It’s not exactly an unreasonable request, and, well, let’s face it—your inner YouTube fangirl would kill you for passing up the opportunity to spend more than a couple of seconds in the company of Dan Howell.
So you nod. “Sure”—you pull the door open a little wider—“come on in.”
As he steps inside, you take a cursory glance across the living room, hoping it’s at least half-tidy. Dan takes a seat on the sofa, setting his laptop down on the coffee table and clicking through a couple of settings.
He looks up. “Have you got the password?”
The single question is enough to stop you in your tracks, and your cheeks begin to burn the moment your eyes meet. How did you forget? Ten seconds into your first proper conversation, and you’re going to look like a complete stalker. . . .
“Yeah, it’s . . . uh . . .” You mumble it quietly, like this might tone down the embarrassment.
“Sorry?” Dan frowns.
There’s no avoiding it. One way or another, you’re going to end up embarrassing yourself. “It’s . . . danisnotonfire09.”
He raises an eyebrow, looking amused.
You begin your defense before he can say a word. “I was a fifteen-year-old fangirl, okay?” you blurt out, hoping your face isn’t completely red in the light of the living room. “And I haven’t changed my password in a long time. Please let’s forget about this.”
Dan just grins, returning his gaze to the laptop, like he’s relieved not to be the first one to embarrass himself. “I’m not saying a word.”
His fingers tap across the keyboard at lightning speed, and you watch as he pulls up his webcam on-screen. “By the way, you might want to avoid the camera shot. My fans don’t tend to . . . well, take kindly to female company, let’s put it that way.”
“Right,” you say. “Because they’re convinced you’re in a secret relationship with Phil?”
“Yeah.” He chuckles. “Something like that.”
He’s starting to set up the shot, so you take this as your cue to head to the kitchen, figuring you can busy yourself there. As flattered as you are to be able to help Dan out, you’re not quite prepared for any of the onslaught associated with his army of teenage fans. However, after cleaning up a bit, you find yourself at a loss for jobs to keep you busy. Your laptop is still sitting in the living room, and retrieving it would mean walking right into the camera frame of Dan’s live broadcast—you’re not quite that desperate yet.
But that doesn’t mean you’re entirely immune to temptation, either. With the kitchen spotless, and the contents of your fridge shelves already rearranged twice over, you find yourself edging closer to the living-room door. You can hear Dan chatting away into his webcam, trying to convince the viewers that the different background is just another room of his and Phil’s apartment.
Ha, you think to yourself. Like those fourteen-year-old superfans are going to fall for that.
Eventually, though, you hear him taking his final few questions and getting ready to say good-bye. Once you’re sure the camera is switched off, you work up the courage to head back into the living room, where you find Dan closing down his laptop.
“How’d it go?”
The sound of your voice makes him jolt in his seat, the laptop slipping sideways from his lap. “Christ, you scared me.” He clutches his chest.
“Sorry, I kind of crept up on you.”
“Don’t worry.” He shakes his head. He gives the laptop the once-over, but his catching it in time seems to have averted any potential damage. “I thought I’d spent too long in somebody else’s company without embarrassing myself. I was well overdue.”
You laugh. “Could’ve happened on the live show.”
“Very true.” He nods. “It did go pretty well. There weren’t too many freak-outs at the mention of Phil’s name, and I didn’t fall off my chair. Hard not to consider that a success.”
“Nice one.”
“Thanks for letting me hijack the Wi-Fi.” He leaves you wondering if it’s a normal reaction for your heart to jolt when his gaze meets yours. “Seriously, I owe you one. If there’s anything I can do to return the favor, let me know. I mean, I’d offer you free use of ours, but it seems like you’ve got a better deal going on here than Phil and I.”
You wave him off. “Don’t worry about it. If sitting in my apartment for thirty minutes is going to get thousands of fangirls off your case, then it’s the least I can do.”
“Well, thank you anyway.” He reaches up to push his bangs back into place. “I’m still going to say I owe you.”
The packing up of his laptop is what jolts you. Since you’ve given him pretty much all you had to offer, Dan is seconds away from heading back to his own apartment. Only then are you struck by the realization that you don’t want him to leave quite yet; after all, it’s the first opportunity you’ve had to have a real conversation, and you might feel like less of a creep watching his videos if you were actually on first-name terms.
