Love, Comment, Subscribe by Cathy Yardley
CHAPTER 15
Tobin sat at his parents’ kitchen table, eating a turkey sandwich with homegrown tomatoes and lettuce and sharp cheddar cheese, wondering if there was a discreet way to drown himself in his own cup of tea.
It wasn’t like he didn’t know how these things worked. He had lunch with his parents once a month, whether he wanted to or not. Most of the time, it was “not,” even though he loved them dearly.
“So I told him, in perfect German, that they were either going to get the shipment to me on time or ‘this bitch’ was going to put him through the wringer,” his mother, Abigail, said with a small, delighted smile. “Can you imagine? He thought I didn’t speak a word! Well, he was in for a surprise.”
Tobin grinned. His mother was deceptive. She was what you’d call an English-rose type: all porcelain pale, with those weird rosy cheeks, like you’d see on painted collectibles. Her hair was still gold blonde, cut in a short, no-nonsense style. She looked amazing for fifty-three. “You are a terror.”
“Only if you deserve it,” his father said with a fond smile. “I should’ve turned you loose on that idiot that kept insisting on changes to the designs. I kept trying to point out that the laws of physics wouldn’t actually allow for a room with no load-bearing walls the way he wanted, and even if I did set up the room the way he wanted, the internal structure would nearly double or triple the cost.” His father rolled his eyes. “Why do they insist on this stupidity?”
Tobin made noncommittal noises of agreement as he glanced at the clock. They’d been eating—and his parents had been sharing stories of their various workplaces—for over an hour. He was almost home free. If he could just . . .
His mother cleared away lunch plates and brought out a selection of cookies. Then she pinned him with a shrewd gaze as he reached for one. “How are your little videos going, then?”
His heart sank. Damn it. I was so close!
“They’re doing fine,” he said in as neutral a voice as possible. “You know. Working hard, making content.”
His father’s lips pulled taut as he studied his son. “Working hard,” he said with a slight scoff. “Playing video games and recording it.”
Tobin fought the urge to bristle. They loved him; he knew that. But they didn’t get it. The shouting match they’d had when he dropped out of school had been the worst fight he’d ever had with them—they hadn’t spoken for months afterward. Now, they were back to a truce, but it didn’t stop them from needling him, once a month, about his life choices.
“A recent video I did was very successful,” he said, feeling himself fall into the trap, but talking anyway. Hell, he was jumping into the trap at this point. “It racked up several million views, and it’s still climbing. They showed it on Good Morning America.” There. You couldn’t get more mainstream than that.
“Oh?” His mother sounded unimpressed, sipping her tea. “What was it of?”
“It was . . .” He abruptly realized there was no way he could describe it without it sounding frivolous, and somewhat stupid. And that’s why it’s called a trap, moron. “A parody of the beacons of Minas Tirith. From Lord of the Rings,” he clarified.
His father looked at his mother, who shrugged. “And you’re getting paid for this?”
“Ad revenue,” Tobin said tightly. “More views, more subscribers . . . more money.” Which I have explained to you approximately one million times.
“Hmm.” His father nodded. “What are you doing next, then?”
God, would people stop asking him that? He felt his turkey sandwich sit like a ball of concrete in his stomach, and he nudged away the cookie his mother had offered. “I’m doing a collaborative video series, with another YouTuber,” he said. “Lily Wang, actually. Do you remember her?”
“Oh! I do remember her,” his mother said, smiling. “Beautiful girl. Always so fashionable. Not to speak badly of you and your friends, but I swear, sometimes I wondered if you all got dressed in the dark.”
She grimaced, nodding at his T-shirt, on which was printed, “YOU’VE READ MY T-SHIRT. That’s enough social interaction for one day.”
“Of course,” she said, shaking her head, “that hasn’t changed noticeably. Why don’t you wear those shirts I bought you for Christmas? You’re twenty-eight, dear. Surely you can dress like a grown-up at this point.”
He suppressed a sigh.
“What videos are you doing with Lily?” his father asked, puzzled. “I barely remember her, but she never seemed the silly type. Does she like video games?”
“She’s a beauty YouTuber, but we’re doing some crossovers,” Tobin tried to explain. Then it occurred to him: this might be a way to finally show that being a YouTuber could be a valid occupation. “She’s making a living from it, like I am. We’re actually pretty close in numbers of subscribers and followers—that’s why we’re doing the collab. So we can help build our viewerships, and generate some viral buzz . . .”
“Where did she go to college?”
Dammit. “UCLA,” he said.
“And she got her degree, didn’t she?” His mother’s expression was innocent, deceptively so. “What in?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Something business related, I think. Or maybe communications?” He’d genuinely never asked. He’d always been more of a hard science guy himself.
“But she got her bachelor’s.”
