Yes, Chris and Peyton still talk to each other after the convention, so there will still be more of their story! If you’re enjoying this series, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]
Chapter 8: TeamLug
Dinner plates are still in the sink as I unzip my suitcase in my bedroom downstairs.
Castle Rock feels too quiet.
Not mountain-con quiet with elevator dings and hallway voices and the hum of a convention center downstairs. Just normal exurban quiet. Dishwasher running. Dad watching the news in the living room. Haley arguing with someone on Facetime in her room.
My bedroom hasn’t changed since Peyton and I were here on Friday afternoon.
The same gaming chair his wet mouth found me on. Same loose parts I need to sort back into their bins. Same LED light strip peeling in one corner.
I sit on my bed and start pulling things out of my suitcase. T-shirts first. Dirty socks. Lanyard and Brick Badge from Mile High Brickspo.
Then, Peyton’s shiny silver Champion shorts.
I pause.
They look different here at home without him. Out of context. Just fabric again instead of memory.
My phone buzzes two minutes later.
Peyton: Landed.
Him telling only me that does something immediate to my chest.
I type back before I can overthink it.
Me: Good. Glad to be home?
Three dots.
Peyton: It’s gray. Of course it’s a cloudy evening at SeaTac.
Peyton: Now I need to get dinner; they only gave me pretzels.
Peyton: You recovering at home?
I glance at the shorts in my hands.
Me: Yeah. Just unpacking.
Another pause.
Then: Peyton: ❤️
I stare at it. He’s never said or sent something like that before.
Not at the con. Not in person.
Just a heart.
My thumb hovers for half a second.
Then I send one back. ❤️
The world does not explode; the dishwasher keeps running. But something settles and makes the basement feel warmer.
Three nights later, in the middle of building the City Space Lab set I bought at the LEGO store, my phone buzzes again.
Peyton: You ever use Teams?
Me: Like Microsoft Teams?
Peyton: Yeah. We’ve got this informal LEGO group of people from all over.
Peyton: Fridays. 2-3 hours.
Peyton: It’s chaotic. You’d like it.
I hesitate. This is brand new territory. Not just texting. Not just us shooting the breeze about ABS. A shared space with people I’ve never met.
Me: Who’s “we”?
Peyton: TeamLug.
Peyton: Mostly adults arguing about clutch power and sorting techniques.
Peyton: I talk a lot, until Cathy tells me to shut up.
I smirk to myself.
Me: I’ve noticed.
Three dots.
Peyton: Join this week.
Peyton: Stay after if you want.
That last line hits different.
Stay after.
Me: Send the link.
Peyton: Knew you would.
And then, a second later:
❤️
This time I don’t hesitate before sending one back.
Friday, at exactly 7:00 Pacific, my laptop chimes.
The Teams window fills in fast, little squares blinking to life one by one.
Peyton’s camera comes on first.
He’s in his detached garage, with a colorful foam mat floor and parts drawers behind him. A half-built LEGO structure on a folding table. He’s wearing a gray Carhartt t-shirt and a backwards MLB cap, headset slightly crooked.
“Alright,” he says, clapping once. “Roll call before we get distracted by part numbers.”
More tiles appear.
Cathy, short blonde hair, glasses, already mid-sip of something in a mug that says “This Babe Builds”.
A guy labeled “Mark - AZLUG” adjusting his camera.
Two older builders in a shared square arguing quietly about whether there are actually two shades of pearlescent gold.
By 7:02, there are fourteen of us.
“Okay,” Cathy says. “Before we derail into Technic heresy, new Pick a Brick finds. Who’s got good walls?”
Immediate chaos.
“Sugarloaf Mills got light nougat 1x2 plate.”
“No, shut up, ours had sand green masonry brick.”
“Masonry brick? How many boxes did you get?”
Peyton leans back in his chair, grinning like this is a sport.
I mute myself and just watch.
