Chapter Five

Dovid wasn’t doing anything much, just planning out another video on his computer, when his phone beeped with a Twitter DM alert. He plugged in an earbud to check the DM and was very pleasantly surprised.

Dovid hurried to respond.

Great, now that he was talking to Sam.

Dovid went to check. Sam’s three-hundred-fifty-ish Twitter follower count had jumped up to almost four thousand. And he was nearly at one hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube now.

Of course he would. Because Sam was too good for this world.

Sam had thought of him. Sam had panicked and thought of Dovid. This was the greatest day of Dovid’s life.

He nearly added a heart emoji before he caught himself.

Dovid sent the message off and then proceeded to try to forget about it. Sam would answer when he could. Or if he wanted to. And he might not feel like it, which was also entirely fair.

And Dovid was a damn YouTube star; you’d think that he’d be better at this whole online communication thing.

Dovid frowned. That didn’t sound good.

Dovid proceeded to walk Sam through enabling ads on his channel and set them as “per view” as opposed to “per click.” Sam was very appreciative all throughout, and Dovid tried to make it clear that he wasn’t expecting anything from Sam for doing this. That he just wanted to help, because he liked him. Which was all true.

He really hoped Sam liked him back. It seemed like he did. He kept up the conversation. But Sam was also nice. Was Dovid imposing and not aware of it?

Awesome.

Dovid’s phone beeped with an incoming Twitter DM around twelve-thirty, just as he was finishing up a new song for his Patreon patrons. He checked it eagerly, hoping, and was super pumped when it did, after all, end up being from Sam.

Dovid grinned. Sam was thinking about him! His day just got one hundred percent better.

They were using an awful lot of emoticons with each other. Were they flirting? Was this flirting? If this were anyone else Dovid would totally consider it flirting. But he really liked Sam, and Sam was just so nice. Maybe Dovid was just projecting. He didn’t want to say or do anything wrong by accident.

“Hey, guys, this is Don’t Look Now with Dovid and Rachel. I’m Dovid, Rachel’s behind the camera, and today we’re doing a livestream! So welcome, everyone. We are live, right, Rachel? Hey, guys, if you can hear us, tweet, um, tweet ‘apple dumpling.’”

“‘Apple dumpling’?” Rachel asked incredulously. She was, as always, standing out of view from the camera, holding their iPad to check their Twitter feed and YouTube comments.

Dovid shrugged. “I don’t know, they sounded good. I’ve never had one before.”

“Okay,” Rachel said, attention on the iPad, “Tessa from YouTube says ‘apple dumpling,’ brianbates on Twitter says ‘apple dumpling,’ isabellabella from Twitter says ‘apply dumpling,’ I think we’re live.”

“Awesome.” Dovid waved. “Hi, everyone! Where are you all from? Go ahead and let us know!”

“Alright,” Rachel said, “We’ve got USA, USA, Canada, California, Colorado—wow a lot of ‘C’s there. Mississippi, Wales, the UK, England, Japan—geez, it’s pretty late for you guys, isn’t it? Michigan, Kentucky, Canada again, Mexico, Ireland—”

“Ireland?” Dovid said. “Hey! Welcome to the livestream. I’ve got a friend who lives there.”

“You’ve got a friend lots of places,” Rachel said exasperatedly. With, perhaps, a touch of good reason. Dovid might have been talking about his burgeoning friendship with Sam maybe a lot.

Maybe.

“Moving on,” Dovid said. “Welcome again, everybody! Today we’re going to be answering some questions and opening some fan mail. First off—” he picked up a box from out of view of the camera and held it up “—this one Rachel picked out. I have been assured that it’s covered in a cute cat print, so I’m taking her word for it. Who’s this from, Rachel?”

Rachel was in charge of opening all the boxes and taking out the letters they were sent, so Dovid could address the fan on camera. It also meant she was the one who read the letters aloud for Dovid. She usually had fun with the gushy ones.

