Very Important Person

Chapter 11

Except that gave Elsa the entire drive home to dwell. Next class. It probably meant that Anna was in college, but what if she wasn't? What if she was a senior in high school? Technically, she could still cam if she was over eighteen, but it would definitely be a lot more awkward between them. Sure, Elsa was only twenty-three herself, but she mentally considered anyone who didn't at least have that diploma a child.

"Cradle-robber," she accused herself as she guided her car into her building's garage. "Disgusting. Just... you knew she looked young, why didn't that raise red flags? Are you really going to keep talking to this teenager?!"

She barely touched her dinner, and wound up hovering behind Gerda while she cleaned until the frustrated housekeeper got sick of it and shooed her off. By the time her phone rang again, she was merely wringing her hands and staring through her TV while something trivial played. Truth be told, she didn't even know what it was.

"H-hello?"

"Mountie!" she burst out excitedly. "Heeey! I was kinda scared you wouldn't pick up, I was such a dink last time!"

"Dink?" Elsa laughed, getting up from her expensive taupe couch to pace. Again.

"You know, nerd? Loser? Fleekless wonder?"

"Do people really talk like that?"

Now it was Anna's turn to laugh shyly. There was a loud clop-clop in the background; Elsa had the strong impression she had kicked off her shoes. "Probably not. I really am a dink."

"Don't be silly. How was... class?"

"Huh? Oh, it was fine. I don't even like this one but I need the credit hours or I'm never getting outta there."

Credit hours. University. Elsa couldn't disguise her sigh of relief.

"You okay?"

"What? No, no - I'm fine. Sorry."

"You thought I was in high school, didn't you?"

Blanching at that knowing tone, she protested, "N-no, I didn't!" When Anna didn't respond, she sighed again and dropped into the armchair this time. "I just wasn't sure."

"I can't blame you," she giggled. "Like... okay, a behind-the-curtain reveal? There was a group text."

"Group text?"

"Of the girls on LenzLaydeez. Not everybody was on it or interested or whatever, but we needed it sometimes. To vent? And like, about half those girls actually are in high school. Couple of them were even under eighteen and lying about their age, but like, you didn't hear that from me; they still needed the money."

"My lips are sealed." Even if she didn't feel quite right about that, she also didn't know which girls were which, so it was largely irrelevant. "So, um... what is it you want to do? When you're through with college."

"Not really sure. Kinda thinking about opening a sub shop, but like, most restaurants crash and burn. Then sometimes I think I'd like to go legit and do Twitch streams; I actually started out that way but I realised I could make a lot more camming."

"Twitch?"

"Yeah, y'know, gaming?" Silence. "Of... the video kind?"

"OH! Sorry, I don't really know anything about that."

"WHAT?!" she burst out in shock. "Omigod, who even are you? Wait - you don't have to answer, i-it was a joke. I'm not trying to make you tell me who you are, I know that's... well, I'm pretty sure you're somebody I would know, which means I shouldn't know, because you'll-"

"It's okay," she laughed softly to spare her from having to babble. "And it would depend on what you watch. Anyway, I, um... my parents didn't approve of video games so I haven't ever tried them."

"NEVER?! Are you serious? Okay, um..." Anna squirmed for a minute. "So this is gonna sound super nosy, but you've got money, right? You waste so much on me."

"I do. And I don't think of it as a waste."

Anna fell quiet for a moment. Then she whispered, "Mountie, you cinnamon roll. Anyway - I want you to take that platinum card to Amazon. We're gonna get you set up."

"Set up?"

~ o ~

Elsa Norberg, model and soap star, spent the next hour being walked through purchasing something called a Nintendo 3DS. She didn't know a single thing, so Anna had to lead the poor babe in the woods through every step. Within a couple of days, she would have the system itself and a Pokemon game - at least that, she had heard of, even if she didn't know what it was.

When she started offering to buy Anna the same, she reassured her she already had them. And that she didn't want more of her money. She wasn't remorseful about the past purchases, but also didn't try to weasel more out of her; it was an odd balance that Elsa could respect, and went a long way toward quelling her fears that Anna would abuse their friendship. They were practically strangers but she already felt she could trust her.

Once the system showed up on her doorstep - it was so much smaller than she had been expecting, since she was envisioning one of the TV-connected consoles she had coveted as a child - she called Anna again. They had spoken every day between and were starting to get more comfortable around each other. The camgirl temporarily switched jobs to game coach and got her to stop accidentally shutting the system off and flipping between the main menu and the game, until finally she was really playing. Even if she was confused often.

And it was nice. For a while now, her parents had been insisting she get a hobby. They probably didn't have video games in mind, since they thought they were brain-rotting or something equally narrow-minded, but it was still better than being all work and no play. But more than that...

Anna.

"You have to stop doing that," Anna laughed shyly.

"Doing what?"

"Complimenting me every few seconds. It's really sweet, but you're going to like, get me all bubbly."

Elsa smiled a little as she paused the game. She knew how to do that now. "Mmm, what if I want you all bubbly?"

There was a little sigh over the line. "God that voice... okay, I gotta go. The apartment's a wreck and you know how Hans gets."

Again, Elsa was very careful to disguise her displeasure. "I know. Talk to you tomorrow?"

"Probably," she laughed. "Byeeeee, Trainer!"

"Night."

And once she hung up, the actor almost obsessively dove into the game. Anything to take her mind off what could happen once the aforementioned boyfriend came home.

To Be Continued...