They argue about clutch strength differences between old and new molds like it’s a Constitutional Debate.
Cathy is ruthless but funny.
Mark screen-shares a track plan for a train layout he’s doing in his den.
Someone physically gets up to grab a bin to prove a point.
And Peyton? Peyton thrives.
“Okay, okay,” he cuts in at one point. “You’re all wrong. If you’re not buying the 1x5 liftarms when they show up online, you deserve your structural failures.”
“Sit down, electrician,” Cathy fires back instantly. “Some of us build pretty things.”
He laughs. “Pretty things collapse, Cathy.”
“Not if you know what you’re doing.”
He puts a hand to his chest. “I feel attacked.”
The chat room laughs. I didn’t know this version of him: Confident. Quick. Comfortable being teased. It does something to me.
Then Cathy squints at her screen.
“Wait,” she says. “We’ve got a new square.”
Thirteen faces turn toward me at once.
I unmute, immediately aware of my tense posture.
“Uh. Hey. I’m Chris.”
“Chris-from-where?” Mark asks.
“Denver. Colorado.”
“Ohhh,” someone says. “That Brickspo kid?”
Peyton leans closer to his camera. “Yeah. That’s him.”
Him. Like I’m someone already defined.
“I build mostly historical military,” I say carefully. “Shermans. Tigers. That kind of thing.”
Cathy tilts her head.
“Oh,” she says slowly. “You’re one of those BlockArms guys.”
The tone isn’t mean. It’s… assessing.
I swallow. “I mean. Yeah. I use them.”
There’s a pause, then she nods once.
“Nothing wrong with historical accuracy,” she says. “As long as you’re not running your tanks into my vegetable gardens.”
The group chuckles.
“I wouldn’t,” I say quickly.
Peyton grins at his camera. “He over-engineers everything.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
"I design for integrity," I say. "Transport tolerance and little sister durability. It's a whole engineering track."
“See?” Peyton gestures wildly. “He says things like that.”
Cathy smirks. “Okay, Integrity. You bringing anything to BlockCon?”
September. Seattle.
There’s a dip in my stomach.
“I… I don’t know yet.”
“You should,” Peyton says casually. “He’s got a hedgerow scene that could survive a major earthquake.”
“That’s not a metric,” I mutter.
“Should be,” he shoots back.
The call moves on.
For the next hour, it’s part numbers and mold variations and someone showing off a medieval windmill with an illegal half-stud offset that causes a ten-minute debate.
Then Peyton swivels his camera.
“Okay,” he says. “Work in progress.”
The screen shifts to his build table.
It’s rough. Bare studs everywhere. Technic beams and pins exposed. But the shape is unmistakable: A garage bay and his Tacoma sitting inside it.
And in the center of it all: a lift mechanism.
“I’m building a mechanics garage,” he says. “For the truck, to scale.”
“Of course you are,” Cathy mutters.
“It’s gonna have a working lift,” he continues, clearly pleased with himself. “Linear actuators underneath. Manual crank on the side.”
He demonstrates and turns something on the side. The truck rises slowly.
Not smoothly. It jerks halfway up.
“Don’t judge,” he says quickly. “It's a prototype.”
“That’s ambitious,” Mark says.
“Overkill,” Cathy corrects.
Peyton shrugs. “If it doesn’t function, what’s the point?”
The truck reaches full height. Even unfinished, it’s an impressive build.
I find myself leaning closer to my screen.
“You braced the rear crossbeam wrong,” I say before I can stop myself.
Silence.
Twelve squares turn back toward me.
Peyton blinks. “Excuse me?”
“It’s bowing,” I say, heat rising in my face. “You need a perpendicular support, or it’ll torque when you add weight.”
There’s a pause.
Then Peyton rotates the model slightly.
He squints.
“…Dang it.”
Cathy bursts out laughing. “Integrity strikes again.”
Peyton points at his camera. “Okay. First of all…”
But he’s smiling.
