Riley's dad nodded and left the room as quickly as he entered it. With a worried face, I looked over towards Riley and whispered to her, "What was that? I told you I couldn't stay."

"As long as I can see your mom's car ain't driving up your house's driveway. You don't have to go anywhere. Honestly, I don't know what's happening in that crooked little head of yours, but I'm sure you remember why Emily is sitting here instead of Jason right," Riley said.

Riley's words did kind of set my mind right. The girls, the tournament, and of course, the upcoming bootcamp. This whole get-up was simply a solution to that whole problem I put myself into. And it's just clothes, right? Should anybody really care what I'm wearing or what I look like? If it fits me, that's all that matters. After all…

"Hey? Are you still there?" I heard Riley's voice shake me awake from my inner thoughts.

"Oh yeah, the Dota team of course. Keeping up my whole ruse of pretending to be a girl so I can stay with the team of course," I responded to her.

"Exactly, and that is why we are going to have a little practice run with my dad. If you can fool a man that has pretty much seen you grow up, I'm sure you can fool 4 nerdy hockey girls with no effort," Riley said.

***

"Emily, it was right?" Riley's dad asked me as he handed me a plate with a piece of pepperoni pizza.

I nervously accepted the plate from him as I cautiously responded, "Uhm... Yeah, I just moved to town recently," trying to come up with a reason for my sudden appearance.

"Is that so?" Riley's dad asked inquisitively. "Where did you move here from?"

"Battingham, it's a small town further upstate. You probably wouldn't know it," I lied. None of these things were true, but if, like Riley said, I can lie to him, I should be able to pull off this act with anyone. I was growing more and more anxious, however, as it felt like the man was way more curious than normal. I had obviously stayed for dinner with Riley's parents before, but normally we would just be talking about what happened at school over that week.

"I can't say I have heard about it, but to be honest, I barely get out of the city as is. I guess it must have been quite the change rather than leaving all your friends and stuff behind," he said, trying to show some empathy. I must have come across as very timid and scared, and this is his way of trying to be comforting.

"It definitely isn't easy, but luckily, I was able to make a new friend quickly," I said as I looked over to Riley. If there is one thing I know about this man, it's that he loves his daughter a little too much. So, complementing her was an easy way to earn myself some points with Riley's dad.

Riley decided to jump into the conversation. With a little wink, she joked, "What can I say, I just can't help myself from picking up strays."

We all had a little chuckle and Riley's dad started telling a very familiar story about some stray cats Riley brought in a few years ago and all the shenanigans they got up to. Pretending like I have never heard the story, even though I was there when it happened. We had a good meal, and at some point, I even almost forgot I was pretending to be somebody else. That is how natural it all felt.

***

"I can't believe he fell for it!" I told Riley while changing out of Emily's clothes and back into Jason's.

"What do I always say about doubting me, little JJ?" Riley said while confidently holding up her index finger.

"There is no use doubting you since you are always correct. Which is inherently a flawed statement since I'm pretty sure the last time you got an A for any test was back when we were eating crayons in kindergarten," I responded.

"Correction, when you were eating crayons. I was a very sophisticated toddler who would never lower themselves to such levels. I will let you know," Riley bounced back at me.

As I put my hoodie on, I taunted her, "Is that so? I can go ask your dad right now."

Riley smirked back at me, "As far as he knows, Jason is across the street right now, while Emily is still hanging around in my room."

Instantly being pulled out of my comfort zone, I asked Riley, "Isn't your dad going to be suspicious that Emily didn't say bye when she left?"

I strapped on my backpack and opened up the window while grabbing hold of the rope that sat on top of the tree branch right in front of Riley's window. By throwing the rope down, I created a safe path to go down towards the ground level.

"Nah, he went into his art studio. He is completely in the zone right now and wouldn't notice anybody leaving or coming in the house at all. I don't even think you have to take the rope at all, to be honest," Riley assured me.

"I really don't want him to figure it out, so I'd rather take the rope," I said as I put my feet into the window and held tightly onto the rope with both hands. "See you at school tomorrow!" I yelled back and slid down. Once I felt the grass beneath my feet, I shot a quick wave towards the window I just jumped out of and walked across the street. Since there was no car in the driveway, it seemed like my mom didn't come home yet. She probably has some late meetings at work or something.