“Yes, Mom, she got her degree,” Tobin admitted, feeling sullen.
“See, that’s smart. She has something to fall back on,” his mother said, taking another sip of tea and glancing at his father.
Fuck. My. Life.Tobin fought against the urge to yank his hair by the roots.
“There’s nothing that says you couldn’t take courses part time at UCSD.” His father picked up the thread. “A light course load, and you could still do your little videos. It would take more time to get the degree, but you’d have it.”
Tobin gritted his teeth. “My little videos are a full-time job,” he said. “Between the filming itself, the editing, the processing and posting, promoting, and administrative stuff, it’s actually more than forty hours a week.”
“Maybe you need to streamline, focus a bit more?” his mother offered, and while he loved her, he wanted to tear out his hair and scream at her. “I mean, why would it take hours to film those? Most of them are twenty minutes or so, I thought?”
He felt a headache starting to pound. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s just . . . it’s an interesting hobby, but is it really viable in the long run?” his father said with a note of concern.
Tobin grimaced. “We’ve had this talk, Dad,” he warned.
“I know, but . . . well, we’re just concerned.”
Tobin looked over to see his mother nodding in agreement. “No one’s saying that you haven’t been successful . . .”
“Yeah, I’d hope not,” Tobin snapped before he could stop himself. “Seeing how I bought my own house with my income.”
His father’s face darkened like a storm cloud. His mother shook her head, almost imperceptibly. “But it’s like winning the lottery, isn’t it? It was a wonderful windfall, and it’s been an exciting ride. But is it sustainable? What happens if the ad revenue drops, or you aren’t popular anymore?”
“There are a million YouTubers entering the market, aren’t there?” his father added.
“There are a million electrical engineers, too, Dad,” Tobin said, feeling hopelessness hitting his chest like a baseball bat. “Getting a degree doesn’t protect me from anything.”
“You’re more likely to get a job with a degree than having a résumé that says, ‘I played video games and made silly jokes for money,’” his father shot back.
Before Tobin could defend himself, his phone rang. He frowned. He rarely got calls. He glanced at the display.
LILY WANG.
He hit ignore. “I’ve got a solid base of viewers,” he protested. “And my agents say that I can translate this into something bigger.”
“Something bigger?” His mother sounded suspicious. While most YouTubers would give their left nut to have an agent, his parents viewed them as somewhere between enablers and heroin dealers, encouraging his pipe dream of a career. “Like what?”
“Having my own streaming series or something. Doing live shows—a lot of YouTubers do things like that.”
“Live shows?” Now his father sounded bewildered. “Are you telling me that people would pay money to sit somewhere and just . . . watch you yell at your computer while you’re shooting at things?”
Way to oversimplify!Tobin growled, “It’s more like . . .”
His phone rang again. He glanced at it.
LILY WANG.
He sighed. “I’m sorry—would you excuse me a minute?” With that, he walked from the kitchen to the living room, in front of one of the windows. “Lily? Are you okay?”
“No, I am not okay.”
His heart stopped for a second. “What’s wrong?”
“The video, Tobin.” She sounded ready to spit nails.
God, he did not need this. “I posted it yesterday,” he said. “You’re just now having an issue with it?”
“Yeah, well, I hadn’t gotten accosted in a gym because of it yesterday, had I?”
“What?”he barked out. “Are you all right? What the hell happened?”
“A guy thought it’d be hilarious to jump scare me when I got off the treadmill,” she said. “And now, it seems like everybody’s thinking it’s hilarious that I’m such a goddamned weenie, Tobin!”
“So, you’re not hurt.” God. His heart finally started beating double-time in his chest, and the tightness of his breath relented. “He didn’t hurt you.”
She paused, and he swore her tone softened reluctantly. “No, he didn’t hurt me. Scared me,” she amended. “And I, um, may’ve slapped him with my workout towel.”
Tobin couldn’t help it. He let out a burst of laughter.
“It was reflex, okay?” she said, which made him laugh harder. “And it just makes things worse! Do you have any idea what this is going to do to my reputation? This is a disaster!”
“No, it’s not,” he promised. “Listen, I’m at my parents’. Let me get home, and we’ll video chat, okay? I will show you that it’s okay.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“Trust me, Lils.” With that, he hung up. Then he took a deep breath, heading back to the kitchen table. “I’m sorry. Gotta go. Work, um, emergency.”
“Everything all right?” his mother asked, sounding concerned.
“Yeah,” he reassured her, giving her a hug. “Or at least it will be.”
His father gave him a hug. “Just think about what we said, will you?”
Tobin nodded, unable to trust himself to speak. It was the same conversation they always had. Every time they had it, he knew that they worried about him. They loved him.
They just didn’t trust him to make the right decisions for himself. And dammit, that hurt.