Don't Hate the Player

by Alexis Nedd

Genres: Young Adult; YA Romance

Synopsis

"Refreshingly voice-y, wildly smart, and genuinely hilarious." - Casey McQuiston, New York Times bestselling author of Red, White & Royal Blue

From an exciting new voice comes a funny and heartfelt YA romance set in the world of competitive gaming, perfect for fans of Opposite of Always and Slay.

Emilia Romero is living a double life. By day, she's a field hockey star with a flawless report card. But by night, she's kicking virtual ass as the only female member of a highly competitive eSports team. Emilia has mastered the art of keeping her two worlds thriving, which hinges on them staying completely separate. That's in part to keep her real-life persona, but also for her own safety, since girl gamers are often threatened and harassed.

When a major eSports tournament comes to her city, Emilia is determined to prove herself to her team and the male-dominated gaming community. But her perfectly balanced life is thrown for a loop when a member of a rival team recognizes her . . .

Jake Hooper has had a crush on Emilia since he was ten years old. When his underdog eSports team makes it into the tournament, he's floored to discover she's been leading a double life. The fates bring Jake and Emilia together as they work to keep her secret, even as the pressures of the tournament and their non-gaming world threaten to pull everything apart.

Debut author Alexis Nedd has crafted a YA combo-punch of charming romance and virtual adventure that will win the hearts of gamers and non-gamers alike.

Release date: June 15, 2021

Publisher: Bloomsbury YA

Print pages: 384

Sample

I’m just saying that the worst thing to ever happen to me was Guardians League Onlinechanging their meta to make my main completely useless in competition. I played as Condor,  poison damage MVP of GLO’s entire character lineup, for years—literal, actual years—and now there isn’t a single respectable team using him in their comp. And yes, I checked the character compositions of every other top-tier team. They’re a Condor-free zone and have been since Wizzard “updated” the game with a new patch, new math, and an all-new meta. I should have expected something like this would happen. The second anyone gets comfortable with the way damage, defense, and magic works in any Wizzard game, the studio goes back to the drawing board for some big surprise release that, to be fair, usually makes the game more fun. It’s just this time the sea change is rocking the hell out of my boat. Before Wizzard introduced the new meta in their September patch, I was unstoppable. Condor was my main character, and I got so high on the leaderboard for the Philadelphia server that Byunki asked me to start practicing with Team Fury, the group he’s shuffled and reshuffled a dozen times before settling on a winning lineup for online competition.

The

 

Byunki. Server legend, ruthless captain, and, judging by the Team Fury smackdown compilations on YouTube, one of the best playing tanks in all of GLO. He’s played with some of the best damage-dealing DPS players in the game and picked out the fastest, most brilliant healers to shore up his defense. Fury is so good that I’ve gotten better just from playing alongside them for a few months.

GLO’s competition mode is like capture the flag on steroids, with five players on each team wailing on one another to capture a payload of treasure. When I played Condor, my job as a DPS was to cram enough poison damage on our enemies. Now that Condor’s damage is garbage, I have to relearn how to get good on Pharaoh, a magic character whose skills and cooldowns are so much harder to nail than Condor’s ever were.

 

I also had something of a handle on my junior year at Hillford West even with my parents reminding me every day of summer vacation that this year was “the big one” and “the one that counts.” I’d done the math and balanced it all out perfectly: school, field hockey, college visitation spreadsheets, keeping up appearances with Penny and the rest of my friends, sort of (maybe) starting to date Connor Dimeo, which is wild, all while making sure nothing from the real, 3D part of my life ever touched the part where I spend every night playing a team-based, multiplayer shooter with a bunch of people I’ve never met. Team Fury doesn’t know who I am in real life. And if anyone who actually knows me found out about GLO. . .

 

It’s going to be okay. It has to be, so it’s going to be. I’m only jumbled up because it’s Monday, I was up way too late getting my butt kicked in practice matches with Fury, and I haven’t shaken the jittery feeling that comes when I play too long and start seeing hit counts and usernames floating around whenever I close my eyes. I was so off my game last night that Byunki sent me a DM asking if I’d been practicing with Pharaoh outside of team scrimmages, which I absolutely have been but not as much as I have in previous weeks. He could tell, and he told me to shape the hell up via DM:

 

Fury isn’t about excuses. Fury is about winning. If you’re not going to win, you don’t belong on Fury.

