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They look tired, and when I glance below their live feed and see their streaming schedule, it's no surprise that they're exhausted.

While the other day they weren't on and there was only their normal schedule, now their calendar is packed.

They're playing for hours each day on live streams, and this doesn't even account for their training sessions or the ones they record and upload without a live audience.

They've always gamed a lot, but they're pushing themselves harder than ever.

They must be up for a big endorsement or have a huge competition coming up if they're practicing this much.

None of the quick comments whizzing by on the side of the live stream are talking about how tired they are though.

Only about how hard they've been playing lately, never giving their challengers a chance to even get near their minions.

How other teams are growing afraid of playing them because they're that good.

I'm not afraid of them though. All I want to do is gather each of my gamers to me and hold them until I'm not sure where my body ends and theirs begins. I would soothe away the purple circles under their eyes and remind them they should be eating and taking care of themselves.

That's not my job anymore though. They've probably already hung up flyers saying they're hiring again, looking for a new live-in girlfriend who can fulfill all of their sexual needs and won't betray them by telling the entire world of romance readers what they're like in bed, move by move.

Lucky bitch .

One of the comments catches my eye, mostly because a few of the other viewers comment on it, almost making a little conversation thread on the side.

"Is your girlfriend ever going to come on a live stream?" asks one of the viewers.

"It'd be cool to meet her," says another.

"I bet she's super hot. She has to be, because look at these guys," says another.

"She's taking all of the good gamers for herself. Not cool," says another.

The moment Helix sees the conversation thread in the sidebar he does a double take. His eyes darken and I can tell he's pissed. Probably other viewers can tell too, because he's not trying to hide it.

Immediately the chat says that the viewers who commented have all left the live stream. But Helix still looks pissed, and he flips up the mic on his headset before saying something to his teammates.

They all do the same, and now they're arguing amongst themselves.

None of them looks happy and I wish we could hear what they're saying.

In all my hours of watching their channel, I've never once seen them talk to each other privately.

They're usually pretty casual and willing to give each other grief right on the air for all of their subscribers to see and know they're real people.

"What are you watching?" asks Mom, sneaking up behind me and knocking one side of my headphones loose.

"Just some videos," I say, hastily trying to close my laptop.

"Wait, are those your roommates?" Mom holds up the screen so she can get a better look at what's happening in the game.

I doubt she's ever seen a video game, let alone a computer game.

It's embarrassing enough that she's caught me stalking my ex-roommates, but at least the sidebar chat is moving so fast there's no way she could see the comment about their girlfriend, or make sense of what they're saying now that they're back on their microphones.

So much of the conversation in their world is coded with just acronyms, I don't even understand all of it, and I've spent months with and watching them.

"Honey," Mom settles onto the chair next to me, "do you want to talk about why you're really home?"

"I'm here visiting." I close my laptop and look at the table, the sink, anything in the kitchen other than my mom.

We've never talked about boys or relationships or anything. This is not the best time to start having personal mother-daughter talks. If she pushes too hard, I'm going to break down, and that will make both of us even more uncomfortable than we already clearly are.

"Your dad and I would be okay if you weren't just here visiting, you know." She hesitates, then rushes to say, "We could help you find a job and buy a car and get you back on your feet."

Of course Mom wants to rush in and fix everything, changing my entire life to look more like hers without even hearing about what I want.

Or what I need. She might let Dad brag about me being an author to their friends, but she would be more satisfied if I worked a steady job that she understood and settled down to marriage and kids.

I'm not saying marriage and kids aren't on the table, at some point in the far future, but the steady nine-to-five job will never be.

She needs to understand that and respect me, and my life choices.

"I don't need a job, Mom. I already have one. I'm an author." I'm tired of fighting and I need this to be our last battle about this issue.

"And you can always be an author, but are you really selling enough books that you can get by? It can be a hobby. Something you do on the weekends or evenings after work."

"Mom," I say, sharper than I'd intended as I turn to face her head on, "I don't want a different job.

My new book is selling so well that readers are begging for another one.

When my royalties come, I'll be able to afford my own apartment.

In no world am I going to give up my dream of being an author to make you more comfortable. "

Mom sits there with her mouth open, not saying anything, because I've never talked back to her like this.

In the past I've ignored her, or gotten Dad to talk to her for me, but I wouldn't have nearly yelled at her to get off my back.

But this breakup and the resulting need to assess my future have pushed me to my limit, and I can't be passive or go with the flow anymore.

"I'm not uncomfortable," she lies.

"Yes you are," I insist. "And that's okay, you don't have to be comfortable with what I do, but you also can't keep trying to talk me out of it."

"I just want you to have a secure future, and I've read how much the average author usually makes in a year.

It's not much," she says. "I also want you to be happy, and clearly you haven't been happy this last week since you came home.

Since you won't talk to either me or your dad, I can only assume it has something to do with your books. "

"It's not my books," I whisper, deflating in my chair. "Not entirely anyway."

I turn away a little as I wipe a stupid tear from my lower lashes.

I've shed so many tears over my ex-boyfriends since I've moved home, it's ridiculous.

