Live Streaming Romance Short Stories & Novels

My best friend and her boyfriend started a couples' vlog channel together, and it recently went viral online. I immediately followed it, watching every single upload. Yet, I couldn't shake the feeling that her blurred-out boyfriend acted suspiciously like my husband. When I mentioned it to her, she just flicked my forehead. "Girl, you're so crazy in love that you see your husband everywhere! Keep this up, and I'm gonna start getting jealous!" Blushing, I rubbed my head and quickly changed the subject. That was until my husband's company retreat, where I dragged Barbara Moore along to keep me company. Out of nowhere, our flight back suffered a severe emergency. Flight attendants handed out paper for everyone to write down their final words. With trembling hands, I finished writing mine, only to catch a glance at theirs. They had written down each other's names! My husband turned on his camera, framing both of them in the shot. "Barbara, I'm content to spend my final moments with you. Everyone, this channel won't be updating anymore. Goodbye." Neither of them noticed that off-camera, my face had gone deathly pale. Yet in the end, the plane managed to land safely. None of us died. I didn't cry or throw a scene. Instead, I simply tore up my final note, opened the car door, and got in. "What are you guys standing there for? Get in."

Ten minutes before the IPO, my lower body started burning with intense pain. The pain was so bad that my knees buckled and I fell from the stairs on the third floor. I hit my forehead, which started bleeding, and fresh blood dripped into my eyes. As I convulsed on the ground, my hands covered my crotch as my skin felt like it was being fried in boiling oil. My fiancée, Yvette James, came over in her high heels and kicked me in the thigh. "What's with all the pretense? It's just half a bottle of ointment poured down your pants." Her bestie, Henry Curtis, had his phone held toward me as he livestreamed the situation. He was bent over from laughing too hard. "Check this out, fam! This penniless loser is burning from the waist down! It's too funny!" I could hardly breathe from the pain, and I begged Yvette to get me an ambulance. Yvette rolled her eyes and pushed the camera into my face. "Henry is targeting 100,000 viewers for this live stream! Can you scream louder? Don't be a buzzkill! That thing between your legs is just like a toothpick. That ointment might give you a growth spurt, so you should thank me for it." My lower body had gone numb from the pain, and I saw the comments section ridiculing me. I stopped begging for help as I stared coldly at Yvette while giving the orders to pull her funds. "The wedding is off. Be prepared for your company's bankruptcy."

Natalie used to hate stuffed animals. Now she's head-over-heels for a cotton doll. She called it "honey" and told our daughter, Yara, it was her real dad. Cool. Guess that made me the family ghost. At Yara's parent-teacher conference, I finally snapped and handed Natalie the divorce papers. Cue the gasps. Suddenly, I'm the villain. She slapped me—full drama mode. "It's just a doll! Why are you being so extra?" Yara hugged it like it was about to save the world, giving me the death stare. I shrugged, smirking. "You're the one who said it's your dream husband and Yara's one and only dad. So, like... why am I still here?"

After swallowing my fourth painkiller, I spent the entire morning sitting in my hotel room in the wedding dress Curtis Bradford had picked out for me. The car that was supposed to take me to the ceremony never showed up. Instead, I came across a livestream of a wedding that had gone viral around town. On-screen, Curtis slipped the pink diamond ring I had begged him for onto the bride's finger. The bride was Shannon Cobb, my biological sister who had disappeared ten years ago. Curtis looked straight into the camera. "Leslie, I know you're watching. "Ten years ago, you lost Shannon and put her through hell. I only let you believe I was going to marry you because I wanted you to know what it feels like to be abandoned." The camera panned to my parents and my brother, Richard Cobb, who were supposed to be helping set up my new home. Richard looked into the camera and said, "You've had ten years of our love and attention. Give back everything that should've been Shannon's, and we'll consider your debt paid." I stared at the happy family on the screen, completely numb. Then I closed the livestream and threw the keepsake I had gotten for Curtis into the trash, along with my wedding ring and veil. None of them knew I had been diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer the month before. Even with painkiller injections, I could barely stay on my feet that day. All I wanted was to marry Curtis before I died and let my parents and Richard see me happy one last time. But that wasn't going to happen anymore. I only had three days left. I might as well find somewhere quiet and wait for the end.