 “Yes, sir. Loud and clear, sir. Let me just go scream into a pillow real quick, and I’ll be  back with those insanely difficult crossbow ranged kills you requested, sir.” I did not say that in response to Byunki’s DM. I am saying it now, out loud to myself while finishing my makeup in the mirror of my car. Not while I’m driving. I don’t have a death wish; I just need a few minutes to get my face and/or life together before I have to endure another day at school. The student parking lot is good for that. Everyone’s already inside, and I 

have first period free today. No one’s going to bug me here. I breathe in. I breathe out. I scratch a tiny crumb of mascara off my eyelid with the tip of my fingernail. Everyone has a process. Looking at my reflection, I can see my concealer is doing god’s work on the dark circles under my eyes. By god, I mean Rihanna. The Fenty was a gift from my mom, who handed it to me before I left for school this morning. She didn’t have to tell me why. I looked tired and have  been looking tired since I joined Fury. “Just a tap; blend it over your cheekbone so they don’t see the work,” she said twenty minutes ago or every day of my sixteen years on Earth. “They only get to see the results.” “Only the results,” I agree quietly in my car as I stare at those results in the mirror. Cat eye, thickened lashes, everything on my exhausted brown face cranked a notch and a half above normal. Hiding the struggle is what I do best. “Come on, Emilia,” I mutter when I finally feel ready to face the day, “let’s get this bread.” “Who ya talking to?” Sweet Christmas, I was so in my head that I didn’t even notice Connor pulling into the parking space behind me. His windows are rolled down, and he’s using his soccer captain voice to project through the glass of my very closed door. Conner used to park a lot farther away. He bribed another junior to switch spots with him and acts like he made a great sacrifice, saying nothing of the part where I didn’t ask him to do that for me. It’s clear that his love language is being directly in my face as much as possible, whereas mine is something I’ve yet to discover. “Hey! No one!” I shout back. The curtain rises on today’s performance. I get out of the car and meet him out in the lot. I liked Connor a lot more before I knew he liked me. He’s a good guy, a Hillford West athlete who drinks that respect women juice (eh, maybe a respect women juice concentrate), and I could probably do a lot worse. It’s just that now that he’s asked me out and we’ve gone on a grand total of two dates since the school year started, I’m learning what it’s like to be the single object in Sauron’s all-seeing eye. Not in a “destroy Middle-earth” way, just the red-hot inescapable attention of it all. No one’s ever tried to be my boyfriend before this, and it’s freaking exhausting. And okay, Connor does look like one of those impossibly sculpted twenty-four-year-olds they cast to play high schoolers on the CW, except he’s actually in high school and just looks like that, so that’s nice. I’m not afraid to admit that it’s nice. Especially when he’s playing soccer and his shirt is off and he looks all . . . shiny. Let she among us who wouldn’t get a little stupid around IRL Archie Andrews cast the first stone. “Gotcha matcha,” he says when I emerge from the space between our cars. He’s holding two matching Starbucks cups that undoubtedly contain a matcha latte for me and a whatever-the-hell he likes for him. This is unbelievably nice of him, but also not what I need this morning. “Thanks. Sorry I was so zoned out just now. I was up forever.” I sniff the latte before I try to take a sip. It smells like hot, fresh grass cuttings. I don’t remember ever telling Connor I liked matcha lattes, but I’m too far in to say anything now. Who knows? Maybe I’ll come around on him. Them. Maybe I’ll come around on them.

 

“Studying for the English quiz?”

 

“English quiz? I don’t have an—

 English quiz!” Frick. I knew there was something I was forgetting. I’m usually so much better about this! Fricking Wizzard and fricking Pharaoh. I’m completely off my game in more ways than one.

 

“You’re not telling me you forgot? Do you want me to help you study before? I took American lit last year, and I still remember some stuff. What are you reading now?” The idea of spending the rest of my free period with Connor poring over . . . whatever  book we’re reading in class is already giving me a headache. Last year it would have been fine; over this summer we texted about summer reading, and that was fine too. When he asked to hang out at the diner last month, I’d assumed it was a pre–junior year group hang thing. It was actually, in his mind, our first “date.” And yes, in retrospect it was obvious what he was up to—no one texts a girl his thoughts on

The Picture of Dorian Gray

(“yo, these bros are totally  banging”) for a month solely because he’s super into Wilde, but I still felt trapped. I almost didn’t say yes to the second date, but having the excuse of talking to boys is a better cover for

GLO than holing up in my room with the lights off for no discernable reason, so I went along with it. Dating Connor has its perks at school too. He shines so bright in the Hillford West constellation of stars that the details of my life look dim in comparison. We’re only a few weeks into the school year, and all anyone wants to know is if we’re dating. He’s concealer for my less respectable habits. “I didn’t forget the quiz,” I say quickly. “I studied last night. So much, like all night. Obviously that’s what I was doing. But you know me! I love grades. And I promised Penny I’d go over some chapters with her. Gotta get to the library right now, actually.” “Yeah, sure.” He nods. “Tell Penny I say hi.” “Of course!” I shout back, leaving him in my dust. “Thanks for the coffee!” I think he finds this charming in a “there she goes again, the girl who is always running away from me” sort of way.