"Mandy," her voice whispered at the start of the intro music for her stream. Roman was up on the yacht's top deck, tuned in on his iPad. The usual ten minute countdown was on the stream, with the saxophone music playing. In a way, it reminded Roman of cheesy old porn videos, he thought with a smile, not that he was going to tell Mandy that. Nonetheless, it was catchy and memorable, which made it good for its purpose as intro music.
"Okay, I'm up and running," Mandy said happily as she walked out onto the deck. She had a red t-shirt on, with white shorts and a white PokerStars baseball cap. Seeing the smile on her face made Roman happy too.
"So I see," Roman smiled, holding up his iPad to show that he was watching. "Are you looking forward to a day of poker?"
"I am. You don't mind that I'm going to be on there for like seven or eight hours, do you?"
"No. As I said before, I don't expect or want you to stop or change your streaming on my account. You have fun, and win plenty of money."
Mandy laughed. "The first part I can do. The second part I'm not sure about." She leaned down and kissed him. "Will you come in at some point and say hi to the stream?"
"Sure," Roman said, glad that she wanted him to get involved with her work. "I'm going to chill up here for a bit and watch. I'll be down later."
"Okay. Wish me luck," Mandy said cheerfully.
"Good luck, Peach. Have fun."
"You too. Enjoy the sun." As she said it, a cloud blocked it out, with perfect comic timing.
"Well done," Roman said, pretending to blame her for it.
"I'll get out of here before I make something else bad happen."
With that, Mandy went back inside and down the stairs. Roman knew she would have some last minute prep to do in the bedroom/office before she went live to her audience. Looking at the number on the screen, he saw that more than two hundred people were already waiting to watch his girl in action. It made him proud, but in a way it also made him uneasy. He just knew that some of those viewers would be perving on her once she was on the screen, and there was nothing that could be done about it. He wasn't a guy to feel insecure often, and he didn't like it at all.
Forcing his unease aside as best he could, Roman sat back and relaxed while he waited for the stream to start. The sun soon came back out, which was a bonus.
Eventually, the countdown ended. Mandy's usual intro video played, then she finally appeared on the screen. As ever, she began with a full screen shot of herself. Even though he had only seen her minutes before, he was still struck by how beautiful she looked. She really was photogenic, which was a good thing for a potential return to WWE, he thought. Everyone knew that Vince liked him a good looking woman in his content.
"Hello, hello, hello!" Mandy said. "Good morning everyone! How are you all doing? I hope everyone's okay? I'm sorry I haven't streamed for a few days. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that times are pretty crazy right now, and it's no different for me. As you can clearly see, I'm not streaming from my office. In fact I'm not even streaming from New York."
She paused for a moment to read the chat.
"Good morning, Baba. Good morning, Leesh. Good morning, Mr Brown. Good morning, Kuldip."
Roman watched seemingly endless good morning messages scrolling up the screen, vying for Mandy's recognition and attention. Subscriptions were also starting to come in. The text to speech wasn't on yet, while she was chatting to the viewers herself.
"Thanks for the subs, guys. I'll get to those messages soon. Where am I streaming from? A top secret location. And as it's the first stream from here, I'm hoping the internet holds up. We'll have to see how it goes."
Roman saw several people asking if she was with him. He wasn't a fan of random people being so interested in her personal life, not seeing what relevance it had to watching her play poker. Mandy ignored the questions, obviously intending to save him as a surprise for later.
Before long, she got down to business, registering for at least six tournaments at once. Roman couldn't understand how she managed to concentrate on so many poker games at once, but she did.
Her first hour seemed to go quite well, winning quite a few hands and only losing one big one that Roman could recall. When the tables went on a five minute break, he decided it was time to go and show himself.
Putting his iPad down, he got up and walked down to the main deck. He decided to grab Mandy a bottle of Mountain Dew from the fridge in the galley before continuing down to the lower deck.
Aware that the bedroom door wasn't in the shot on Mandy's stream, Roman opened it quietly so that only she would notice.
"Damon, thank you for the thirteen months," Mandy was saying to a viewer who had just renewed their subscription to her channel. Noticing the door opening, she turned to look at Roman and beamed. "Oh, hey!" she said, before looking back at the camera. "Guys, I have a surprise guest for you today."