Not even when I was about to be evicted from my own apartment and had to scramble for a place to live did I resort to crying.

Of course, then I didn't have to face the reality of moving home, and I wasn't also dealing with the worst breakup of my life.

"Then what is it?" asks Mom, throwing up her hands. "Because we're all out of guesses over here, and frankly, you're bringing down the mood in the house."

"I'm so sorry that my breakup is affecting you," I say sarcastically. It's easier than being honest and saying that I'm dying inside. "Let me just get over it and move on so you can get back to your happy little atmosphere."

"Oh." Mom pauses. "I didn't know you were dating someone." She glances to my closed laptop. "Was it one of your roommates? Is that why you're here instead of back in Chicago?"

"It wasn't one of my roommates," I say.

"Then why—" she starts, but I cut her off.

"It was all of them."

She stares at me for a moment. "… all of them?"

Mom has always been confident and straightforward. I'm not used to seeing her uncertain. I can practically see every preconceived notion in her head popping in succession.

"Yes, Mom, all of them." If she's going to dig in and make me feel bad, I'm going to do the exact same to her.

"Okay." Mom tries to physically gather herself back together in front of me, shifting in her seat and clasping her hands together between her knees.

"Well, um, I'm so sorry that you're going through this breakup.

Do you want to talk about it? Or should we …

should we eat ice cream and watch a sad movie? "

A small, sad laugh escapes me. Of course my mother is suggesting the most cliché breakup moping techniques. As if I haven't already been doing that all week when they've been at work.

"Or, umm," Mom casts her eyes around the room, probably waiting for Dad to show up so she can get him to give us a few ideas, "keep stalking them online? Leave some bad reviews on their website?"

Now I laugh for real. Because I've totally been stalking them.

I'm not about to leave bad reviews on their website, though, even if that was a thing the site would let me do.

I could do it on their social media, but they're usually pretty quick to block people.

And there's no way I'm making myself look bad in public.

I do not need an Authors Behaving Badly post about me simply because these five gamers who hired me to do a job broke my heart.

I also don't want to do something that would hurt them, no matter how upset I may be.

"Thanks for the offer, but that's not a good idea." Never in my life did I imagine I would be the rational one in a conversation with my mother.

"Okay, if you're sure," says Mom, standing. "But if you change your mind, let me know. We can borrow a few tricks from Karen down the street."

Mom heads over to the fridge, pulling out random containers for leftover night.

"While you throw yourself into work so you don't have to think about them, I'll heat you up some food. You can't make them regret their decision without becoming a famous author so they kick themselves every time they see your book on the shelves."

As soon as the words are out of Mom's mouth, I realize she's right.

Throwing myself into work is a pretty good idea.

So good, in fact, that I wonder if that's why my ex-boyfriends' schedule is suddenly so full.

Maybe it's not a big upcoming competition.

Maybe they, too, are reeling from the breakup.

I search through the public appearance page on their website and I'm not seeing any public appearances for a few more months. Even perfectionists like them wouldn't prepare for something six months in advance.

My phone beeps and I reach for it automatically.

It's a text from Sasha, of all people. You weren't at critique group this week . Maddie and Angela read me the riot act. I'm sorry that the stress of publishing made me try to sleep with your boyfriends .

Rolling my eyes, I text back, That's a shit apology. Not accepted .

Then I take a page out of my exes' streaming book and block her number.

I don't need that kind of negative energy in my life, and I wouldn't put it past her to find out that we broke up and for her to apply for the job of their live-in girlfriend.

Shaking my head, I try to dislodge that image from my mind. I'm not going to go there.

But Sasha's shit apology makes me think of my own. I didn't really give any validation to the gamers' feelings that I used and betrayed them. For all my pretending that I'm so good with people and know what I'm doing, I'm ruining a lot of things lately.

The live stream is over, probably in part because of the comment thread in the sidebar chat. So I pull up the private subscriber chat.

I don't want to out them on lying on their site that they're no longer in a relationship so I need to craft my message carefully.

"Your girlfriend is lucky to have five amazing boyfriends like you all."

Simple enough that most of the other subscribers won't pay much attention, but direct enough that they'll know I'm the one who left the comment, if my user name matching my pen name didn't already clue them in.

I'm giving away that I'm one of their subscribers and they'll probably block me, but I'll need to stop subscribing anyway if I'm going to have a chance of getting over them.

All I can do is stare at the comment, waiting to be blocked.

Some of the other subscribers are already responding, confused because they didn't realize all of the gamers shared the same girlfriend.

Others are berating me for bringing her up because the guys don't like to talk about their personal life, telling me that I'm going to be kicked out for talking about it and I should respect the rules and their desire for privacy.

It's such a mixed bag of emotions and replies, and I can't just sit here and wait for them to block me. So I do it myself. I pull up all of their numbers on my phone and block each and every one. If I'm going to have a chance of moving on, I need to start now.

I close my laptop again and join my mom in the kitchen, where she's heating up some leftovers. She even pours us some wine and lets us sit in the living room to watch a movie. We choose a comedy so neither of us cries.