Game of Love(7)

Chapter Six


DEX HEARD REGINA and Mitch’s voices before he opened the door to his apartment at the Dakota. Prior to opening Thrive’s formal offices, they’d worked from his old apartment. When he moved into the Dakota soon after he'd seen Ellie four years ago, he'd converted the third bedroom into a workspace. Both Regina and Mitch still had keys. Dex stood with his hand on the doorknob thinking about Ellie. When he’d hugged her goodbye, finally feeling the comfort of her body against him after all these years, he hadn’t wanted to let go. The last time he’d been with her, he’d awoken to an empty bed and a broken heart. That’s when he’d forced himself into the numb state his father had unknowingly helped him nurture. His father wasn’t one to allow any of his children to wallow. It didn’t take many harsh stares or demanding comments—You’re a man; get over it—for Dex to learn how to turn off his emotions. He’d dulled the pain of missing her. Until now.

The release date pressed in on him, edging thoughts of Ellie to the side. He took a deep breath and went inside. The foyer was as large as the entire living room where Ellie was staying. Jesus. Stop it.

“Finally. Did you deliver your damsel in distress okay?” Regina asked as she and Mitch carried fresh cups of coffee toward the office.

Dex rolled his eyes.

Regina set her cup down beside her computer. Her black tank top clung to her ribs, and her hair was swept to one side, exposing the sharp line of her jaw.

Mitch sat in a swiveling office chair and propped his feet up on the desk beside an empty bag of chips. He ran his hand through his disheveled hair. “Wanna spill before we get started?”

“No,” Dex said.

“Come on, Dex. You’ve been on some kind of dry streak with women for what seems like forever; then this chick shows up and steals your ability to function. Spill, or you know we’ll get nothing done.” Regina settled into a chair and looked at her watch. “Three minutes. Ready? Go.”

In an effort to shut them up, he admitted, “She’s a friend from when I was younger. She’s in town looking for a job.” Or running from something.

“Old girlfriend?” Regina asked.

Only in my dreams.

“First fuck?” Mitch added.

Ellie would never be just a fuck. “No and no.” Dex spun a chair around and straddled it. “What’s the final date?”

Mitch and Regina exchanged a glance that sent a pain through his gut.

“Shit. Same day?” Just another thing to add to his perfectly fucked-up state of mind.

“Looks like it,” Regina said.

Dex pushed from the chair and sent it spinning across the hardwood. “Why the hell would they do that? They have just as much to lose as we do.” He fisted his hands. “The same day?”

“We can delay. Go out a month later so we’re the next big thing,” Mitch suggested. In the gaming world, there was always another game on the horizon, which gamers referred to as the next big thing.

“Or a few days early to capture the audience first,” Regina added.

“If we go late, we piss off our fan base. If we go early, we run the risk of losing out because if anything happens—an error code that everyone is slammed with, or any fucking thing—then they’re the next big thing. We need ample time to test the game to ensure it has no glitches. We’re nearly there, but nearly isn’t good enough.” He paced the room. Things were so much easier when he was developing smaller games without so many people relying on him. He’d developed three games to date, none of which had failed, but Dex didn’t believe in luck, and he knew that in a world of graphics and codes, anything could go wrong. Fully testing games before releasing them was vital. Thrive had a three-tiered testing process. World of Thieves II had gone through two tiers already, which meant it was probably fine, but releasing without completing the testing was risky.

“Preorders are off the charts.” Mitch set his feet on the floor. “If we have issues with our product, we’re busted.” His eyes searched Dex’s. “Listen, Dex, there’s no chance of that. We’ve gone through two beta test runs already, and we’re testing right through delivery. The glitch they uncovered sixty days ago was fixed in twenty-four hours.”

“You’re smarter than that, Mitch.” Dex glared at him.

“Listen, we could be screwed either way, so let’s just make a decision and go with it.” Regina chewed on the end of her pen.

