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An hour flew by, and then another. I had passed tipsy a little while ago, and I was flirting with the possibility of a hangover. Still, I grabbed my cup and chugged, then slammed it down. “I win!”
“Okay, I think I’m done,” Ivy slurred. “This game was awesome.”
“So, if I tried to sell this, it would really be okay with you?” I asked. “I mean, you all helped develop it.”
“Not really,” Deanne said. “The ideas were all yours. We just played.”
“And told me which parts worked and which didn’t.” I tipped my cup on its edge and spun it around. “Let’s say I make a million bucks from this. You’re not going to be pissed?”
“Nope.” Lora drunkenly chuckled. “But you’re buying a big-ass house, and all of us are moving in.”
“That would be a dream.” I loved the idea of being roomies with my besties. “But wait, what about Tara?”
Ivy shrugged. “She can move in, too. And same with our future husbands.”
“This might be a little much.” I squinted, trying to picture it.
“Fine, then let’s go with drinks on you,” Deanne said. “Forever.”
“That sounds fair,” I said.
“And a new car, each.” Lora swayed out of the chair and started to put on her shoes. “And take us all on a yearly girls’ trip to Hawaii.”
“I don’t know about all of that.” But if my game made any money, I’d spend it on them in a heartbeat.
The idea was taking root now. I could actually see it happening.
Over the next few days, I let my thoughts about the game percolate in my mind. I did some Googling and found out it was possible to submit a game to a company like Hasbro or Quartermaster. They were so huge, though, I doubted they’d even look at any random submissions.
“Maybe I should give up,” I told Tara as we lay snuggled in her bed. “It’s a stupid idea.”
“You’re stupid for saying that.” She knuckled the top of my head. “It’s a good idea, and your friends thought so, too.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. How would I ever get a big company’s attention? It’s like trying to publish a book without having an agent. Probably even harder, since there are a lot more books than games out there.”
She leaned across me, and the heat of her nude body made my blood pressure spike before I even knew what she was doing. She took her phone from the nightstand and tapped a few times. “There’s a small board game company based here in Vermont, and they were open to submissions.”
“Let me see that.” I grabbed the phone. She was right! “How did you do that?”
“Magic.” She kissed my cheek. “So you’re going to submit to them?”
I scrolled through the website. They were independently owned, and it even said they put out a few card-based drinking games! This was perfect. More than perfect. If this company didn’t like my game, nobody would.
“I think I will,” I said.
I tried to keep my excitement out of my voice, but Tara knew me well enough to hear it. “Baby, this is huge!”
“Maybe.” I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. “I never would’ve thought of doing this without you.”
Things were coming together for me in a major way. And it was all because of Tara.
21
Tara
The bookstore was quiet, as usual. Sometimes I wondered how it made enough money to stay open, considering the giants like Amazon. The wine bar side probably subsidized the bookstore. The mark-ups on that stuff were crazy.
I flipped through a few pages of the psychology textbook I’d been looking at. I was up to the fifth axis of the overall functioning of the individual. Even though some of the jargon was challenging, I kept reading, going to the glossary as many times as I had to. The effort was worth it for the insights it gave me into my past.
