AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Everything okay?” She catches herself. “With the show, I mean.”
“Yeah, everything’s going great, actually. Smoother than usual.”
“Don’t say that!” She immediately knocks on her head three times. “It’s bad luck.”
“You donotstrike me as the superstitious type.” I laugh. “That’s a total surprise.”
“I grew up getting scolded every time I knocked a salt shaker over. It’s too deeply ingrained not to do it now.” Emery lifts one shoulder into a shrug. “Just add it to my list of weird quirks.”
“I happen to like your list of weird quirks.”
Her eyes track over my face and she shifts on the spot. “I thought maybe the last one might have been a bit too much.”
“Huh?”
“I sort of...left.” Her eyes drop to the ground. “I felt bad that I’d pushed you about the paintings, but when things get awkward, I have a tendency to make it worse and I didn’t want to do that.”
“Because we’re working together?” There’s a thrumming in my blood that tells me I’m hoping for a different answer. That maybe I want to know it has more to do with me—withus—than with our current shared goal.
“Yeah, work.” She nods but her eyes avoid mine.
“It was my fault for...” For what? Connecting? Sharing?
Ugh, this is why I don’t usually do this shit.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she says resolutely. “You showed me something really special and I got in your face about it. I’m bossy, it’s who I am.”
“My father would call you aborn leader. Bossy is what we say to diminish people who like to take charge.”
The smile that blossoms on her face is like sunshine peeking over a horizon—perfect and golden and so captivating I can only stare. “I like that.”
“It’s true.”
“Do you, uh...want to come in? We got a bunch of game components in today and it’s looking much closer to the final version.” There’s a hopefulness in her voice that would make me say yes to just about anything.
“Sure.” I hold out my hands and she passes over the coffee tray so she can open the door more easily.
Inside, her apartment is chaotic. Three people sit on the ground around her coffee table, and there are pieces of paper, cardboard, bubble wrap and polystyrene pellets scattered everywhere.
“Team, this is Rowan Lively.” Emery takes the tray from me and starts distributing the coffees. “He’s the owner of Galleria D’Arte where we’re going to be showcasing some of Eric’s artwork as part of our launch.”
A guy in baggy jeans jumps up to shake my hand. “So nice to meet you, man. I’m Eric Chung. We’re super excited for the show.”
“My pleasure. I saw some of the work you did for Emery’s first game and it really blew me away.” I nod. “Truly exceptional stuff.”
“This is Tina, who does all of our instructional material, and Artie, our resident social media expert.” Emery gestures to a slight woman with long black hair and a guy with a ginger beard and glasses. “And this is Tomek, our graphic designer. He creates a lot of the visuals for our marketing materials and manages our website.”
I shake all their hands and am welcomed into their circle with enthusiasm. They reset the board so I can watch a full demo of the game with the new components and a colour-printed version of the board. Watching them play isnothinglike how it was with Dom and Glen—this is like watching master chess players.
“I do not want to play poker againstanyof you,” I say when it’s all done. “I have a feeling you’d all bleed me dry.”
“These guys are no joke.” Emery laughs as they pack up the mess together.
“Says you,” Tomek gripes. “The last time we had a games night ‘for fun’ Emery beat us in every single game. I still don’t understand how that was supposed to be a team-building exercise.”
“You all bonded together in losing.” She grins and I can’t help but laugh.
“Girl, your competitive streak is more like an entire limb!” Tina shakes her head. “No, scratch that, you have a gold trophy where your heart should be.”