“This one’s from Diane and Matthew in Rochester, Michigan,” Rachel said. “Matthew is thirteen, and he and his mom put together this package for us.”

“Oh cool,” Dovid said, even though inside there was that “oh no, a child is watching me” feeling he wasn’t ever able to escape. “Thanks, Matthew! And Diane. Looking forward to seeing what you sent! Or feeling. Or eating. Whatever. Looking forward to it.”

“It’s specialties of Michigan,” Rachel told him, obviously looking at the letter. “And they wrapped each item in a different color, so I could let you know what things were as you unpacked ’em.”

“Awesome.” It was always great when fans took his blindness into account while wanting to make fan packages fun. Color-coded packages meant Rachel wouldn’t have to fumble around trying to stay out of the camera while she identified things to Dovid. Rachel would go to great lengths to avoid being on camera. “Okay, well, let’s see...” He reached in and grabbed a package. It was on the heavier side, and something sloshed in it when he picked it up. A beverage of some kind? “What color is this?”

“That’s red,” Rachel said. “It’s a pop. He said they were sending you some of Michigan’s specialty pop. Open the one you’ve got.”

Dovid ripped the package open and held up the bottle. “Okay, definitely feels and sounds like a bottle of pop. Are you going to tell me what kind it is?”

“I suppose I can. It’s called Red Pop.”

“Wow,” Dovid said flatly after a minute. “That is so creative. Let me guess...it’s red?”

“Surprise!”

“Okay, well, red Red Pop. Let me open this and give it a try.” He cracked open the bottle—slowly, they’d had enough pop bottles explode on them from being rattled in transit to know better now—and sniffed it. “Whoof, that smells like artificial red. You know how sometimes something isn’t a flavor, but the flavor of a color? I can’t even see colors and I know when something is red flavor. This definitely is it.”

“It’s got a picture of a strawberry on the bottle,” Rachel said helpfully.

“So I guess I’m to assume it tastes like strawberry. Okay, well...bottoms up.” He took a long swallow and, well, it wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever tasted, not by a long shot (here’s looking at you salmiakki), but it did taste very red and very artificial.

“How’s it taste?” Rachel asked.

Dovid held up the bottle. “You want to try?”

“I might be curious.”

“Go ahead. It tastes like red.”

“It really does,” Rachel said, after Dovid handed her the bottle. “That’s. Interesting.”

Dovid laughed. “Right, well, next item?”

“Oh, pick the brown one. That’s another pop.”

“‘Pick the brown one,’ she says. To the blind man.”

Rachel snorted. “It’s a pop-bottle shape. Pick it out.”

“Fine, fine...” Dovid felt around until his fingers found something the right size and shape that sloshed familiarly. He triumphantly held it up. “This better be the brown one.”

“It is. Open it, open it. It’s called Rock & Rye.”

“Rye?” Dovid asked as he tore open the packaging and held up the bottle for the viewers to see. “Like the bread?”

“Don’t look at me.”

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Anyway, here goes.” He twisted open the top and took a swallow. “Well,” he said after a minute. “That is...interesting. I honestly don’t know how to describe that. It’s...not quite root beer flavored. How would you even describe this?”

Rachel took the bottle from him and took her own drink of it. “I’d say that Faygo is a weird brand,” she said. From the sound of it, she had capped the bottle. “Here, hold out your hand to take it back.”

Dovid did so, and set the bottle down on the floor at his feet, before he reached into the box again. “What color?”

“Green,” Rachel said.

Dovid hefted it. This too felt like a pop bottle. “And it is?”

“...also a pop, apparently. Michigan has a lot of specialty pops.”

“What kind is it?”

“It’s a ginger ale. Vernors.”

“Oh. Can’t go wrong with ginger ale, I guess. And it looks like I’m not going to be thirsty, thanks to this box.” He opened the bottle and took a swallow. “Okay, that one’s really good. I haven’t had ginger ale in a while, but I really like this stuff.”