Roman walked over to her and crouched beside her so that he would be visible on the camera. "Hi," he said, looking in the camera and giving the viewers a wave. It was the first time he had seen Mandy's streaming setup in action. On one screen, she had six poker tables. On the other was her streaming software, including the chat. Looking at it, he saw it starting to go crazy in reaction to him appearing.
"He even brought me a drink," Mandy said happily, taking the Mountain Dew and showing it to the camera.
"I have to keep you refreshed while you're working," Roman said.
"It's much appreciated. Some of these hands have had me sweating."
Roman happened to look at the chat. One of the messages he saw instantly pissed him off.
They're on Roman's boat. If I was there I'd definitely be motorboating those tits.
"Who's that asshole in your chat?" he demanded.
"What asshole?" Mandy asked, surprised by the tone of his voice. She clicked a button on the side of her mouse, which he suspected muted the microphone.
"It's gone now. There was some prick making sexual comments about you. How do they have the nerve?"
"Come outside," she said, getting up. She sounded annoyed with him, which didn't help his mood at all as he followed her out of the bedroom.
"Did you see what he said?" Roman demanded.
"No, I didn't. But rude or crude comments aren't all that rare. That's why I have moderators on the stream – to delete the messages and ban people." Again, she seemed to Roman more like she was annoyed with him than the offending viewer.
"Why are you getting moody with me? I'm not the one in the wrong here."
"Roman, I wanted you to come on and have a bit of fun with the stream. The first thing you did was blow up at someone. Think how that looks to my viewers."
"If that guy is anything to go by, fuck your viewers. I don't like people talking to or about you like that."
"It's part of streaming, Roman. There are always bad apples and trolls. Again, that's why I have moderators. I'm sorry it got under your skin, but it's really not something that bothers me."
"Well, it bothers me," Roman said stubbornly.
"Well, I can't do anything about that. I need to get back to it."
"Fine," Roman said, turning to head back up the stairs as Mandy went back into the bedroom. The door banged shut behind her.
Shit, I guess we just had our first fight, he thought. Inevitably, he started critiquing his own behaviour as well as Mandy's as he went back up to the top deck. He didn't feel like he was wrong to be annoyed about someone saying things like that to his girlfriend. Why would any man stand for that? What he couldn't understand was why she seemed to be more willing to get annoyed with him than the random people who watched her content.
I suppose she looks at it differently, he thought as he sat back down and picked up his iPad. He decided to turn off the stream and watch something else in case any other messages set him off. They were already going to have to talk over the argument, so making it worse certainly wouldn't help.
About an hour later, Mandy appeared on the deck. The tables would be on break again, Roman thought. He had cooled off now, regretting the argument and hoping they could work things out without further confrontation.
"Hey," she said in a conciliatory tone. Roman was glad to hear it. Having a prolonged row over what had happened would be stupid.
"I'm sorry for how I spoke to you," she said, walking over to him. "I should have been more understanding of the fact that you don't know a lot about streaming. What that guy said was wrong and insulting, but it's something you know is going to happen when you stream, especially if you're a woman. I just ignore it and leave my mods to take care of it. They're very good at what they do for me."
"I'm sorry if I went too far off the deep end," Roman said, having taken in what she had said. "It did trigger me, but I shouldn't have gone off in front of your viewers. I know that wasn't a good look, so I apologise if I embarrassed or angered you."
"Then we're both sorry. Can we move on?" Mandy asked hopefully.
Glad that the disagreement could be put behind them, Roman readily agreed. "Of course we can. Give me a kiss."
Mandy leaned down and gave him a fulsome kiss on the lips. "I'd better get to it. Maybe come down again later, and we can try again?"
"I'd like that," Roman said. "I'll avoid reading the chat," he added as a joke.
Mandy laughed. "Might be a good idea."
"Good luck," Roman said as she headed back inside.
"Thank you. It's always needed."
A/N: Thank you to everyone who left a review last time.
Roman and Mandy had their first fight, but came out of it okay. What's next for them on the yacht?