Page 30 of Catching Sparkles

CROSS-LEGGED ON THE cushy gaming chair for the desk setup in my bedroom, I guided my MMORPG character through the somewhat repetitive task of leveling up my botany skills by gathering materials and using them to craft useful potions and items. It didn’t feel tedious, though. With the gorgeous music and beautiful graphics, I could never get bored playing this game. I’d been playing for years and hadn’t come close to maxing out.

After a handful of minutes, I heard a little ping through my headset and got a notification that Benji had logged on. He teleported over to me like always, and called me through Discord so we could chat. Despite the fact that we were verbally talking, I had my character wave at his as he approached. My character was sort of a self-insert, a pink-haired catboy, while he’d opted to be a giant, muscular humanoid dragon instead.

“You want to farm for mounts?” He asked. “Or we could queue for a deep dungeon.”

“A dungeon sounds good,” I answered, switching over to my healing class so I could support him while we cleared floors.

As we went through the familiar process, we chatted about what was going on in our lives. I felt bad leaving out what was most definitely the most important thing going on in mine at the moment, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t want to hear about Rhys and I having some kind of… Hookup thing going on. And I was certain Rhys didn’t want anyone knowing. So I kept it vague and talked about how my limited drop of pride themed cheesecakes on my store front had sold out in only a couple of hours.

“That’s awesome!” He said. “You’re going to save one for me though, right?”

I laughed, maneuvering my fingers on the keys to cast a protection spell on him so the boss of the floor we were on couldn’t nuke him and wipe us.

“Of course,” I promised.

I always made an extra of whatever my special dessert for the month was to give to him. He had a serious sweet tooth, and he’d really been the one to support my dream of doing this from the beginning. If not for Benji convincing me that it wasn’t a stupid idea to make an account all about baking tips and hacks, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere.

“There’s a passionfruit glaze on the top,” I added.

He groaned dramatically, and I could practically hear him drooling through the headset.

“Oh my god, don’t tell me that! It’s going to be weeks before I can eat it!”

“I’ll put a rush on yours.”

We finished up the dungeon without incident while he regaled me with a story of him waking up in the middle of the night to find Josie in the kitchen eating shredded cheese right out of the bag like a hungry mouse.

“I almost had a heart attack,” he admitted, while I laughed. “I swear when she turned to face me, her eyes were glowing.”

I picked up my phone off the corner of the desk when it lit up, and saw I had a text from Rhys. We’d been texting for a few days, ever since I’d told him he could at the pride parade. It was simultaneously sweet and sort of stressful. I hadn’t had such a crazy, all-encompassing crush on someone since… Well, since Rhys. But at least I’d had the excuse of being a hormonal teenager then.

We’d skirted the line of being flirty, but I could tell he was being cautious. Maybe having the evidence of our conversations available for anyone to see freaked him out a little more than secretly jerking each other off in an alley.

Do you have any idea of what gift I should get for Josie’s baby shower? I’m totally lost.

I blinked, tilting my head as I stared at his message. She had an online registry that I could have easily sent him a link for to make it easy, but…

Do you want me to show you some stuff that would work? There’s this little boutique with a lot of really cute nursery stuff Josie and I have gone to a few times.

I sent the message and waited, half-listening to the rest of Benji’s story as my mind raced with excitement. I really, really wanted him to say yes.

You don’t want to spend your day helping me, do you?

I nearly snorted. I would give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that was both a sarcastic and rhetorical question. It was still early in the afternoon. We had plenty of time.

I can pick you up? That boutique is only like a 30 minute drive away.

“Do you want to run another one?” Benji asked, and I ran my tongue around my teeth, staring down at my phone screen.

Well, if you really don’t mind slumming it with me all day…

“I can’t,” I said. “I have plans.”

“What kind of plans?” Benji inquired.

It would be way too easy to get caught in a lie for this kind of thing, and there was technically nothing weird or sketchy about what we were doing anyway. Technically.

“Official co-uncle duties,” I said, before sending a final text to Rhys.