and SSTO.”
“You did what?” I could practically hear his jaw drop.
“I mean, why would I accept? We’re not friends, so why am I treating them any differently from other people?”
“That’s…that’s…gosh, you really had to, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh well, no going back now I guess. What’s this got to do with Celeste?”
“We’re not friends.”
A small pause. “Look at it this way, I don’t want to blackmail you, but if she comes sobbing into my house this evening because TheGreatCon didn’t accept her friend request, I will forward her onto you.”
I sighed, and clicked “accept.”
Catvideo157: Thanks!
TheGreatCon: You’re welCON. Gtg.
And I quickly logged into the next round. I filmed the big release this time, and posted the video onto my page, with the caption: “Zombies? Who you gonna call?”
You got humidity down there? I thought Texas was a desert.
That's West Texas, I live in South-East Texas which is closer to Louisiana.
Well, see, on the map all of Texas looks the same, and I am having a really hard time coming to grips with the fact that there is in fact such a thing as significantly different parts of Texas.
Np. 