“Second of all,” he continues, “you’re staying after to explain that. Engineer”
My pulse spikes.
The rest of the group moves on as if nothing happened.
But for the next hour, every time Peyton glances at his screen, it feels like he’s looking only at me.
At 10:03 Pacific, Cathy claps once.
“Alright, nerds. Three hours. Go hydrate or get to bed.”
Squares start blinking out.
“Good to meet you, Chris,” Mark says.
“Welcome to chaos,” someone adds.
“Bring your tank next week,” Cathy calls before her screen disappears.
One by one, they vanish.
Until there are two squares left. Peyton and I.
He leans back in his chair slowly.
“So,” he says.
His garage is quieter now. Just the faint hum of something dripping in the background.
“You gonna tell me how to fix my crossbeam?”
My mouth feels dry.
“Yeah,” I say.
Then he smiles like he already knew I would.
The second TeamLug Friday, I’m more than ready for the night.
I’ve repositioned my desk lamp so it doesn’t cast weird shadows. The destroyed M3 halftrack I’ve been working on to add to my MOC, sits centered in frame, angled just enough to show the blown side panel and the sheared axle detail I spent two hours building and rebuilding.
At 7:00 Pacific, the squares light up again.
“Okay,” Cathy says immediately. “Mr. Build Integrity. You brought your thing?”
I try not to grin.
“I did.”
“Screen share or hold it up. I want to see what you did with the suspension.”
I hold the model up carefully.
The halftrack looks eviscerated in all the right ways: front wheel canted, armor plating warped, rear tread partially dislodged like it took a direct hit from Whitmann’s 88 mm cannon
“Whoa,” Mark mutters.
“That’s dark,” someone else says, approving.
Cathy leans closer to her camera.
“Rotate it.”
I do as instructed.
She studies the exposed interior where I deliberately left the framework visible beneath the blast damage.
“You didn’t just rip bricks off,” she says slowly. “You rebuilt internal stress points.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I wanted it to look like the chassis twisted, not just… exploded.”
There’s a pause.
Then Cathy nods once.
“That’s commitment.”
Heat rises up my neck.
“See?” Peyton cuts in. “I told you. Structural integrity.”
“Don’t start,” she says, but she’s smiling now. “This is good work, Front Range Chris.”
Good work.
Not cute. Not for-your-age. Good.
Peyton’s square is very still. He’s not talking. He’s just looking at me like I did something important.
For the next hour, the group debates Pick a Brick box stacking techniques and whether 1 x 2 Jumper Plates 3794 and 15573 can be sorted into the same bin.
When the call finally winds down, Cathy says, “Remember to bring that to BlockCon in September.”
September again. Seattle again.
“Yeah,” Peyton adds lightly. “You should.”
Squares blink out.
Good nights. See you next week. Don’t forget to check your local wall.
Until it’s just us. Again.
Peyton leans forward, elbows on his table in the garage.
“You didn’t tell me it looked that good,” he says.
“You’ve seen it.”
“Not like that.”
There’s something different in his tone tonight. No teasing or humor. He’s focused.
“Do these meetings make you nervous?” he asks.
“About what?”
“Cathy.”
I huff. “A little.”
“She doesn’t impress easily. She’s won Best in Show two times at BlockCon.”
“I gathered.”
Peyton nods slowly. “You handled it.”
That shouldn’t matter as much as it does.
We talk about the crossbeam fix for his garage for a few minutes. He’s already rebuilt it the way I suggested.
“Works better,” he admits.
“Obviously.”
He rolls his eyes. There’s a comfortable lull.
I shift in my chair to grab something by my desk.
The fabric of what I’m wearing catches the light of my desk lamp.
Peyton notices instantly. His eyes flick downward. Then back up. Then down again.
Slow.
“You’re moving weird,” he says casually.
“I’m sitting.”
“Uh-huh.”
I lean back further in my chair. On purpose this time, just for him. The camera angle tilts just slightly lower.