Just before I left for college, I stumbled across a livestream showing me three years in the future. I wore a wedding dress, and my eyes were red from crying. "I'm marrying Craig today." I smiled, assuming they were happy tears. Craig Eaton and I grew up together, and I wanted to marry him ever since I was six. "But I don't want to," she continued. "Craig was supposed to drive me to Halcyon University. Instead, he took me to the apartment I'd be sharing with Gwen. "He and Mom canceled my enrollment without telling me. They decided I'd take a gap year to help her study for the SAT and apply to colleges again." I froze, then angrily typed, [You're lying! Why would they do that to me?] She recognized my profile picture and smiled bitterly. "Because Craig fell for someone else, and Gwen is the daughter of Mom's first love." Then she stepped onto the ledge of the roof. "That first year, you shared an apartment with Gwen and spent your days cooking, doing her laundry, and organizing her study notes. She didn't get into any of the colleges she applied to, but you got into a top school. "Mom begged you to put college off for one more year to help Gwen. She said you owed her for raising you and promised she'd never ask for anything else. "The second year, you both got into other schools, but Gwen still wanted Halcyon. Craig said you'd stay another year if you really loved him, and he promised to marry you if you did. "The third year, Gwen finally got into Halcyon. By then, you spent so much time taking care of her that you missed your own application deadlines. She left for college, and you had nowhere to go." She looked into the camera one last time, as if she could see me. "That's how they ruined your life." Then she jumped, and the livestream went dark. My hands shook as I called the university's admissions office. They confirmed it. "That's right. Our records show we received a request to cancel your enrollment." Right then, I saw Craig and my mom walking toward me. "Diane, why haven't you started packing? We're taking you to college the day after tomorrow."

It was New Year's Eve. We were streaming live when my brother called. I spoke first, "I wish you peace and a happy, long life." He gave a cold laugh. "Yeah, well, I don't want you to have any of that. I hope you spend the rest of your life in misery." I'd cut him off the year he was flat broke. Now that he was successful, this was the first thing he did—get back at me. I kept my tone calm. "I wish you peace and a happy, long life." He sounded annoyed. "Cut it out. There's no way I'm wishing you well. If I have to say something, then I hope you stay miserable forever." The host hesitated, then chimed in, "Ben, that was just a recording of Hailey's message. And yes, when she left… she was in a lot of pain and quite miserable, just like you hoped for."

To support my husband Jasper Young's business, I spent four years livestreaming myself eating. I went from 100 pounds to 200 pounds because of that. Tonight, I started my live stream as usual, but a message from Jasper suddenly popped up on my phone. [End the stream now. Stop eating. Ruby feels sick just watching you eat.] The food in my mouth was suddenly tasteless, but I didn't dare stop. Instead, I shoved the food into my mouth even faster. My phone kept buzzing. His criticisms came one after another. [Kirsten, I told you to stop eating. Ruby is already suffering because of her pregnancy. Are you trying to upset her on purpose?] [You're both women. And Ruby's your best friend. How can you have no empathy for her?] [Is this because you can't have children? Are you jealous of her?] [You were the one who agreed to let Ruby have my child in the first place.] [Are you trying to go back on your word and make everyone miserable?] Tears finally fell into the bowl, and the food in my mouth tasted like dust. I had spent four years livestreaming, and ten years by his side. I gained 100 pounds, and this was what I got in the end. I couldn't keep swallowing the bitterness of this marriage anymore.

In the seventh year of our secret relationship, Alex Timbers became the hero pilot the whole country was talking about. His flight had run into extreme weather. Somehow, on nerve and skill alone, he'd brought the plane down safely. I watched the livestream the whole time, crying so hard I could barely stand. Then, ten minutes later, during an on-site interview at the airport, a three-year-old boy ducked under the barricade and threw himself into Alex's arms, sobbing and calling him Dad. Right behind him came my best friend, Natalie Wilde, her eyes red. In front of the entire country, Alex pulled them both into his arms. Before I could even process it, two more familiar faces appeared on screen. My mother, Susan Healey, hugged Natalie, her voice breaking. "It's over now, Natalie. Alex made it back alive. You and the boy finally have someone to lean on." My father, Dale Healey, clapped Alex on the shoulder, beaming. "Your family of three is whole again. Nothing beats that." In that instant, every drop of blood in my body ran cold. Over the past seven years, I'd had three miscarriages because of Alex. Each time, he'd held me and sworn, eyes red, "Mary, for your reputation, I can't let you have a child out of wedlock. Once I make captain, we'll get married." I laughed until the laughter turned into tears, blurring my vision. It wasn't just Alex. My parents had been standing with them the whole time. I'd been the only one left waiting, seven years, in a place no one could see. I typed out in the livestream's comment section: [Congratulations.]