I quickly made my way upstairs while grabbing myself a bottle of carbonated water from the fridge. We actually planned a few scrims tonight with the team, and they were supposed to start in about 20 minutes from now. But I wanted to be all warmed up by the time everybody was there. While scrims essentially are just practice matches, it is definitely different from just queuing matchmaking together. There is so much more teamwork involved, which makes it all way more exciting.

As I logged in to my computer and headed towards the Discord server, I could see there was already one person in the voice channel. Once I entered, the familiar voice from my teammate Lizzy spoke into my ears.

"Emily! Are you ready to kick some butts tonight! I heard you have been practicing Dark Seer recently? We should try to learn some combo plays together with Vacuum + SF ult, for example! I saw Zai and Nisha perform the combo recently and it looked totally lit. If we could be just as in sync as a squad like Team Liquid that would be incredibly cool!"

Lizzy is the mid-player of the team. A girl that seems to have way too much energy, but in a good way. She is always enthusiastic about everything and everyone. She also tends to have expectations of the team that might be a little too high for a bunch of High School Amateurs like us. But since she keeps up with the professional scene religiously, she can always tell us about the latest meta trends from the top teams.

I responded to Lizzy, "Yeah, I don't know if I'm good enough at it yet to run it in official positions, but I think we can actually give it a try in scrims."

As time went on, eventually the rest of the girls joined the channel as well. First there was Rachel who once again started harassing me about the Bootcamp. "So, you're coming, right? Everybody has already confirmed. And I already know it's going to be so much fun. I've already started planning some extra surprises and ways to get us even more ready," she rambled on.

I thought to myself, I had just fooled Riley's dad into thinking I was someone else, and that was with a very quick makeover with Riley's old clothes and no practice. And honestly, just hanging out in voice chat with Rachel and Lizzy right now already makes me feel incredibly comfortable. Similar to how I felt at the end of the dinner I just came from.

I decided to join the bootcamp and come up with an excuse to tell my mom why I'll be gone that weekend. I can just say I'm spending the night at Riley’s if necessary.

"I talked about it with my mom, it's all good to go. I'll be at the bootcamp two weeks from now," I said to Rachel. As Rachel and Lizzy started cheering loudly I quickly calmed them down by saying that I wanted to focus on the scrims tonight first.

And before we even could discuss too much more about the bootcamp, the last two players of the team joined the channel, Kelsey and Jade. We quickly started preparing for the night of scrims as we got ourself into the lobby for our first match. We destroyed our opponents three times in a row while even performing that Vacuum + SF ult combo Lizzy was talking about in the last game. I felt completely in my element and quite honestly, excited for the Bootcamp. That night, I ended up going to bed more comfortable than I had been in a long time.

***

"You're looking fresh and chipper today," my mom said when I came down the stairs humming along to some music in my head.

She was wearing a black pencil skirt with an amber blouse on top, one of her standard work outfits. In her hands was the financial section of a national newspaper which she was analyzing thoroughly. Her work at a law firm specializing in take-overs and mergers, a lot of very complicated stuff involving lots of money. She was only an assistant there though, but vowed herself to get to the top.

My dad and her had separated 5 years ago, but she decided to keep the house on her own. This did mean however that she needed to work a lot more hours as opposed to what she did before. My dad has lived outside of the country for almost 4 years at this point, we keep in contact through video calls but it’s hard. He works on big international cargo ships so he is always somewhere else in the world.

"We played some practice matches with the team last night, and we won everything. I am pretty sure we might actually be able to qualify for that tournament" I gloated about our performance last night..

"That's good to hear. You better be winning with all the time you're investing into it," she sternly stated without even looking up from her paper. "Oh, before I forget. Greg, Riley's dad, just came by to drop off some kind of package for you."

On the far end of the kitchen table, there was a plastic bag with a box inside of it. I vaguely recognized the box and decided to take it and the bag upstairs to my room. As I opened the box, I felt a boulder drop down deep into my stomach.

It was the box with the wig I wore at Riley's house yesterday, and there was a note attached.

"Hey Emily, I thought you looked great yesterday. So, I wanted you to have this for yourself. Enjoy and have an awesome day! Greetings, Greg."