Only Oscar (Wattys 2022 Shortlist!)

Chapter Eighteen

Callie had never pretended to be perfect. But being with a guy she wanted to be perfect for, changed things. 

She just needed to figure out a way to transform herself without turning into a parody of a 1950's housewife.

Being supportive of what Oscar was doing felt like a good place to start. He obviously had a lot on his plate and if she hadn't got that from their conversation in the car, the first hour she spent on Twitter told her everything she needed to know. People were going crazy at the prospect of a second, ridiculously annoying gopher game and now they knew the name of the person responsible for it, they were coming at Oscar from every direction. 

Reporters wanted to interview him. Gamers wanted tips to help them get through the trickier levels. A scary number of women had obviously searched his social media, found pictures of him and wanted to know if he was single. And then there were the Internet trolls, folks with nothing better to do with their time than run people down, who said such horrible things about Oscar, Callie immediately wanted to jump to his defense.

When he made his first public 'appearance', she was glad she was there to see it and felt so proud of him, she almost burst. 

It was typically humble, a simple confirmation he was gopher guy with thanks to everyone for their enthusiasm. He really was amazing.

Deciding it was the supportive thing to do, she shared the message with her meager group of followers and added a hash tag which stated she knew him before he got famous. 

Her phone chirped thirty seconds after she posted it.

'Might regret that, babe,' the text said. 'You just opened the gate to the crazy town. If you get 1000 followers in the next few hours and they don't ask about your work just ignore them, k?'

Callie blinked. She hadn't thought about the knock-on effect his newfound fame might have on her. But now he'd pointed it out, she was more worried about saying something stupid which could come back to bite him in the ass. 

Just as well she hadn't gone troll hunting.

'You want me to delete it?' she asked.

'Your call. Miss you.'

Callie smiled. 'Miss you, too.'

As he started publicly replying to select messages, she made coffee and got comfy in her favorite armchair to read them all. She laughed at some of his responses to people's jokes, was impressed by his technical knowledge (not that much of it made sense to her) but had to admit it stung a little when he didn't mention to all the manhunters that he had a girlfriend.

When she noticed one of the people he was talking tech back-ad-forth with was cute in her profile pic, and was tempted to check if it was someone who propositioned him earlier, she set her tablet aside. 

Jealousy had never been her thing and she wasn't starting now.

She tried working for an hour but couldn't settle. She tried watching T.V. but nothing held her interest. She tidied her bedroom, artfully re-arranged throw cushions on the bed, set out scented candles, then checked to see if he was still online. 

After another twenty minutes of reading messages, she decided to run a bath.

It wasn't easy to play the role of the perfect girlfriend when it felt like she was one of a million random observers watching him from afar. But she could do her absolute best to be soft, smooth, perfumed and pretty when he arrived at her door.

By eleven-thirty, she felt like an idiot for spending so much time on her appearance. 

Was this what her life would be like with the new Oscar? If it was, she wasn't certain she could handle it.