A group of friends streams their gaming on Wednesday nights. But not all the action is on the dining room table.

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Chapter 8 -- The Family Way

I wasn't sure what I'd expected of our trip shopping... but it wasn't the almost complete and utter indifference we received.

Perhaps I was overestimating my public profile. Perhaps I'd just misjudged how many folks already assumed I was a girl. Either way, I'd expected at least a few head turns or eye rolls when people noticed me, and at least one person to question why I was out looking more like a soccer mom killing time before she has to pick the kids up at school than a successful streamer out to get groceries.

The fact I wasn't sure what a successful streamer out to get groceries SHOULD look like wasn't relevant. It would probably involve a selfie stick, though.

That wasn't to say that I wasn't getting SOME looks. Just not the ones I was expecting.

The game store was pretty normal. The girl was working the counter today, so that was at least better than when it was the bald guy who always made me uncomfortable. Even our first stop at the discount store had been blasé, with few people giving me a first glance, let alone a second one.

The grocery store was proving to be an entirely different beast, though. I'd noticed several women giving me appraising glances and sneering right up until Brian would move near me when the sneers would change to looks that were, best I could tell either jealousy or amusement. I'd had one woman who had to be at least in her fifties look between the two of us, Brian pushing the cart and me filling it, and give me a wink and a thumbs-up as she scanned him up and down.

Brian, of course, seemed to miss more than half of it, and what he did notice seemed to amuse him greatly. Rather than helping, he would lean into it, putting a hand on my shoulder or leaning in close to speak to me.

That was bad enough, but it was the things I wasn't sure he noticed he was doing that were starting to agitate me more. Stuff like getting things off tall shelves for me without asking or opening the doors in the freezer aisle for me and holding them while I shopped, or just....

He kept looking at me.

He was looking at me.

"What?" I asked him, feeling a self-conscious blush rising in my cheeks.

"What?" He asked back, seeming to snap back to reality. He glanced away for a second, then gave me a goofy grin.

I sighed.

Brian looked through the cart, then asked, "What else do we need to grab?"

"Hmm." I checked our cart versus the list on my phone, and the mental list I had of the things that always inevitably managed to wind up not getting put on the official list and thought. "I think we've got everything we needed to pick up. Was there anywhere else you wanted to go today?"

"Lunch."

I rolled my eyes at that. "We've got frozen stuff in the cart."

Brian shrugged. "Let's take everything home first, then go get something. You're buying, remember?"

I groaned. "Ugh. Yer killin' me, Smalls."

"Look who's talking," he said, reaching out and patting my head a couple times.

"Agh!" I squeaked, much to my own consternation, as I backed away and guarded my head. "Stop it! Or no lunch for you."

"Yes, ma'am."

That got another glare from me, which of course, only made his goofy grin spread wider.

We checked out, Brian putting the groceries on his card (I'd transfer him my half later) and soon were back in his truck, puttering through the moderate mid-day traffic.

Bayonet wasn't a huge place. About thirty thousand people strong, with a healthy percentage of that being students or faculty attached to the liberal arts college that shared the town's name. Nevertheless, it was about a fifteen-minute drive from the grocery store back to our apartment on the outer edge of the town once the stop lights and meandering streets were taken into account.

I glanced to my left, only to catch Brian looking at me again.

"Eyes on the road?"

He laughed but turned his attention back to his driving. "Sorry, it's just a little surreal seeing you like...."

"Like what?" I asked, annoyed.

"Like *that.*"

I sighed. "Hey, it was your idea for me to come shopping."

"I know! And I'm glad you did. It's always better when you're along," he said, giving me another sideways Look and a smile. "And it was fun putting on a show for the grandmas too."

I wanted to argue with him on that but found myself sharing his smile. "Okay, yeah, that was a little fun. Hopefully, they don't remember what I look like next time we go shopping, though."

"Why? Worried they might expect us to hold hands or something?"

I fought the blush that rose unbidden to my cheeks. "No! Just might be awkward if they realize I'm not..."

"Pregnant?"

It wasn't what I was going to say, but I nodded anyway and hugged myself.

"Yeah, well, if my shirt did its job, maybe they didn't notice that part."

"Maybe," I agreed, playing with the hem of the shirt a bit as I looked down at it. "I guess being out like this wasn't as bad as I'd expected."

"I'm glad," Brian said, reaching over and giving my knee a pat and squeeze before returning his hand to the wheel.

I couldn't help but let out a pup-pup of laughter as a thought occurred to me. "Imagine if we'd run into Jonah today, though."

I was expecting Brian to laugh at the thought too, but instead, he seemed to frown at the idea.

"What?"

Brian shook his head. "I'm worried about him."

"I... I kinda am, too," I agreed, looking back out the window instead of at Brian's furrowed brow. "He seemed to calm down about things yesterday, though."

"Yeah, he was pretty quiet after the mid-point break," Brian agreed. "But he was still giving you some odd looks."

