Chapter 11: Welcome to the Group

"Driiiing."

"Ugh."

Still half-asleep, Eric’s hand flailed blindly around the mattress, searching for his phone as the alarm blared at full volume. He finally located the device and swiped the screen, shutting off the noise. He tossed the phone down beside him and closed his eyes again. However, with his brain cells already booting up like a computer restarting, falling back asleep proved impossible.

He glanced toward the window and noticed the sun was already up, shining brightly into the room. Checking his phone again, he saw it was already six-thirty in the morning. He let out a massive yawn, rolled over to stretch his limbs, and finally sat up on the edge of the bed. As he looked around the room, reality finally clicked.

"Oh, right. I’m staying at Grandfather’s place now," Eric thought as the fog cleared.

He threw off the blanket, swung his legs out of bed, and grabbed his phone. He stood up and walked over to the fridge to grab a cold bottle of water. Chugging it down, he sat at the dining table and unlocked his screen. "Ding," a notification popped up. He saw a message from Caleb and opened it, discovering a screenshot of the family group chat that Jade had forwarded over.

Eric pinched the screen to zoom in and read the messages. It turned out the family chat was in absolute chaos over two major bombshells. First, Melissa’s smear campaign against him had completely blown up in her face. Blake had gotten wasted at a bar and started bragging about how he manufactured the fake video to frame Eric.

He even mocked the entire family, laughing about how they swallowed the lie hook, line, and sinker without asking a single question before kicking Eric out. As luck would have it, one of their cousins happened to be at that exact bar, overheard the whole confession, and caught it all on video.

The second reason for the panic was Eric’s sudden departure from the group chat. The screenshots showed their aunts, uncles, and Caleb and Jade’s parents completely losing their minds over it. However, his own parents, Jason, and Ruby remained completely silent, not typing a single word.

Reading through the chaos, Eric merely let out a faint, cynical smile. "I told you so, but it’s way too late now," he thought. He quickly typed out a reply to Caleb.

"You didn’t tell them I’m in this city, right?" Eric texted.

Instantly, the typing bubbles appeared in the corner of the screen, vanished, and popped back up. A second later, Caleb’s response came through.

"Nope. Your secret’s safe with me. Honestly, don’t even bother going back. Just stay out there. Going back is a waste of time anyway. Just look at the chat—your mom, dad, Jason, Ruby... not a single one of them has said a word," Caleb replied.

"Yeah, true. Looking at the timestamps... this all went down yesterday, right?" Eric asked.

"Yep... exactly. Don’t waste your energy thinking about it. I gotta run, I’m taking my girl to the doctor later so I need to get ready," Caleb answered.

"Alright, sounds good. Thanks, man," Eric texted back.

Eric set his phone on the table and took another sip of water, holding the bottle as he fell into deep thought. Not a single part of him wanted to return to that house. To him, that place was a living hell, especially now that he knew the truth, he was the product of his mother’s secret affair. He glanced back at his phone, picked it up, and opened his banking app. The balance was still incredibly solid, barely dented by his recent spending.

Next, he pulled up his text thread with Richard. He intended to legally change his last name from Watts to Reed. He wanted to sever any remaining ties to that family and build a permanent life for himself right here in this city. After shooting the text over to Richard, he went back to browsing the local university’s website, scanning the list of majors for both online and on-campus programs.

While he was busy reading and weighing his academic options, "ding," another notification flashed. Caleb had sent another message, but this time, it was a video link. He tapped it open, and his eyes instantly went wide. There he was on screen, playing his guitar and producing a gorgeous melody that felt both intensely powerful and beautifully raw.

He listened to himself singing the lyrics, watching the track flow seamlessly from the verses into the chorus and back again, perfectly synchronized with his acoustic rhythm. Only then did it finally hit him.

"Oh, wow... right. I completely forgot I even uploaded that last night," Eric thought.

He glanced down at the metrics section below the video, and his jaw dropped in sheer disbelief. In just a handful of hours, from two in the morning until six-thirty, the video had already racked up 500 subscribers, 3,247 likes, 15,328 views, and 2,227 shares.

"Whoa... this is actually working. Hopefully it keeps climbing so I can wrap up the system quest and clear some serious cash," Eric thought to himself.

He scrolled down to check the comments section. The feedback was pouring in, already tracking at over a thousand responses. Granted, a lot of them were just people spamming rows of thumbs-up, fire, and crying emojis. His hands started to shake slightly, a massive smile spreading across his face as a completely unfamiliar warmth swelled in his chest and surged through his veins. Suddenly, "ding," Caleb texted again.

"Dude, is this you? The singer face look exactly like you, and the lyrics are literally my life story, haha."

Eric immediately started typing a reply: "Yeah, man, it’s me." But right before he hit send, he froze and think hard. If he confirmed it, Caleb would definitely mention it to Jade. And if anyone started digging information out of Jade, his family would track him down in no time.

They would find out he now owned a music shop, a recording studio, and a massive basement venue inherited from his grandfather. As for the truth about being born from an affair, part of him wanted to throw it in their faces, but he quickly realized there was absolutely no point. It wouldn’t do him any good. He immediately deleted the text and rewrote his response.

"Nah, not me. You know I don’t even know how to play the guitar," Eric replied, covering his tracks.

"True. The world would probably end if you actually picked up a guitar. But seriously, that song is literally my life story, and I swear it’s going to go viral. Even my girlfriend loves it," Caleb texted back.

"Glad to hear it," Eric replied.

He set his smartphone down and let out a soft sigh, feeling a wave of relief. He was glad he hadn’t let a sudden rush of pride and excitement cloud his judgment, allowing him to keep a completely clear head. He looked around his surroundings and realized something crucial was missing from his new living space.

"Hmm... Grandfather’s place doesn’t have a desktop computer... or even a laptop, does it? If I’m going to run the shop, I need to figure out the inventory system first. I wonder where Grandfather kept track of everything? I didn’t see anything in the storefront yesterday, but there’s a router downstairs, so there definitely used to be a setup. There are routers on the third floor in the recording studio and in the green-screen basement too. Hmm... alright, task number one today is finding a computer," Eric thought to himself, pondering his next move.

"Ding."

Another notification popped up on his smartphone. He opened it, and this time it was an invitation to join a group chat. He stared at the invite for a second, weighing his options, before tapping accept out of sheer curiosity since Emma was the one who sent it.

"Look who joined guys! Welcome, Eric," Emma messaged.

But before Eric could even type a reply, Emma immediately dropped a video link into the chat—and of course, it was the exact same track Caleb had just sent him. As he started typing, the messages began to flood in.

"Hey Eric! My name’s Chloe. Great to meet you, we should totally hang out sometime."

"Hey hey! I’m Priya. You seriously need to teach me how to play the guitar, Eric."

"Ooh... nice. We’ve got a future celebrity in the chat. Oh, by the way, I’m Heidi. Good to meet you, Eric."

"Wow... wow... what if we all go out somewhere today since it’s the weekend? I really want to meet up. Come on, Eric, say yes! Oh, and I’m Monica."

"This is totally you, right Eric?" Emma asked, dropping an emoji pointing up toward the video link.

Suddenly finding himself thrown into a group chat with four completely random girls who somehow knew his name, alongside Emma, whom he had literally just met yesterday, not to mention the fact that all of them seemed to share Emma’s incredibly bold, filter-free personality, Eric completely froze. His thumbs hovered over the screen, entirely at a loss for words.