The next day--after we get our gym workout done the old-fashioned way--Ryker and I sit down and come up with a plan to supplement his income.

He's already been building his social media presence, doing more streams and YouTube videos and other things to try and generate a bit of a windfall, so I came up with the idea that we should do some things together. People love drama, and they'll watch our streams just to see if we're going to have some kind of knock-down drag-out. We won't, obviously. Neither Ryker nor I are in that place with each other anymore, and we wouldn't do anything to compromise the team. But people will watch just on the off chance, and they'll speculate all over their own accounts, feeding us more traffic in the process.

"So what are we streaming, exactly?" he asks, sitting next to me at the kitchen table.

We've got one laptop set up between us and I'm going through his Twitch channel while wolfing down a plate of eggs Rosa made before she left for a run.

"We can start with popular co-op games." I navigate to the front page of Twitch and point to the icons. "Counter-Strike's still got a huge presence. Fortnite, obviously. We could get our asses kicked at PvP in Estalia Online. Or even playing each other in Hearthstone would probably get traffic. Anything where we're both likely to get a little salty will have people clicking."

Ryker smirks, lifting a forkful of eggs to his mouth. "So it's like some shitty reality show where people tune in to see if we're going to kill each other or bang?"

A flush colors my cheeks and I glance toward the stairs. No one on the team has said anything about us yet, when I know Zed at least can hear us fucking since his room's right next to mine. I'm not at all ashamed about my relationship with Ryker, but having him announce it so casually is making me face the fact that we'll have to go public at some point.

Or maybe he's just teasing and I'm letting my own insecurities eat away at me.

"Exactly," I manage, and immediately launch right into something not related to banging. "We can do some two-person board games, too. Maybe one-shot tabletop campaigns made for two people. Lots of options."

Ryker types down some notes on his tablet, and I spend the next half hour going over his current Twitch content with him before everyone wakes up. He listens to my feedback, makes well thought-out counter-arguments, and genuinely seems to appreciate my input on the whole. As our housemates begin to stir, he collects his tablet and looks at me, his brows drawn together in concern.

"Are you going to have time for all of this? I don't want to take away from your channel."

I wave that off immediately. "Plenty of time. Especially since we're only doing it a few nights a week to start with. If it grows and we need to scale up, I'll figure it out."

It's sweet that he's worried about me spreading myself too thin, but I want to do this. Not to prove his dad wrong--his dad's a piece of shit who will never treat his son the way he deserves to be treated--but to show Ryker he can do it. I know he doubts himself, and anything I can do to help alleviate that is worth the time.

"All right, well," he tousles a hand through his hair, making me wish I could be doing that right now, "I really appreciate it."

The magic words. Leaning in, I whisper to him, "We've got an hour before practice starts. Enough time for you to show me how much you appreciate it."

A broad grin spreads across his lips, and we head back upstairs to get another quick workout in before the day officially starts.

* * *

Over the next few days, we don't have much free time to spend together. At least not time where we're anything other than exhausted.

The first round of qualifying times are due by the end of the week, and the Cyclones are working on taking down the five bosses that make up the current wing of Estalia Online's newest raid tier. After downing the first two on day one, it takes us a few days to get the next three. Useful gear drops for everyone, and we get the instance reset, having one of the Game Masters put it into qualifier mode--a special mode that tracks and broadcasts clear times, deaths, and other stats.

It's an insane amount of pressure, but we've got three shots to register a clear time for all five bosses. The first run is as rough as any of us thought it would be. We stumble some, tripping over mechanics that are new to the series and not so much based on getting out of bad things on the ground as they are performing precise actions at precise times.

The second run is better, but Ryker and I struggle with the last boss. It's basically a tank encounter--shoddy tanking will get the whole group killed every time. It seems like it's possible to over-gear it, but since we don't, Ryker and I have to be on our toes, managing a pair of sibling dragons that require us to swap targets constantly, and make use of all our abilities to keep ourselves from dying.

Tonight's the third and final qualifying run, and we're streaming it live from multiple channels. The developer has boosted us and I know they're watching in the office, but no pressure. No pressure at all.