“Did you want tea?” you blurt out before you can stop yourself. “I mean, I was just about to boil the kettle, and if you don’t have to rush back . . .”
You can’t tell whether Dan looks surprised by the offer; his lopsided smile refuses to give too much away. After a couple of seconds—each of which you spend cursing yourself for sounding so awkward—he nods. “Yeah, okay. Tea would be great.”
Heading back to the kitchen, you wonder why you suddenly feel so self-conscious. Maybe it’s because Dan’s need to remain in the apartment—and with you—is over, and anything else falls down to personal choice. As you boil the kettle, you tell yourself to get a grip. You should not be working yourself up over Dan Howell, of all people. As cute as he may be, the guy’s practically the definition of awkward. If there’s anybody you can handle, it’s him.
“Thanks,” Dan says when you set the mug in front of him a couple of minutes later. “I feel like you’re just adding to the list of things I owe you for now.”
“Seriously, it’s fine.” You settle into the opposite armchair. “Just let me play the friendly neighbor for a while.”
“Friendly neighbor?” He quirks an eyebrow. “Or . . . closet fangirl?”
“Oh my God, just forget about the password.” Burying your face in your hands, you hope the flush now creeping up your neck isn’t too obvious. “It was a teenage obsession, okay? Please don’t go thinking you’ve got a crazy stalker living next door.”
“Okay, okay. I believe you.” He holds his hands up in surrender, but it doesn’t seem over; you have a feeling the whole thing will come back to haunt you sooner or later. Why couldn’t you have thought to change the password to something less embarrassing? That should’ve been your first priority on finding out he was your next-door neighbor. Then again, it’s not like you ever expected him to come knocking on your door.
Dan shoots you a sideways glance. “So . . . did you ever try your hand at making YouTube videos yourself?”
“Uh . . .” The sensible option would be denial, but you have a feeling the look on your face has already given too much away. “I may have attempted it many years ago.”
“Knew it! Should I try looking up your channel?”
He moves to open his laptop, but you’re out of your seat and slamming it shut before he can even get a word out.
“Don’t you dare,” you threaten, your face hovering above his for a moment before you return to your seat.
But Dan just grins, seeming to enjoy the exchange a little too much. “I’m just kidding. Believe me, I know better than anyone that we’ve all got embarrassing moments on the internet. Mine . . . well, let’s just say mine tend to be found a lot more easily.”
You roll your eyes, taking a sip of your tea. “That probably comes with the territory of having an army of teenage internet stalkers at your command.”
He laughs. “Yeah, that’s true. It definitely took some getting used to.”
“I’ve seen the girls hanging around the door to the a
partment block.” You shake your head in mild disbelief. “You can’t say they’re not persistent. They must be really desperate to meet you.”
Maybe you’re imagining it, but the mention of this seems to embarrass him, and he reaches up to scratch the back of his neck nervously. “Yeah, I can’t deny that they go to some crazy lengths. I’m still not really sure why. It seems a little bizarre to me. . . . I’m just some ridiculously awkward guy on the internet. Not exactly Channing Tatum, put it that way.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” The look on your face seems to make him laugh. “The nerdy-guy thing has its charms.”
“I mean, thank God.” That tugs your smile even wider. “Otherwise I’d be kind of screwed. And Phil, for that matter.”
“Just be grateful for YouTube, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Making nerds like us desirable since 2005.” Dan shoots you a look over the top of his mug, before setting it back down on the table. “Still, I can’t quite believe how long this thing has been going. That so many people are interested, I mean. A lot of the time I wonder when they’ll finally realize I don’t have anything earth-shattering to say and leave me to it.”
“I hardly think that’s likely.”
“Isn’t it?”
You shake your head, perhaps more sure of yourself than you should be. “Of course not. Watching your channel . . . it’s kind of endearing, you know? These people have been watching you for years.”
He pauses, stopping just long enough for you to notice the mischievous glint in his eye. “Like you?”
“God, you’re never going to let that go.” You roll your eyes, though you can’t help wondering if you should be reading more into it. “I just keep up with your videos, that’s all. Not as obsessed as when I was fifteen, but . . . more like up-to-date.”