Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

"Hangph!" I snorted at my screen. Yeah, I was reading my fave Purple Road stream serial Flopper, and it was yet another no-kiss scene of not-romance.

Every damn week— well, the weeks Zoe, my dream-girl Author, could be bothered to WRITE a stupid chapter— this was what I got! All lead up, flirtation, tease, then NO BACON.

Yes, Flopper was the best sci-fi sapphic story on Purple Road, full of space bikes and badd-bass bitches fucking up monsters, killing random people, and just generally blowing shit up, but it was supposed to be a love story, and I had yet to witness a single kiss.

Wait— what was that? At the bottom of the chapter? A link? Discord?

What's "Discord?" I wondered, clicking it, curious, and it opened a site.

"Accept Invitation?" It wanted to know. Invitation to what? I mused and accepted it. Then shit got real.

Windows opened, alarms blared, and BOOM, there was text rolling across a blue window on my pad. What the fuck even was all of that?

Handles. Names with little pictures I could hardly see, and sentence after sentence rolling up my screen. I went bug-eyed, but couldn't tear myself away.

Holy turds, that was Zoe, my crush, and she had a zillion people in love with Flopper all talking trash about how the MC Pagan wasn't getting any again this week!

HAAAA! I wasn't the only disappointed lesbian, but who were all these people? And what even WAS this thing? Some type of on-stream community for book lovers?

It wanted me to "Wave," so I clicked the little doohickey, and weeeee! An animation started waving, then everyone swarmed me. Noises pinged, messages flared, and damn! What was that? Friend Requests?

I accepted them all, but didn't see one from Zoe. Hold on, going back to the #FlopperGeneral screen . . . . Was Zoe even there?

Didn't see her. Humph. I clicked all over everything trying to figure out what Discord actually WAS. Some kind of chat place on stream where people could talk about Flopper or apparently, anything else. Food. Pets. Gaming.

Damn, the #gaming thread was massive, and of course, I understood NOTHING. Gamer, I was not.

Scroll, scroll. ARRRRGH. Zoe's name was all over the #gaming thread! Of course it was! Of course she was totally cool into games, and what the fuck were all of these things?

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I'm not ashamed to admit it, I spent the next twenty minutes searching the stream for all of Zoe's fave games so next time she popped in, I'd be ready.

Well, ready with an introductory knowledge of what in the hells these games were. Who knew that there were farming games? City-building games? Games in fairyland?

Hmm. I downloaded that one. Could be fun.

No, no, don't get distracted, girl, eyes on the target: Zoe, not the cutesy, flashy, femme game where you could be a princess . . .

WAIT. Full stop! They had a VR version. Oh my gods! Why had I ignored gaming my whole life?

I downloaded the virtual reality game "Days in Faerie" planning on NOT spending the rest of my life in a pretend world where I was the Princess of the Forest with a harem of gals waiting on my every need.

No, no. Stop the log-in process. Back to Discord. Spy on Zoe.

Was she ever on stream at this time? Hmmmm. . . . Searching. Yes, okay, looked like she was on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Was I being creepy? Well, I could at least answer all the Friends who slid into my DMs.

Oh, only two short messages saying "Hi." I said, "Hey" back, and that was that.

I didn't join everyone in bashing Zoe for not putting a love scene in the most recent chapter of Flopper. I mean, what kind of impression would that make? Plus, I knew nothing of Discord and needed to figure out what my schtick was gonna be.

Zoe already knew I was her biggest fan. All I did was comment on her web serial Flopper once, and then she like, totally, commented back. Told me all about how she had a dream that sparked her muse so she started writing the book, and, like, that's TOTALLY MY SCHTICK.

You see, I was an Author on Purple Road too. That was me, Ayela Scarsdale, writer extraordinaire, and my characters met in their dreams. It wasn't a popular romance trope, no, but I was trying to turn it into one. I mean, we had enemies to lovers and friends to lovers, why not dreams to lovers?

Only, my book didn't get that much attention on Purple Road because it was true romance and didn't have any pew-pew space battles or stabby-stabby sword fights. People wanted violence, but that just wasn't my style.

I liked to entertain, but with comedy and love stories, so, yeah, I wasn't exactly well known. BUT— I was very happy doing what I did, and it was only my side gig.

I was a nanny for two preschoolers during the days. Well, admittedly, only part time. It was sorta the last thing I could find, and it barely paid the bills, but I got a few gigs on stream as a beta-reader that gave me a little extra money too, so I made do.

I had this cool apartment in Cheyenne, WY, see, so I did well on my own.

Achem. Yeah, I got the apartment three months ago. After living in my grandma's basement for ten years. Wince.

That's right, at twenty-seven I was on my own for the first time in my life, and yes, I was proud of it, even if I was scraping by. The day job? Sorta sucked. But the night job— beta reading for change and writing love stories for nothing? The most fulfilling things I'd ever done.

And in my free time, I read all the web serials I could find and commented the hell out of them. Then I wrote spanking awesome reviews, basically making love to people's books with my prose.

I figured it was a great way to get to know other authors and, in time, they'd start recognizing my name. A sort of "Let's make Ayela famous by proxy" plan. Was it working? Only time would tell.

Apparently, Discord was a thing, so maybe that was the break I needed?

If I could figure out what Discord was, I'd get some successful people to read my stories, right? Then, they'd want to buy them? And I could be a full-time, superstar Author? Wasn't that how the world worked?

Yes, I decided. Discord you're the answer to my prayers. Don't let me down.

Oops, mistake numero uno. Bad choice, me. Bad choice.