“Gimme.”

Dovid made a face. “See how she talks to me?”

“Dovid, come on.”

“Here.” He held out the bottle so Rachel could grab for it and stay out of the shot. “What do you think?”

“Oh yeah, I like that a lot.”

“Right? It’s really good.”

“It is.”

“Now give it back.”

“You already have the other two pops!”

“Rachel, come on.”

“Ugh, fine, here, hold out your hand.”

Dovid took the bottle back and set it down next to him on the couch, so he wouldn’t get it mixed up with the two Faygo bottles on the floor. He picked up another package. This one had something dry and crackly-sounding inside, like dead leaves rattling against each other, but the package itself was puffy, like it was covered in a layer of Bubble Wrap. “What is this? It sounds like chips. Are these chips? And what color are they?”

“Yeah they are. And yellow. It’s wrapped in Bubble Wrap so the chips didn’t get squashed by the pop.”

“Okay. Are they...special chips?”

“Yup. According to the letter, these are Better Made chips, a brand from Michigan. That one’s regular, and there’s another one that’s barbecue.”

“Oh. Alright. Let me just...figure out how to open a bag of bubble-wrapped chips, then. I might need scissors for this.”

He didn’t end up needing scissors; after some careful feeling around, he found the piece of tape that was holding it all together and peeled it off. The Bubble Wrap unwound easily, and then he was opening the bag Rachel identified as the plain kind. “They taste like chips,” he said after trying one. “Maybe saltier than normal. And...a little greasier, to be honest. Okay, now the barbecue.”

He put one in his mouth, bit down, and immediately—“Hot! Hot hot hot, okay, bleh, no, sorry, no.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“I’m covering my mouth!” He was; he’d brought his hand up to his mouth—though that was in part to fan it. “I don’t think I’m a fan of barbecue chips.”

“Wimp.”

“You want to try them?”

“Sure.”

Rachel couldn’t tell a difference between the Better Made chips and regular ones (“That’s because I have a more refined palate,” Dovid said smugly), and she liked the barbecue chips. Dovid graciously said they were hers to keep.

“One last package,” Rachel said, “and so you know, it’s wrapped in white. I’m excited for this one.”

“Okay...” Dovid pulled out the package. It felt sort of hefty, and was about the size of his whole hand. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“Nope.”

“Great. That means I should be terrified.”

“It’s a good surprise, I promise.”

“Uh-huh.” This too was wrapped in Bubble Wrap, probably to keep it from getting squashed by the bottles. He opened it up and took a sniff, and was immediately bombarded by the smell of chocolate and peanut butter. “Wow, this smells amazing.”

“Open the rest of it so you can try it so I can try it.”

Dovid grinned and took his time unwrapping the package until he was holding something that felt smooth to the touch, but soft. If he pressed a little bit, his finger indented it and it didn’t spring back. The texture and feel, along with the smell... “Is this some kind of candy?”

“Eat it, eat it, eat it.”

Dovid broke off a little piece and put it in his mouth. “Fudge! I think. Is it fudge? Because it’s amazing.” He took another piece.

“Don’t eat it all,” Rachel whined. “I want to try it.”

“In a second. And this is great. But why’s it special?”

“It’s from some place called Mackinac,” Rachel read. “They’re famous for their fudge.”

“Well, good, they should be. You’re not getting any.”

“Doviiiiid.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, handing it over. “But you better not eat it all. We’ll split it after filming.”

“Deal.” And then, “Oh wow, this is delicious.”

“Right?”

“I changed my mind, I’m eating the whole thing.”

Dovid turned back to face the front, where the camera was. “See how she treats me? Anyway, thank you so much Matthew and Diane. Rachel will read me your letter after filming. This was a great package to open. You all know that I love to try new things! And feel free to send more fudge, by the way.” He took another sip of the Vernors and then said, “Okay, now that we’ve opened a package, I think it’s time to read some comments and answer some questions. Rachel, any good ones?”

