by Zoe Forward
“How much do you owe?” Emma released a long sigh filled with judgment.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Jesus, Tori. I’m at a police station at one a.m. bailing you out when I have to be at work at seven. Tell me how much you owe.”
“You also bailed out your boss, which is…weird. How often does that happen?”
“Never. This is a first. I don’t think he’d want either of us talking about it to anyone.” Emma cast her a plea for silence.
“All right. I won’t tell anyone I met the elusive Game Lord in jail.” She bit her lip against a smile and amended in her mind that she might tell Alex and Quan, but not the whole story.
“Thanks. How much do you owe?” Emma’s tone had gentled.
“Ten grand. Give or take some change.” Tori toed a plastic bottle cap with her sneaker.
Emma stepped back. “Wow.”
Tori shrugged.
“To whom do you owe this much?”
“Symphis.” An ambitious nudge kicked the bottle cap too hard. It rolled under a car.
“There’s a person who actually calls himself that?”
“He’s the guy who owns gaming in New York. Not legit stuff but the underworld, monster multi-character gaming competitions.” A few bad bets her pride pushed her to place and now he owned her ass until she could pay him back. Making that much money required she either gamble more in hopes of a win or play on his teams for the chickenfeed he offered as compensation for each night of gaming. If she played off her debt it’d require another sixty-three nights, which equaled to six more months of hell. Symphis’s teams sucked since he assigned her hotheads peppered with low talent wannabes. If she won a big, legitimate competition with her chosen teammates then she could pay off her debt and be out. Well, that was if Symphis would let her get out. Big fat if on that. She’d heard rumors of Symphis having a cartel connection and that video gaming was their idea of next level organized crime.
“You were such a good programmer. What happened to that as a career?” Emma asked.
“I’m not an attractive hire. Not after I took time off from MIT to…you know.” Care for Dad. “Looks bad on my resume to have a dropped out of college. Like I couldn’t handle it. I could do programming or coding for a big company, but that’s not for me. I design games. That’s all I want to do.” She cleared her throat. “A gaming company bought my game last week.”
“Who?”
“Conjur Games.” She’d been reluctant to discuss this with Emma, who worked for what many would argue was the most successful gaming company of the decade.
“Oh.” There was judgment in her tone. Conjur was small-time with no big hits. Yet. Maybe hers would be the one. They didn’t offer a signing bonus, only royalties off sales.
“It’s something,” Tori muttered. She also had a job interview next week to write code in a cubicle. It’d suck, but it paid money, which she needed. Her gaming team’s live stream Twitch chats had starting bringing in more from ad revenue when their international ranking increased six months ago, but barely enough to pay a bill or two. The money in legal eGaming was in sponsorships. No company had the balls to sponsor a team with a girl as one of its key players, not when some of the bigger competitions still discouraged females from playing, or if they did allow them, the women played in their own brackets, gender separated from men, with little to no chance at a decent prize. Quan said they could use her uniqueness as a bargaining chip to get a sponsor, but so far it hadn’t panned out.
“You know I could’ve helped if you wanted NJ Legacy to review your game.”
“I’m not into nepotism, or whatever it’s called when it’s a sister doing you a favor. I’ll hear more on their production plan for my game in the next few weeks.” I hope. She had the feeling her game got shuffled to the bottom of the pile.
Emma chewed on a nail with the I’m-formulating-a-plan face.
Tori threw out there as distraction, “So, your boss is hot.”
“Everything with estrogen agrees, although he tries to pretend they don’t notice him. He doesn’t really date. He works. A lot.”
“Is he gay?” Valid question, but it’d shock her to be true.
Emma coughed. “Hell, no. The man’s brilliant behind a computer, but awkward when it comes to women, dating…pretty much the whole social scene.”
Not with me.
“What was that about before he got in the car? Him giving you that weird look.” Tori wondered if he and Emma were getting it on at the office.
Emma blew out an exhale hiss of air and rolled her eyes heavenward. “I can’t believe this is happening to me. Why the hell did you have to go play at that place tonight, of all nights?” She waved a hand. “I’ll take care of it. You go do your competition in D.C. I’ll see you there. Noah’s business partner, Jake Allen, is giving a presentation on their next game release and then handing out the winner’s check. It’d be amazing if your team won. The prize got boosted to one hundred fifty thousand last week when Red Bull joined as a sponsor.”
Didn’t know that. Every pro team in the States would be there for sure. “What are you going to ‘take care of’?” Her stomach clenched. Maybe Emma would try to rig it so she won. She wanted nothing to do with cheating.
“It’s nothing. Work minutia.”
“Do you and Noah have a thing? I mean, he’s certainly lickworthy.” Oh, this was bad. Of all people to be jealous over, her sister wasn’t someone she could compete against and win in the dating ring.
“Eww. No. He’s my boss. Sure, he’s pleasant on the eyes and works hard to stay in shape, but he’s not my type.” Emma’s forehead crinkled. “Lickworthy?”
“Those arms. That earring.” Tori fanned her face. “You’ve got to have noticed.”
“No. You can forget about it. He doesn’t do dating.”
“He seemed interested in me,” Tori challenged.
Emma shook her head and covered her face for a moment. “Tori, once again, you were in the very wrong place at the very wrong time.”
* * *
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