The Cable Guy's Guide to First Dates

Leo's stomach did backflips as he adjusted his headset for the third time. His twitch stream was supposed to start in five minutes, and Maya—the girl from AP Bio who actually laughed at his memes—had just said she might tune in.

"You good?" his older sister called from the hallway. "You look like you're about to hurl."

"I'm fine," Leo lied. His screen froze. Again. The cable internet was acting up, and his chat would absolutely destroy him if he couldn't even keep his stream stable. "Maybe I should just—"

His phone buzzed. Maya: stream still happening? 😏

Leo's face burned. He was already sweating through his favorite gaming shirt. This was supposed to be HIS moment—finally, someone cool actually wanted to watch him play. But his internet had other plans. That stupid cable modem his dad had promised to replace three months ago was now officially destroying his social life.

He restarted the stream for the fourth time. Chat was already flooding with "LAG LMAO" and "rip this stream." Then his mom marched in with a bowl. "You need actual food if you're gonna be on that computer all night."

"MAWWM, not on stream!"

But it was too late. Chat had seen everything. She'd plopped down a bowl of spinach—actual wilted, green spinach—like she expected him to suddenly become Popeye in the middle of a ranked match.

"Is that SPINACH?" someone typed in chat. "bro is eating healthy gamer meals"

Leo wanted to die. His stream was crashing, his mom was treating him like a toddler, and Maya was probably laughing her ass off somewhere. He shut everything down.

His phone lit up again. Maya: that was the funniest thing I've ever seen

Leo blinked. Really?

Maya: the spinach part killed me 😂 my mom does that stuff too

Leo: ughhhhh worst stream ever

Maya: nah. it was... real. most people try too hard. you're just... you.

Leo stared at his screen, heart pounding in a completely different way now. Maybe being a total disaster wasn't the worst thing in the world. Maybe being real was better than being cool.

His phone buzzed one more time. Maya: wanna hang out this weekend? we can figure out how to be socially awkward together

Leo grinned. Yeah. Maybe he didn't need to be anyone else.

Just then, his little sister burst in. "MOM! Leo's being a FOX again!"

"What?"

"You know—sneaky! I found his stash!" She held up his hidden bag of chips. "You said you were eating healthy!"

Leo groaned as his mom rushed in. So much for his smooth moment.

But as he read Maya's latest message—count me in—he decided the chaos was worth it. Being a total fox (in the worst way) with bad internet and weird siblings wasn't so bad when someone actually got it.