The shiny silver Champion shorts catch the light even better: slick, reflective, unmistakable.
Peyton goes still.
“You’re wearing them,” he says quietly.
“I slept in them too, last night.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Peyton huffs.
I shrug, letting my hand rest on my thigh, fingers rubbing along the material.
“They’re comfortable,” I explain.
He exhales through his nose. “They look comfortable on you.”
My pulse ticks higher.
“Do you remember me in them?” I say.
He shifts in his chair. Not subtle.
“You’re doing this on purpose.”
“Doing what?” I jokingly ask.
His eyes narrow.
“Chrissy.”
I hook my thumb under the waistband: not pulling hard, just enough to stretch it a fraction before letting it snap back softly.
The sound carries through my mic.
His jaw tightens.
“You’re dangerous tonight, and not with building techniques.”
“You’re three states away. How dangerous can I be?”
“That’s not helping your case.”
I let my palm drift slowly over the fabric: not graphically, just deliberately
Watching him enjoy what he sees.
His breathing changes first.
“You think you’re being funny?” he asks.
“A little.”
He leans closer to his camera, cheeks starting to glow red.
“You’re gonna make me buy a last-minute ticket, on Southwest this time.”
My voice drops without me meaning it to. “You could.”
His eyes lock on mine through the screen. “You don’t get to do things like that unless you mean them. You still haven’t told me if you're really coming in September.”
The heat shifts. Less teasing now, more edge.
I still my hand against the silky fabric.
“I don’t know yet if I can afford to leave school,” I say defensively. September still feels theoretical. Like something I don’t have to decide yet.
He studies me like he’s trying to come up with something. Then he leans back slowly.
“How about this, I usually go out to Eastern Washington once a summer,” he says, like he’s changing subjects. “Just camp. A couple of nights. No signal. No Teams. No LEGO.”
I swallow. “That sounds terrible.”
He smirks faintly.
“You’d like it.”
I don’t answer.
He holds my gaze.
“You could come. I’m not bringing anyone else.”
This is a big ask, especially to me, but it’s not dramatic, not a speech. Just an opening to see him again.
My heart is pounding harder now than it was a minute ago.
“You serious?” I ask.
He doesn’t hesitate.
“Yeah.”
My room feels smaller, almost as small as the tent he’s proposing. Almost dangerous in a different way.
I glance down at the shorts. Then back up at him.
“When?”
“First weekend of August,” he replies. You have over a month to think about it, and you better not give me an excuse about school.”
“I will think about it, promise,”
It’s the safest answer I have.
Peyton studies me for a second like he knows exactly what that means.
“Okay,” he says finally. “Think about it.”
But there’s something steady in his voice. Not doubtful. Not pushy, like he already expects the answer.
We stay on a few minutes longer, talking about nothing: his Mainers, the weather, the fact that Seattle hasn’t seen the sun in three days. When we finally hang up, the basement feels too quiet again.
The silver shorts don’t feel funny anymore. They feel like a life-changing decision.
The next week stretches, like those long summers of no responsibility. I open a new Expedia tab at least twice a day.
DEN to SEA.
SEA to DEN.
Round trip. Flexible departure and return dates.
The first weekend of August. The prices aren’t terrible.
That almost makes it worse. Because now the only thing in the way is my nerves.
After dinner on Tuesday, I stand in the living room entryway for a full ten seconds before I speak.
Dad’s flipping channels. Mom’s laptop is open, paying bills. A normal Tuesday night.
My throat feels like sandpaper.
“Hey,” I say.
Dad lowers the remote a little. “Yeah?”
I hover there for a few seconds before I start.
“I was thinking about… maybe visiting someone in August.”
Both of them look at me now.
“Visiting?” Mom repeats.
“In Washington state. Just for a weekend. Camping.”
There’s a pause, not confused. Surprised.
“You mean your LEGO convention friend?” Dad asks carefully.
