Rise

by Piper Lawson

  “You have something on your side. Something I’m guessing most gaming companies don’t have.”

  “What’s that?”

  Sam stepped into me, her face tilting up to mine. “Charm.” My breath caught as she patted my chest. Her eyes twinkled in amusement and challenge. “So charm them, Riley.”

  I wished I’d had on a dress shirt instead of the extra layer of the cashmere sweater, because the feel of her hand lingering on me was making my muscles jump.

  But her touch was gone as fast as it’d come.

  “Fine,” I decided, my heart still beating funny after she stepped back. “But if I win, you do something for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  I rubbed the bow with my thumb. “Draw me.”

  “What?” Her eyebrows shot up. “No.”

  It was the one thing she’d never done and I realized I still wanted it.

  “Come on. What are you afraid of?” I murmured.

  She finally offered a slim hand. “Deal.”

  My fingers closed around hers. “Deal.”

  The warmth spread up my arm. A handshake, the most innocent touch possible, had me wanting to pull her against me. To see if everywhere else, she was as soft as her hands.

  To see if touching her there would make her flush, like she was flushing right now.

  With the kind of effort it takes to pause a Spielberg film for dinner when it's ten minutes in, I stepped back.

  “Ladies first.”

  We lined up and I watched her draw back, her hand resting on the curve of her mouth as she eyed the target.

  When she released the arrow, it thwanged through the air and thudded into the target.

  Reluctant, I tore my eyes away and looked down at the target.

  I shook my head. “You're good. But I know something you don’t.”

  “Which is?”

  “When the stakes are high, I always come through.”

  I lined up my shot. I might have been a little rusty but I recalled the little I knew. The pinch between my shoulders. The strength and the control.

  Slow.

  Slower.

  I released the arrow with soft fingers. Like grazing a lover’s skin.

  The arrow split the air and landed a few inches outside hers.

  “Not bad.” Surprise edged into Sam’s voice.

  I shrugged. “Whenever the Titan team plays Oasis, I’m always the archer. So if you believe that whole visualizing-as-practice thing…”

  “You’re basically a pro,” she finished.

  We took turns lining up our shots. Firing at the target.

  By the fourth shot, we were neck and neck. She’d beat me twice, and I’d beat her twice.

  Her fifth was beautiful. Everything from the strength in her arms as she drew back, the focus in her face. The purse of her lips and the intensity of her eyes.

  The arrow split the air with surgical precision and thunked into the bulls-eye a hundred yards away.

  Orlando Bloom himself would be left speechless, wherever the hell he was now.

  I set up for mine, sneaking a glance at her. The cocky smile wavered and underneath it was something like fear.

  I lined up the target, feeling the muscles in my arm work.

  Then released.

  We watched the arrow sail, and thunk into the target.

  Satisfaction surged through me, and a current of discontent I hadn't expected.

  “I’m available to pose for my portrait anytime.” I reached for my gear before she could respond, packing the bow back into its case to return to the front desk.

  After trading in our gear, I turned for the door and caught her staring at her inner elbow.

  “You’re going to have a bruise,” I said, brushing my thumb over the mark that was already starting to form on her skin.

  “I’ll be fine,” she murmured.

  I expected irritation in her gaze but there was something else too. My fingers tightened on her arm, just enough to feel her pulse.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Feel.” Her body was a magnet, drawing me closer. I wanted to know where else that pulse beat, steady and insistent below the smooth satin of her skin.

  “After the exercise.”

  When a woman moved to pass us, I dropped Sam’s arm, breaking the spell.

  “Better,” I admitted.

  I snuck a look at her as we walked to my car. “For the record, I’d be up for changing Epic’s mind, but that means going in person. Which is a waste of time.”

  “Unless you convince them. Then there’s no better use of your time,” Sam countered, letting me hold the door for her as she slid inside. I rounded to my door and shifted in.

  Maybe she was right. Sam didn't know anything about my business, but I had to give it to her. She wasn't ready to give up.

  13

  Live or die

  “You want a drink?” The guy behind the desk asked me as I took a seat on the sleek red leather couch. “Coffee? Tea? Green juice?”

  I itched for a shot of caffeine but decided to wait until after business. “I’m good.”

  I bounced my knee and looked around as I waited to be ushered into the inner sanctum.

  I’d always wanted to see Epic’s studios. This wasn’t how I figured it’d happen, but now that I was here, I was glad to have the chance.

  “Mr. McKay,” the man who came out said to me. His uniform of twelve-hundred dollar jeans and a sports coat went with the straight white teeth.