I was just about to introduce my boyfriend to my parents when he suddenly vanished without a trace. Just as I was getting anxious, my phone popped up a notification for a couple's wedding livestream. [Looking back on that beautiful reception, it truly was the happiest moment of my life. To my amazing husband, Vincent, here's to the rest of our lives together.] [We promised we'd reveal our faces once we hit a million followers, and a promise is a promise!] On the screen, Vincent Dunn stood immaculate in a tailored tuxedo, tenderly sliding a diamond ring onto another woman's finger. Our mutual friends quickly flooded the comments. [Five years in the making! It's finally time you two tied the knot!] [Vincent's vows had me sobbing in my seat. They're total relationship goals!] Then my best friend made a grand declaration right in front of the camera, beaming with pride. "As Floriane's official relationship bodyguard, I can finally hand in my resignation!" As those familiar faces filled my screen, I felt as though all the air had been sucked out of my lungs. Vincent and I had been together for seven years, yet for five of those years, he'd been in love with someone else. My best friend knew, and so did our entire social circle. I was the only one left in the dark. Everyone but me had been given a place at that wedding.

The night before the Global Finals, my boyfriend, our team captain, handed my starting spot to an academy trainee just to indulge her. Every question I got wrong, I had to hand over a piece of gear that had carried me through championships. But every answer had been rigged from the start. In the end, he pulled my account key and gave my Finals seat to the trainee. "Just let her play one match. You're twenty-six, stop being so petty." I snapped my account card in half on the spot and signed the termination papers they'd drawn up. The whole team expected me to crawl back to base. But when the Finals lineups took the stage, I was wearing our rivals' starting jersey, standing on the other side. They still had no idea who had really been carrying whom to those three straight championships.

In my third year as an online relationship-advice streamer, I finally saved up enough in viewer tips to cover my boyfriend's share of our wedding funds. I went live one last time, planning to announce that I was quitting streaming for good, when a young woman sent over a hundred thousand dollars' worth of gifts to request a live call with me. "My husband is just too perfect. There are always women trying to take my place. What do I do?" The chat burst out laughing at how dramatic she sounded. I was the only one quietly celebrating. With that kind of money, Gary Litt would never have to stress over our wedding funds, a car, or a house again. She ignored the skeptics in the chat and kept pouring out her troubles. "Yesterday, I found out some woman's been sending him money. And get this — it was 362.56 dollars! Down to the penny! "That's not even enough to cover one of my meals. You don't think some broke woman has her hooks in my husband, do you?" I froze. Just last night, I'd cashed out my tips and transferred money to Gary for our wedding fund. It was that exact amount. Just then, another voice cut in on her end. "Babe, are you imagining things again? Which one of your girlfriends are you badmouthing me to this time?" His teasing complaint was laced with affection. But I felt a chill creep through me, inch by inch. The "perfect" husband she was talking about and my boyfriend — who couldn't even scrape together anything for our wedding fund — were the same man.

I give relationship advice online, helping the lovesick and heartbroken work through their problems. One night a young man called into my livestream. A wealthy woman had been keeping him for seven years. Now he wanted to go home and get married, but she'd threatened to kill herself if he left. I gave him the standard advice. "You want out? Go to her husband. Tell him the truth. Give everything back." Three days later a property deed arrived, along with dozens of luxury-car keys and more than a hundred designer bags. Then my phone lit up with a transfer notification. Eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The note read: "Thanks for the advice. Returning everything to its rightful owner." I looked at my wife's name on the deed. That night I went live. "Tonight, I'm telling you a joke about myself."

While waiting in line to pick up my prenatal checkup results, a viral video suddenly popped up in my local pregnancy group. The title was shamelessly bold: [How I Got My Ex-Husband’s Wife to Pay $80,000 for My Luxury Postpartum Retreat Without Spending a Dime] In the video, a woman lounged with a sheet mask on her face, grinning smugly at the camera. “My ex-husband gave me his wife’s salary card. He told her he needed it to pay for his dad’s medical treatment. “But I actually used that card to book the most expensive VIP suite at a luxury postpartum care retreat. “That idiot is pregnant and still eating cheap food every day to save money. She really thinks she’s such a devoted daughter-in-law.” When people in the comments accused her of lying, she casually posted a photo of the deposit receipt. I clicked on the enlarged image out of curiosity. Then I froze. The last four digits of the card number were exactly the same as the salary card I’d given my husband. One commenter asked: “Don’t card transactions send notifications? Doesn’t your ex-husband’s wife check her account?” The woman replied with obvious disdain: “My ex-husband blocked her transaction alerts a long time ago. “She went for a prenatal checkup today. I casually mentioned that I was craving fried chicken from Brookhaven. “My ex-husband immediately dropped everything and went to buy it for me. Men are funny. Wherever the money goes, that’s where their hearts follow.” My breath caught. I stared at the man who suddenly appeared in the background of the video. It was my husband. The same husband who had told me he was going to a meeting at the office. He was running toward the woman, drenched in sweat, a bag of fried chicken clutched in his hand.