"He was?" I asked.

"You had to notice, right?"

I rolled my eyes. "Brian, he wasn't looking at me any different than he ever does. It's always either angry glares or...."

"Or what?"

I shook my head. "I dunno."

"I think I do," Brian said, in a tone that gave me a chill. I turned, and he was Looking at me again.

"Hmm?"

Now Brian laughed, though there was little humor in it. "Come on, Leigh. You know what he's thinking when he looks at you like that."

"I'm sure I don't," I said, turning away again as my cheeks burned.

But I did.

"Guy's had a crush on you for years," Brian said, vocalizing out loud something I'd been ignoring as best I could.

I shook my head again. "No, he hasn't." Brian was about to argue again, but I stopped him. "Really, I don't think so. I think he has a crush on my characters, not me."

Brian went quiet for a moment. "Okay. What's the difference?"

"Sex?" I shrugged. "Jonah reminds me of... did I ever tell you about Evan?"

"Evan, the asshole?"

"I guess I have," I laughed, glad to have something to lighten the mood a bit.

Evan had been part of the group Maria ran when we were in high school and, in a lot of ways, made Jonah's attitude look positively mild-mannered by comparison. He would constantly be trying to tell the rest of us what we should do with our characters, how to play the game 'right,' and fight with Maria over lore and rules.

We had put up with it for a long time simply because we were young, and finding people to play with us was hard enough without banishing a player from the group.

That all changed when we were in tenth grade, and Evan... broke. He spent half a session yelling at me and Kayla, a friend of ours who played with us, that we were cockteases and one of us -- his focus on Kayla -- owed him some "relief."

Parents became involved, and Evan never spoke to any of us again.

I didn't get it then, and I didn't get it now.

Yes, I always played women in games if I had the option. So sue me, but I just found them more interesting and compelling characters. You read fantasy books, and the men are always these strong brutes or frail masterminds, but the women? The women could be those things too, but they were also cast as the savvy gray sorceress, or the mysterious guide, or the sensual assassin. There was just so much more variety in who it felt like they could be.

And the art! The men were always the same: chiseled jaws, shining armor, all dull colors and deep-voiced and... generic. But the women could be in armor or gowns, robes or bikinis, and anything and everything in between and beyond.

The men were fine, but the women were always so much *more.*

As I got older, a lot of that romantic vision died as I familiarized myself more and more with the broad spectrums of fantasy. I started to recognize the sexism in the depictions, the less-than-subtle ways that those masculine ideals that I found so unappealing to engage with were pushed as heroic while the more interesting elements so often associated with femininity in the medium were seen as deceitful or antagonistic.

Yet I'd still found myself drawn to playing women who both embraced and defied those things.

"I think," I started, then paused for a moment to make sure I had what I wanted to say clear in my head.

"Hmm?"

"I think," I started again, "that Jonah is unhappy with his life, and sees the game as a way to get things he wants. Strength, wealth, power."

"Okay."

I took a deep breath before I continued. "Jonah wants to win, and I think part of that is feeling like the game is about his character, and them getting what they want. And since I tend to play women...."

Brian nodded. "Okay, but why doesn't he do the same to Deedee and Sid? They sit side by side with him every game."

I laughed out loud at that. "I think they intimidate him too much. And Maria's the boss, and you don't mess with the boss."

Brian cocked his head as he seemed to get it. "So, if he goes after one of their characters, he has to deal with--"

"Yep," I nodded. "But I'm short and scrawny, so not a threat to him. And I tend to play very, umm, femme characters." I shrugged. "So, he can want my character, and not be scared of having to talk to a real girl about it."

Brian nodded, thinking. "I can see that, mostly."

"Mostly?"

"Mostly," Brian said again, as he turned into the parking lot at our apartment building.

I silently contemplated what he could mean by that as we pulled into his spot and grabbed our bags out of the bed of the truck. Up the stairs, in the door, and to the kitchen I went, putting away groceries while Brian sorted out the toiletries and other pick-ups.

"You picked up two bags of chocolate chips?"

"Yeah, maybe that way, one of them will survive for more pancakes."

I rolled my eyes at that but couldn't help smiling as I stuck them up in the cabinet.

Ten minutes later, we were out the door and heading back down the stairs to the truck. I couldn't resist any longer, and asked, "So, why mostly?"

Brian chuckled. "Because the looks don't stop when you're out of character."

Instead of saying anything else I settled for a groan of effort as I hauled myself up and into the passenger seat of the truck. Brian waited until I was buckled in to start moving, and as we pulled out of the lot again, he turned to the right instead of the left, away from town.

"Where are we going?" I asked him, wondering what was happening.

"Someplace a bit out of the way, but I think you'll like it."

"Is it far?"

"Thirty, forty minutes?"

"Forty minutes!"

"Trust me," he said, smiling at me and once again reaching over to pat my knee.

Much as I might not want to, I did.

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NOTES:

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