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I shook my head to clear the intrusive thoughts. Fucking hell. What was wrong with me? I was acting like a sex-crazed idiot.
"I'm sorry. Come in, please." I opened the door and gestured for her to enter, trying to get my mind right. This was my fucking workplace. If I couldn't concentrate here, then I was screwed.
Felicity walked in, and I followed, closing the door behind me. It was the first time she had been in my office, actually, and it felt weird. The little crush I had on her had blossomed because her desk was near my office, and before now, she'd never had a reason to come in.
This was all because of Jeff. Bless his heart.
Felicity took the seat in front of my desk, and I sat behind it. However, she didn't meet my eyes, going straight to open her sketchbook and placing it on my table. I took the opportunity to study her features up close. Her nose was straight and pointed, and her lips were pink and full.
She furrowed her brows in concentration as she flipped through the pages of her sketchbook, and I would have been content to just sit here and stare at her all day.
"So, I was thinking, Mr. Pegg—"
"Call me Aaron." All work and no play then. Straight to business.
"Okay, Aaron," she said slowly, as though rolling my name on her tongue like a berry and savoring the taste. "Have you ever played Jungle Justice?"
At the mention of the game, my mind immediately went to Licia-point-oh. And just like it always did, a pang of guilt hit me when I realized this was the first time I was thinking about her today. Felicity had eaten deep into me.
I cleared my throat, meeting her eyes. "Yes, I have. It's my favorite game."
A brow rose. "Mine too. Anyway, I was thinking that we could take a page out of its book and work with vibrant colors—nothing too dark. Bright colors are undiluted and often associated with positive energy and intense emotions. This is supposed to be a fun game, and our aim is to get players to be transfixed. I think a good way to do that will be to catch their attention with some pop art and increase their mental activity."
"Hmm. I think I see what you mean." I'd never worked directly with Felicity, but I was beginning to see why Jeff had put her in charge of the designers. She seemed to have a good grip on what she wanted, and how to get it.
"What would the characters look like?" I asked.
"Here." She handed me her sketchbook after selecting a page. I quickly scanned the rough character drawings, keeping a straight face to hide how impressed I was at her work. She was good. Really good. So good that I was having a hard time deciding who was better between her and Arjun.
I was about to flip to the next page when I mistakenly loosened my grip on the previously flipped pages, sending the papers flying forward.
"I'm sorry," I said hastily, about to open the sketchbook again when my eyes found a name, and I froze. A name beautifully written in big bold script.
“Licia-point-oh?” I said out loud.
"Oh." Felicity nodded. "Uh…that's my character's name on Jungle Justice."
Her words washed over me like a bucket of cold water, and I blinked. "You're Licia-point-oh?"
Hesitantly, she nodded again.
This had to be a cruel joke. It couldn't be. I tried to think of something, a connection of some sort, to link the two women together and came up with nothing. But...no two characters in the game could have the same player’s name.
Which meant only one thing. Licia, the woman I'd been talking to on a virtual gaming platform for the past three months, was Felicity Wiley.
Holy. Fuck.
four
Felicity
Mr. Pegg—Aaron—was acting weird.
I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it started. Still, every now and then, I would lift my eyes to look at him because he’d suddenly gone silent. When I did, I'd find him watching me intently with an unreadable look on his face before breaking eye contact.
As an antisocial butterfly, I wasn't well acquainted with the OceansPlay lead programmer—or many other employees, actually—and had only spoken a few words to him. But I had seen him around. More so since his office was adjacent to my desk. People described him as a genius, and I knew it was because he’d been the brains behind Happy Bird, a game I’d critically analyzed and became slightly pissed about when I found no faults in it.
But personally? I had no idea who he was and I hadn’t been in the same space with just him before.