"Hey," Ryker says as we stand in the large antechamber before the dragons, "I know this is the worst possible time to suggest a change in strategy, but I think we may be missing something on this fight."

I take off my headset and motion for him to do the same. If we're going to discuss strategy we haven't used before, it doesn't need to be broadcast to every other team trying to beat our clear times.

"I looked at the logs last night, and we're losing a lot of time in the second phase," he explains.

"Not much we can do about that. Only half the team can damage them when they've got those shields up."

The Twin Dragons fight is a juggling act. Both dragons have to be whittled down at roughly the same time, or they'll enrage and immediately kill the raid. But once they hit the halfway mark, they each gain a shield that blocks out damage types. Zerrunas blocks physical damage--sword swings, dagger flurries, and that sort of thing--and his sister Ziondre blocks magic damage from all spells. Our damage dealers have to quickly switch targets--since of course the dragons swap shields a few times--and slowly fight through the shields.

Meanwhile Ryker and I have a very limited toolset for dealing with them at that point. The only good news is that they do significantly less damage during that phase, too.

"What if we push hard enough to kill one of them before phase two triggers?" he says.

"We can't. The one we leave up will just breathe fire all over the raid and--" it clicks for me then, and I change directions, "--do a lot less damage than before if it's been pushed to phase two. But what do we do after that?"

Once it drops out of phase two, it's going to go batshit crazy. Ryker and I won't really be able to hold its attention, from what we've seen so far, and it'll keep blanketing the rest of our team in arcane fire.

"We'd have to take minimal damage in the first two phases so the healers have enough mana to keep everyone up. Raid-wide defenses should be saved, and then everybody needs to focus on damage--including you and I."

It's a crazy plan to come up with on the fly, but it just might work. I call for everyone else to take off their headsets, and we have a quick team meeting about it. It's put to a vote, which passes unanimously. Never let it be said the Cyclones aren't willing to try new things.

Making sure we're all on the same page with who's doing what and when they're doing it, we prepare ourselves for the fight. The headsets come back on, and we head into the chamber. The now-familiar dialogue plays, and Ryker and I get into position to pick up the dragons as they land and turn them away from the raid. But instead of equally tearing through their health bars, the damage dealers focus all their efforts on Zerrunas when I give the word.

Twitch chat lights up with emoji spam and people wondering what the hell we're doing, but I focus on my role, cycling through my abilities to take as little damage as possible. Zerrunas is pushed into his phase two, and Ryker switches into damage mode since he's got more magical abilities than me. My heart pounds as I turn my game camera to see what's happening on the other side of the chamber. I'm virtually alone with Ziondre, and her attacks are growing in strength and speed as her brother's health gets lower and lower. It almost seems like I'm not going to be able to hold out long enough.

But I hear Zerrunas' death-roar, and the screech of Ziondre when she sees her brother fall, and I know things are about to get even tougher. Ryker takes her off of me, and for a brief amount of time she swipes at and stomps him, not using her breath attack. The damage dealers use all their big abilities to push her deep into phase two, and Ryker and I both focus on outputting physical damage.

On the side of my screen I see everyone's health bars plummet, then rise, then plummet again as Ziondre breathes fire and the healers sweat bullets trying to keep us alive. Defensive abilities are used by everyone who has them, and we just keep pushing, giving it absolutely everything we have.

When Ziondre gives her death-speech, it takes me a moment to realize what's happened. Zed cheers, starting a chain reaction around me, and I realize we've done it. We took them out in one shot, with a time that's much quicker than our previous best.

"Three minutes and forty-nine seconds," Ryker exclaims, "holy shit!"

Almost half the time. And all because Ryker had a crazy idea. Forgetting myself, I grab his face, pull him to me, and kiss him.

And... nobody cares. There are a few whoops and whistles from our fellow team members. Even Coach Singh gets in on it.

I'm sure Twitch chat is going crazy, and there'll undoubtedly be a million hot takes tomorrow, but... I don't care. And judging from the way he kisses me back, Ryker doesn't, either.