“Yeah.”
Another silence, and this one is monumental.
Because I don’t do this. I don’t go to sleepovers. I don’t invite people over.
I don’t even go to movies unless it’s part of a field trip or for some event. I’ve existed in my own bubble long before I even remember meeting anyone online.
Mom closes her laptop completely this time.
“You’d fly?” she asks.
“Yes.”
Alone.
The word hangs there even though I don’t say it.
Dad studies me like he’s trying to get out of honoring an extended warranty.
“You’ve never done something like that before,” he says.
“I know.”
The house suddenly feels warmer.
“I just…” I hesitate. “I want to go before school starts.”
That’s the most honest thing I’ve said all week.
Mom’s expression softens first.
“Is he a good guy?”
“Yes.” I answer. No hesitation.
Dad nods once, slowly.
“You’d be camping with his family?”
“Mostly just us. It’s something he does every summer.”
Another beat. This one is longer.
I can feel Haley somewhere behind me in the hallway, pretending not to listen.
Dad exhales.
“Well,” he says, glancing at Mom, “I guess everybody has a first trip alone.”
Mom nods faintly.
“As long as we have flight details. And phone numbers. And you check in.”
Relief hits so fast it almost makes me dizzy.
“That’s it?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Dad smirks just a little.
“We raised you,” he says. “We trust you. You are 20 after all.”
That lands harder than any lecture would have.
I nod quickly, trying not to overreact.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay, and yes, I’m using my own money for the ticket.”
Before I heard back downstairs, Haley leans against the wall at the top of the steps.
“You’re actually doing it,” she says.
“Doing what?” I reply.
“Seeing him again. Don’t pretend you can’t hear me in my room. That means I can hear you.”
“You know this is the first time you’ve ever asked to leave the state with someone.”
“I know,” I reply.
“And it’s not about camping.”
I don’t answer.
She softens just slightly.
“You’re shaking,” she says quietly.
I look down at my hands. I am.
Haley disappears into her room without another word.
I stand there a second longer than I need to, listening to the house settle. The dishwasher hums. Dad laughs at something on TV. Normal sounds. Ordinary night.
Downstairs, I close my bedroom door and sit at my desk.
The Expedia tab is still open.
Denver to Seattle.
First weekend of August.
Round trip.
The price hasn’t changed.
For a while, I just stare at it.
It feels strange that something this small, a button on a screen, can rearrange the shape of my last free summer.
I think about the garage behind Peyton’s house. The way he looks when he’s explaining something he built. The way he said, ‘You don’t get to do things like that unless you mean them.’
I think about the tent.
No signal. No screens. No grid of little squares buffering.
Just him.
My hands are still unsteady. Haley was right.
I rest them flat on the desk until they stop shaking.
I’ve never done this before. Never left like this. Never chosen something that didn’t fit neatly into my routines.
The cursor hovers over Complete Booking.
I could close the tab. Tell him I need more time. Say, September over LEGO makes more sense.
August doesn’t feel theoretical.
It feels close.
I take a slow breath and click.
The page refreshes. A loading circle spins for half a second, which feels like ten.
Then the confirmation page appears.
Your trip is booked.
I don’t react at first. I just stare at it. The flight numbers. The departure time. The return date.
It looks official. Real in a way that texts never are.
My phone buzzes on the desk beside me.
Peyton: So? What did they say?
I let myself sit with it a moment longer before I answer.
Me: I hope MOD Pizza is worth the trip
There’s a pause.
Then: Peyton: Chris.
Just my name.
I lean back in my chair, heart thudding in a way that has nothing to do with teasing, silver fabric, or screens.
This isn’t about September anymore. This is about August.
About stepping onto a plane alone. About showing up somewhere because I want to.
I glance at the silver shorts folded on the foot of my bed.
They don’t feel like a memory of May. They feel like a promise on my first-ever visit to the Pacific Northwest.
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