For The Win (Gamer Girls, #6) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,115

time. Instead, she felt something else. This heat simmering inside her. It wasn't encouraging her to back down, and she wasn't even close to boiling over, yet it was still anger. A quiet, resigned form, but that had never happened before.

Usually, her reaction to those was some version of self-loathing. Yeah, she knew she was different. It had pretty much been rubbed in her face for her entire life. Sometimes intentionally, although usually people had no idea they were doing it. Her father calling her "son" was a good example.

But this time had been different. This time, she had nothing to be ashamed of, and plenty of people to remind her of that. She'd been safe, sheltered, and protected by people she only saw once every other month or online. Men that, if she was honest with herself, she barely knew, and others who'd become her own sort of found family.

"Psyc?" she asked, turning to him. "I don't even know your real name."

"Shit," he groaned. "It's bad, Rhaven. Josiah Bachmeier. I prefer Joe, if you have to, but most people call me Psyc even in real life."

"Joe," she mumbled, walking again and letting him keep up.

"Rhaven?" he asked. "Babe, you kinda just spaced out on me. Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," she told him, but there was no frustration in her voice. Just honest revelation. "I'm completely fine. I mean, I'm honestly kinda flattered, you know? All of you just jumped in, and I didn't have to say a thing. And you guys were so mad about it."

"You weren't?" he asked.

She shook her head. "That's pretty normal."

Psyc caught her shoulders and pulled her around to face him. "That shit is not normal, Rhaven. It's sick, and cruel, and people like that deserve to have their faces beat in."

"It's normal for me," she reminded him. "Even half the LGBTQ crowd has opinions on the trans community. I'm used to people finding out about me and mouthing off. That I'm going to Hell is a favorite. Or calling me a 'tranny' or 'she-male.'"

He gently reached up to push her hair away from her face. "I prefer beautiful. Dangerous. Spunky. Rhaven, so far as I care, you're a woman. No adjectives necessary. Adverbs? Whichever it's supposed to be."

She ducked her head to laugh. "Let's go with descriptors."

"Deal." But he tilted her face back up. "You know I do like you, right? I mean, not just as a fellow gamer, or my outfit mate. I, um..."

"I'm with Braden," she reminded him.

He nodded. "I know. I get it. I just kinda wanted to put that out there. You know, in case all my flirting gets to be so normal that you think it's a joke. It's kinda not."

"Psyc..." she breathed.

"Just keeping it real, babe." But he pulled his hand back and gestured toward the Eternal Combat booth. "I'm also kinda taking you to see your lover boy."

Braden's booth was packed. It always was, but she and Psyc wove their way through the crowd until they could get to the edge of the counter. Not at the front, though. They were at the side, near the entrance that let Braden in and out of his demo area. Naturally, they were spotted almost immediately. Braden held up a finger in their direction, asking them to wait.

"So if you're looking for even fights," he said, "or want to know just how long your matches will last, this is not your game. And over here, we have two members of one of the top yellow-team guilds. PsychoCut and Rhaven, both from PsychoDreads. Come on back, you two."

Thankfully, Psyc knew how to work the door, because there wasn't a handle on the outside. It was also only waist high, and once opened, Rhaven could see the lever on the inside. She followed Psyc in.

"PsychoCut!" some guy called out, cheering like he was rooting for a sports team.

Psyc just grinned in the direction of the voice. "Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night."

"And it sounds like we'll be having a big match tonight," Braden told the crowd. "All the gamer girls will be going head to head. If you want to see QQ get her ass handed to her, come watch. We'll start thirty minutes after the final round in the PLG tournament. For now, enjoy the live stream from the game servers." And he pointed up, to where the monitors hung overhead.

The crowd immediately began to disperse. Not all of them, but enough to make it clear that Braden