“Oh yeah, quite a few,” she said. Dovid could hear the wicked grin in her voice. He immediately got worried. “First one, Marissa from London: ‘Love your channel! Are you ever going to tell us if you’re dating someone?’”

Dovid didn’t sigh aloud, but he was going to get back at Rachel for this. He had the same canned answer, but Rachel had been teasing him a lot about the fact that he was talking to Sam. “Thanks, Marissa, glad you like our show. And no, I really would like to keep that part of my life separate from YouTube. If—if I were dating someone, and I’m not saying if I am or not, I’d really want to keep that quiet, at least for a little while. It wouldn’t be fair to bring my possible datemate into my YouTube life, especially if they weren’t prepared for the fallout.” Like he’d done with Sam. “It can be really overwhelming to be a popular YouTube personality, even more so when you don’t have any experience with it. I wouldn’t want to do that to someone before they were ready.”

And it was hard sometimes. Dovid did, occasionally, talk about hookups, both the good and bad experiences. He’d had times where someone had wanted to fuck him because he was blind and it was a kink and, gross, no. He’d had people who’d been really good about working with him, so the sex was fun for everybody. He did his best to keep his channel PG-13 for his viewers, but even with that stipulation, it was important to him to share certain experiences with other people, both disabled and not. Most of his viewers really appreciated how candid he was about it.

But actually dating someone... Dovid couldn’t imagine putting someone through that. He’d had people who’d wanted to date him because he was “famous” (which was nipped in the bud pretty quickly), but he had dated a few people who, like Rachel, were camera shy. He’d actually had a breakup over it once; Dovid had gotten serious enough with Brian that he’d wanted to share his happiness with YouTube. Brian was adamant Dovid never bring him into it, and, well...a lot of things were said in the ensuing fight, and the relationship couldn’t be recovered.

That still hurt.

Dovid did end up making a video about why he was so down, but he’d been careful not to go into too much detail, instead talking about how much he hurt but that he was trying to get over it. The video had ended with him being very clear about the fact that he was probably going to keep his more serious dating life offscreen. But people still asked. They were going to.

“And Rachel knows that as well as anyone,” he added. “So while it was great to hear from you, Marissa, I’m not sure why she chose your question.”

“Because you get twenty million of those questions a day. Might as well talk about it once a livestream.”

This time Dovid did sigh. “I guess that’s a fair point.” He tried to grin. “Okay, well, next question.”

“Sergei from Russia says, ‘What is favorite movie? Many people think just because blind, I don’t watch. But you watch many thing. Me too! Sorry for my English!’”

“That’s an excellent question, Sergei. And your English is awesome. Though I’m going to be a little boring here and say I like to watch a lot of documentaries. It’s fun to learn things; I’m a big random-facts guy. And this might seem obvious, but I like movies that actually have a lot of dialogue? Action movies are sort of lost on me. ‘What happened?’ ‘Something exploded.’ ‘What happened this time?’ ‘Another thing exploded.’ ‘Why did all the things explode?’ ‘Because most people are pretty damn visual, stop interrupting the movie.’ You see my point? Next question!”

“Yuki, from Japan but currently in California, wants to tell you that she really likes Sam’s channel, and she wanted to thank you for recommending it.”

“Oh! Well, hey, thanks, Yuki. Glad you’re liking him. I hope you went ahead and let him know!” He grinned. “But I’ll be sure to pass along that information to him.”

“Whoa,” Rachel said.

“What?”

“Comments just exploded asking you about Sam.”

Oh.

Dovid hadn’t actually told YouTube that he and Sam were in contact now.

Shit, shit, shit. Why couldn’t he just be a normal human being when it came to Sam? He’d been on YouTube long enough—he should be better at this! He just...he just was happy that they were talking, and his first instinct was to share that. But not at Sam’s expense again, damn it.

