Lynx Book 2: A Callie Torres Story

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Callie walked into Jada's office upon hearing the music coming from down the hall. She didn't hear the singing until she opened the door.

"Cause they're just girls breaking hearts! And eyes bright, uptight, they're just girls!"

Not wanting Jada to notice her yet, Callie leaned against the doorframe and watched from afar. Jada was dancing in her chair while tapping her hands on the armrests to the beat. It was so adorable.

Callie immediately recognized Jada's favorite The 1975 song. "She can't be what you need, because she's 17!" she sung back.

Jada's face lit up when she heard Callie's voice. Turning quickly, a huge smile appeared across her face when she saw Callie leaning against the doorframe.

"No Taylor Swift today huh?"

She shook her head. "One of my viewers said they released a new album recently. I listened to the new one while I was streaming and now I'm listening through my favorites."

"You listened to it live? Isn't that going to get you in trouble?"

Shaking her head once again, she said, "I'm surprised you remembered that. But I have an entire audio mixer in a software that I can control all my audio outputs and the volume of them. So I just have my music turned off for chat and only I can hear it."

"You got everything, don't you?"

With a smile, Jada nodded. "All because I have the best wife ever."

Callie smiled. "I like that."

"You are the best wife ever, Calliope. Now come here, baby."

Callie crossed the room to where her wife sat in front of her two computers and four monitors. Jada very quickly pulled Callie into her lap. "Can I give you a setup tour?" she asked. "Since we've been together over three years now and you still don't know what anything does."

"Hey!" Callie protested. "I know some things!"

"Like what?"

"You use two computers instead of one."

"Anything else?"

Callie couldn't help but giggle. "I'll take that as a no," Jada playfully pouted.

"There's a reason I come to you whenever something isn't working."

Jada wrapped her arms around Callie. "Can I show you?"

Callie nodded. As much as she still wasn't really into this stuff, Jada was and she was always excited about it. "I might not remember everything but I want you to show me what everything does."

"Thank you, Calliope!"

With her feet, Jada pulled the chair closer to her desk. "So, the curved monitor right in the middle there is my main monitor. That's the one I game on and sometimes edit on. The bigger curved one above it is what I use to monitor my stream. I can see everything on OBS and I can also see myself which is what chat sees too. Then the vertical one on the left is where I read chat. I use this side because the camera is above it and it's good to look towards the camera when reading chat."

"Why is that?"

"I don't really know," Jada explained with a smile. "It just looks more professional I guess."

"Is it so you're not looking away from where the game is for chat?" Callie asked.

"That too," Jada answered. "Good job, baby!"

"I have chat on the top side and then I have a program that catches subs, bits, donations and stuff like that so I can read them aloud. If I didn't have that, everything would get lost in chat. On the right side, I have Discord open, and then my mixer."

"That's a lot of stuff," Callie admitted.

"Yeah," Jada replied, taking a deep breath. "I love it though."

"I know you do. I admire how much you love it."

"Thank you," Jada said softly. "This wouldn't be possible without you. You made this happen for me."

Callie leaned back into Jada's embrace. "I didn't make anything happen. You did. You built this all."

"You gave me the opportunity to do it, Calliope," Jada insisted. "You let me come live with you and do it, even if it didn't work out and I didn't make any money."

"Money never mattered to me," Callie explained softly. "I'm very fortunate for what my grandparents gave me, and now us. Neither of us would need to work a day in our lives if we didn't choose to." She paused. "Even if I didn't have that, I wouldn't discourage you from going after it."

Jada squeezed Callie harder. "I love you. Thank you for everything."

"I love you too," Jaelynn. "Thank you for saving me from myself and showing me there's still goodness left in this world."

"Calliope, I'm going to cry. You're so sweet."

"Don't cry," Callie replied softly. "Tell me something else."

Jada quickly perked up and Callie giggled at her quick change of demeanor, almost like the lightbulb turned on in her head.

"Baby, I want to do a charity stream sometime soon. I was thinking either for the kids in foster care, or the kids in the children's hospital. So they can enjoy games too."

"I really like that idea."

"I need you to help me though," Jada continued. "We have to come up with incentives to get people to donate. People go nuts with these so we need to get creative."

"What about giving away some merch and Metal Umbrella gear?"

"Absolutely! That should be higher up, probably in the hundreds. We could do a lower donation amount that's a raffle to win a gift basket. And I'll sign some things too."

Reaching her arms around Callie, Jada started typing her ideas on her computer. "Then maybe names on the stream for a certain time for smaller donations?"

"Calliope, you're not going to like this, but can you be in it?"

"What do you mean?"

"If we hit a certain number of donations, can you play a game or something on stream?"

Callie playfully rolled her eyes. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but okay. It better be a tough number to beat though."

"I can do that!"