In my sixth year of running an inn in Rimevale, I'm diagnosed with bone cancer. I leave the inn in the hands of my fiancé, Eric Jones, and head to Varenia with nothing but an old enamel mug. Once I'm there, I start a livestream called "My Last 100 Sunsets." Every day at 7:00 pm, I turn the camera toward the snowcapped mountains and make coffee just out of frame. On my 31st livestream, a comment suddenly catches my eye. "Wait. Does that mug at the edge of the frame have a V-shaped chip in it?" Six years ago, when a blizzard left us stranded in the mountains, I kept that same mug filled with hot spiced cider for Eric all night. The chat explodes. "That's Alice Graham from Veylune Inn!" "Alice, why are you calling these your last sunsets?" Then a private message from Eric pops up. "Alice, where are you? Send me your location right now." What he doesn't know is that the night before I start chemo, I go back to the inn to get my documents and hear him and our receptionist, Denise Snyder, together in our bedroom. They're in the bed I picked out for us. "What if Alice comes back and catches us?" Denise asks. Eric laughs. "She won't leave me. Not after six years together." Standing outside the door, I open the confirmation email from an assisted-dying clinic in Varenia and click "Accept." By the time more than 100,000 people have signed up to watch my 100th livestream, Eric finally recognizes the snowcapped mountains outside my window and realizes where I am. I change the stream title to "My 100th Sunset: I Won't Be Here for Sunrise."

I was made the subject of an explicit AI deepfake video that skyrocketed past twenty million views across the internet. On the day I set out to file a lawsuit, everyone came together to block my path. My childhood friend trapped me in the foyer, arguing, "Penelope, don't act impulsively. The video quality is blurry anyway, so nobody online can confirm it's really you. Filing a lawsuit is basically hand-delivering a public confirmation." My best friend snatched the legal documents out of my hands and tossed them straight into the trash. "I looked into it, and the account is hosted overseas. Even if you go to the police, they won't trace it, and the case will just sit in bureaucratic limbo forever." Even my older sister called, her voice dripping with self-serving indignation. "Mom and Dad aren't in good health. Don't go making our family a laughingstock for the whole town!" I wiped away my tears, and the moment they let their guard down and left, I rushed straight over to my boyfriend's apartment. Sam was a practicing lawyer; I knew he would support me in fighting for my rights. Yet when I opened the door, I froze. Sam's childhood friend, Ruby, was leaning into his chest with tear-rimmed eyes. "I really didn't mean to do it. I just typed the wrong AI prompt, and it somehow got generated like that." Sam was wrapping his arm around her, softly reassuring her, "It's really no big deal." Meanwhile, my best friend and my childhood friend were drinking on the couch, looking completely relaxed. "If Penelope hadn't barged into the picture back then, the person standing by your side would've been Ruby all along." "Exactly. She took someone else's place for years. It's about time she learned a lesson." I stood frozen in place. It turned out the culprits who destroyed me were right beside me all along while I had been kept blind to the truth.

My wife's family ran on the old logic: sons mattered, daughters were a tax. They called my five-year-old daughter "the cash drain" to her face. On New Year's Day, my wife told me my daughter was donating a kidney to her cousin. I was about to lose it on every adult in that room when something appeared in the air in front of me, a column of text only I could see: [Is this woman seriously the mother? She says it's a kidney transplant, but she actually wants the kid's heart.] [If I had a mom like that I'd have cut her off years ago.]