“Dovid, there are a lot of questions and comments about Sam now.” And from Rachel’s tone, Dovid could tell that some of them were probably more personal than others.

Dovid cleared his throat and smiled wide. “Okay, guys, I really don’t think I’ll be able to get to all those, so I’m just going to clear a few things up now. We didn’t know each other when I plugged his channel. That’s true. And he didn’t know me when he dedicated his next video to us—that was just a thank-you for the plug. But since then, we have been talking a little, yeah. He wasn’t super sure about how to handle the sudden burst of popularity. I’ve just been giving him a little advice. But it couldn’t hurt for you guys to be nice to him! And now I think we should open the next fan mail package. What do you think, Rachel?”

“Excellent. I want to eat more.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

As soon as the livestream was over, even before he took off his mic or started to help clean up, Dovid was sending a message to Sam.

It was late for Sam now, around eleven at night, and he wasn’t expecting a response so it was a little bit jarring to have one come in. Still, by then Dovid had actually listened to some of the tweets and comments fans had left asking about Sam (or speculating about Sam) and he was glad that he’d be able to at least apologize now while things were still fresh.

Dovid sighed and typed out his reply.

Dovid sighed and rubbed at his face. Sam had no idea.

Dovid should probably just bite the bullet and tell him now. Better to do it as soon as he could and soften the blow, over letting Sam find out from an overenthusiastic fan.

Sam blinked down at his phone. It was certainly surprising to learn that someone on the internet would come to the conclusion that he was dating Dovid. Even though he was in bloody Ireland but...long distance was a thing, after all. However, if anything, it only made Sam feel bad that Dovid felt bad. It wasn’t Dovid’s fault that people liked to let their imaginations get the better of them.

Besides, Sam had burned through an awful lot of Dovid’s videos at this point. That, coupled with their much-more-frequent conversations, well...

Sam’s little crush had definitely solidified. He had to admit that he would not be opposed to dating Dovid.

And he’d already taken much too long to reply, so he hurriedly tapped out a message and sent it.

He stared at the words he’d just sent for Dovid to read. “It’s not like I mind”? Really, Sam?

This was getting into dangerous territory here. Sam tried to be honest without giving too much away.

This time there was a significant pause. The little “...”s by Dovid’s username appeared and disappeared half a dozen times before the reply came.

That was okay to say, right? And a smiley face emoticon was okay to use too, right? Right? Oh dear, Sam had very little experience with talking to someone like this. At least Dovid didn’t seem like the type to get mad if Sam said the wrong thing.

Sam swallowed. Seeing those words made him come up all warm.

Because he wasn’t. Dovid was this amazing (and, well, very handsome) YouTube sensation. He was a voice for disabled and differently-abled people, incredibly clever, obviously kind, and such a special person. Sam was a nobody. He didn’t have an interesting career or do anything all that exciting. He was terrible when it came to human interaction because he was so shy and it was, frankly, incredible that he was even able to cope with his sudden popularity. That he was able to at all was all because of Dovid and his advice and willingness to be an ear for Sam to talk to.

Sam frowned in confusion.

Dovid respected his opinion? That much? About something like this? Just from Sam’s silly videos?

Wow.

He wished he could take back the word as soon as he pressed enter. He might be unhappy with his job, and even sometimes mentioned it in videos, but talking to Dovid was mostly about positives. So he didn’t like being reminded, after a lovely conversation, that he had to go back to work.

He was a little envious of Dovid, being able to just...do something he loved so much. Sam couldn’t even imagine that.

Sam wished Dovid a good rest of his own day and lay back in bed, letting out a breath. He hoped he hadn’t gotten too personal for Dovid, with his own feelings. But there they were, and none too easy to ignore.

And Dovid absolutely did deserve someone special. He was kind, smart, funny, handsome and so much more.

Sam set his phone down on his nightstand, closed his eyes, and tried to will himself to sleep and to not think about how much he sort of wanted to be that special someone.