Dex threw his hands up in the air and blew out a breath. “Okay. We play. Period. I believe in our product, and unless you know something I don’t, then fuck it. We stay on schedule and release on the same day so our fans remain happy and we don’t skip the last testing round. And, Mitch, I want another trailer out.”

“We just ran one,” Mitch said.

Dex let out a breath. “We need something to feed the fans and build more hype now that we’re releasing on the same day as KI.”

“Who are you gonna pull to get that done, and what am I gonna do to fill their shoes?” Regina asked.

“Review copies go out next week,” Mitch reminded him.

“We’ve got the conventions but not before the release. We’ve got a slew of interviews and podcasts coming up.” Regina pulled up the calendar on her phone. “You’ve got a few good ones this week and next.”

“The PR department’s been hot for weeks building buzz and pitching the game to the press. The forums are going ballistic with excitement, but they’re also buzzing for KI’s game.” Online gaming forums could make or break a game’s release. The more positive reviews the game received, the more gamers would seek it out, just as a forum full of negative reviews could sink sales. The next three weeks would be stressful as hell, but the benefit of Thrive was that it was no longer all on Dex’s shoulders to design, develop, and market the games. He’d had no life when it was just him shouldering the process every step of the way. Every waking moment was spent working on the games, modifying, coding, fixing glitches, and trying to hype the product at the same time. Looking back, he had no idea how any indie developer remained sane. His issues were different now, and the risks much greater, but at least he was no longer solely responsible. He had a competent staff, some of the best in the business—who had jumped on board of his rising stardom and had remained with him ever since.

Regina looked at her watch. “It’s two thirty. Let’s hammer out the backup plans again and go over the testing schedule one more time, and we’ll be out of here by four.”

Dex pinched his brows together. “We?” he teased.

“Well, by we, I mean Mitch. I’m staying here tonight.” Regina had long ago claimed the guest bedroom for the evenings when she was too tired to go home or didn’t want to brave the streets alone at night. Dex didn’t mind. After living in a house with five siblings, having Ellie sneak into his room and share his bed as a teenager, and never having a moment of silence at college, he’d never gotten used to an empty apartment. Knowing Regina was in the other room was comforting. And if he was honest with himself, it made him miss Ellie a little bit less.

Ellie.

What the hell was he going to do about Ellie?

His mind ran in circles as he and Regina hashed out the issues while Mitch played devil’s advocate, pointing out each of the worst-case scenarios. At four o’clock in the morning, Mitch pulled on his sweatshirt and headed for the door.

“Tomorrow, dude. Office?” Mitch asked.

“I’ll be there at some point.” He had an unsettling feeling in his stomach. Would Ellie be gone by morning? He had to stop worrying about that shit. She was in the city interviewing for jobs. She was a twenty-five-year-old woman who wasn’t there to see him.

Regina stretched her arms over her head and turned toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms. “Good night, Dex.”

“Night, Reg.”

She hesitated. “Listen, if you want to talk about the girl, I'm a good listener.” Her bony shoulders lifted in a shrug.

“I know. I’m good. She’s a friend. Nothing more.”

Regina nodded. “Okay. I’ve just never seen you go all…focused on a woman before.”

Dex walked past her toward his bedroom, ignoring her comment. What was he going to do? Lie to Regina? He’d never had a woman steal his focus before. And why he was focused on a woman as frustrating as Ellie was beyond him.

“Good night, Reg,” he said before closing his bedroom door.

He opened the window a crack, as he’d done since the very first time Ellie had come to his bedroom in the middle of the night, allowing the night air to clear his mind. He stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed, trying like hell not to think of Ellie, just a few long blocks away, on some stranger’s couch.





Chapter Seven


ELLIE AWOKE TO hot, rancid breath on her face. Her eyes sprang open, and she pushed the man hovering over her away and jumped to her feet.

“What the hell?” she yelled. Her eyes darted to the open bedroom door. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and every muscle tensed. Memories of when she was a teenager came rushing back to her. She snagged her phone from the couch and shoved it into the pocket of her sweats with one thing on her mind. Getting the hell out of there.