My husband, Mitch Cooley, has been with me through my fifth year of battling depression. While searching for recipes online, a notification for a late-night livestream for anonymous confessions pops up on my phone screen. "What's the biggest lie your husband has ever told you?" I tap on the notification out of curiosity as my eyes are drawn to the profile picture showing two hands tightly clasped together. The interviewee replies, "I'm still single, but if it's about my stupid best friend, then she'd been lied to by her husband three times. "The first time, her ex-boyfriend died in a car crash while cheating on her, and her now-husband hid the truth on purpose so that she thought the main reason her ex died was that she wanted to break up with him. "Her husband knew all along that her ex-boyfriend had been cheating on her with me, but he watched her try to slit her wrists in remorse multiple times without telling her the truth. "As for the third time, I just mentioned to her husband that he could only ever have a baby with me, and he immediately got himself a certificate proving that he was sexually frigid and refused to sleep with her. "But the most ridiculous thing is that my best friend still stupidly went to get an IVF done while I was rolling in the sheets with her husband every night." I feel alarm bells go off in my head. Mitch had also suddenly experienced sexual frigidity recently. The hospital he went to for treatment was one recommended by my best friend, Lexie Moyer. My hands tremble as I click on the interviewee's profile picture. I then realize that the red mole on the ring finger is the exact same one on Mitch's finger. The interviewee's tone suddenly turns low and restrained. "Even when her husband told her today that he would be working overtime at the company, when he was actually keeping me and our son company, she still made a whole table of dishes waiting for him to come home." I freeze on the spot the moment the interviewee's voice changer malfunctions for a bit. I know that voice too well. It is Lexie's.

On the Memorial Day weekend, Mason Hayes, the student my wife, Abigail Sullivan, had been sponsoring, insisted on riding with me back to his hometown. My car was small, the drive was long, and the trunk was already packed. There was no way to fit another adult, so I turned him down as politely as I could. That night, Abigail came home and stayed quiet for a long time before finally saying, "He ended up walking along the highway. His feet were torn up." I frowned, trying to make sense of it. "It's a holiday weekend. There are Ubers everywhere. He could've booked one in minutes." She nodded softly, the same gentle expression she always wore, and poured me a glass of water. I drank it. The next thing I knew, everything went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was standing under a brutal midday sun on an empty stretch of highway. Abigail leaned into Mason's shoulder, holding her phone up as she livestreamed. There was a faint smile on her lips, but there was nothing warm about it. "You said getting around was easy, right? Why don't you try walking home yourself?" The livestream was packed. The chat flooded with messages, people placing bets on how far I would make it. I looked straight into the camera, ran my tongue over my cracked lips, and said, "Done enjoying the show? Now come and pick me up."

Out of sheer boredom, I randomly clicked into a livestream titled "Taming an Innocent Housewife." In the stream, a woman in a silk chemise was lazily puttering around the kitchen. When the camera finally showed her face, I was completely stunned—it was me. Not only that, but on the public chat, the top donor was spamming gifts like crazy. [Make her drink that spiked milk.] Soon after, a man groveled in response: [Thanks for the gift, bro. She'll drink it right now. I promise you a hell of a show tonight.] I'd recognize that voice anywhere—it was my husband, Jake, who was supposedly on a business trip overseas. My own husband had turned our home into a hidden-camera setup, treating me like his personal reality show star. And now, he was trying to feed me illegal drugs just to rake in donations. Most people would've broken down or called the cops. But I'm what you'd call the ultimate pro at playing nice—everyone in our circle knows I'm the queen of manipulation. I picked up that glass of milk, looked straight into the camera, and gave a fragile, tantalizing smile. "Since my husband's not home, drinking this milk all alone feels so lonely... I wish some strong, capable guy would come take care of me." The chat exploded. Donations went through the roof. Later that night, Jake burst through the front door, ready to "discipline" me—but froze in his tracks. There I was, sitting in lingerie on the lap of the top donor, grinning at my husband. "Honey, you're back! I helped you hit your goals tonight!"

Six months after our divorce, my ex-wife, Shanon Reich went viral with her new influencer boyfriend, Tobias Hunt, gaining over ten million followers. One day, by sheer accident, I scrolled into their livestream and saw my three-year-old daughter, Ginny Herbert, trapped inside a car. She was crying so hard she could barely breathe. Her little face was flushed, her eyes wide with fear and confusion. She looked utterly helpless. Shanon didn't smash the window, nor did she call the police. Instead, she laughed brightly at the camera. "Thank you to our top fan for the moneybag gift!" Then she grinned and said, "Send another moneybag! I'll smash the window once I get it, okay?" I lost my mind. I raced over like a madman and wrenched the car keys out of her hand. "Leomund Herbert! Are you insane?" she screamed. "Do you know how much this stream is worth? It's just a little heat! She's not going to die!" I held my daughter in my arms. Her tiny body was limp, and she was barely conscious. With reddened eyes, I pointed at her and shouted, "Shanon Reich! You will pay for this!"