  “Riley.” I extended a hand.

  He shook it. “David. Come on in.”

  He showed me down a hall. David swiped a badge against the door and I followed him into a conference room.

  “It was good of you to fly out to see us. You get the studio tour?”

  “On the way in. It’s impressive.”

  I’d been taken on what was clearly the ‘outsiders’ tour, designed to shock and amaze.

  And it had worked.

  Eleven-foot hallways were plastered with art from past films. The very costumes worn by A-list actors graced mannequins in clear plastic bubbles.

  The foyer was dedicated to the latest jewel in Epic’s crown. Ninja, based on the acclaimed graphic novel, was slated for release in just a couple of weeks.

  I’d had opening night on my calendar for a year.

  Seeing it firsthand increased my conviction that this was a whole other world—a world I wanted to climb inside and never leave.

  Titan might be in the entertainment business, but we were a tiny corner of it.

  Epic was a leviathan.

  “So you guys have a new game?” David asked once we’d settled in a conference room. My wheeled chrome chair looked something out of a sci-fi flick. Like it could take off on its own in a flurry of disgruntled beeps and pings if I wasn’t sitting in it.

  “Yeah. Omega. It’s coming out in June.”

  “David.” A man stuck his head in the door. “Can I borrow you a second?”

  “Excuse me.” He shot me an apologetic look and stepped out.

  I tried to gather my thoughts. I’d had some ideas on the plane for how I might convince him. But the reality was, they had no contractual obligation to take our input.

  I was used to falling back on some combination of logic, rules, and reason.

  In this case, the first two were useless to me.

  When he returned a moment later, he dropped back into the chair, stroking his hands in front of him. “So, Riley. What can I do for you?”

  “The concept art we sent through. Did you look at it?”

  He frowned, his eyes glazing over. “Yeah. You sent it, and we looked at it.”

  “I can show you again—” I reached for my phone, but he waved me off.

  “Riley. I appreciate your interest in this project. And I get it—it’s your baby. What you need to understand is we’re all on the same team here. We want this film to be a success. And those hallways you toured are full of offices, of
fices of people whose jobs are exactly that—making these films successful. And coordinating all those moving parts…”

  “Must be a helluva job.”

  “Exactly.” He jumped on it, like I’d affirmed his entire existence. “In fact, it’s unusual for Epic to take input on art direction from those outside the fold.”

  Interruption number two came to the door in the form of a stressed-out looking woman, and this time David winced. “I need to grab the phone. Give me two.”

  I tapped my fingers on the table as he left, staring off into space.

  This wasn’t going how I wanted.

  I was drowning.

  Come on, think.

  Max knew the art David’s team had made wasn’t good enough. I did too. And it wasn’t because we had some kind of protectiveness over how Titan was represented.

  It was because Max knew what visuals hooked people enough to play a game for weeks, and I knew what would sell.

  I needed him to see the same thing.

  David returned. “So are we on the same page? We’ll go full steam on this, and keep you in the loop.”

  I shifted back, folding my hands. “I understand that we’re both invested in the feel of this film. We want to sell a shit ton of movie tickets, strike the kind of licensing and extended partnership deals that will have your great-grandchildren set for life, and essentially have the entire world frothing at the mouth to see this film.”

  David’s eyes sparked like I figured they would. “You do know how this works.”

  I shifted out of my chair and he straightened too, holding out a hand.

  “Just one more thing,” I said as I shook it. He raised his brows. Indulgent. “I asked my tour guide how many game adaptations and superhero movies are slated for release in the next three years. You know what he said? Five. And that’s just Epic. Add that to the other major studios, you know how many there are?”

  He narrowed his eyes but didn’t answer.

  “Sixteen. Phoenix needs to stand out in a saturated market. That battle isn't going to be won in the theaters. It's over before opening weekend. The thirty second trailer has got to be pure cinematic porn if we're going to get every eighteen to twenty-five year old male to go see this. The world, the characters, the sequences… And if we do it right, it won't just be the guys coming out. But,” I said, pausing for breath, “that means we’re both going to live or die on the art for this game.

  “So tell me. What’s going to get you to the theater. This?” I nodded to the sheet on the table between us, pulling out my phone and hitting a few keystrokes. “Or this.”

  He took the phone from my hand, stared at it. “Who did this?”

  “My artist.” David was too busy studying the image to pick up on the possessiveness in my voice.

  I clicked my phone to show another image. Then the next. “What do you say, David?”

  “You’d sign the rights to these over to us in full?” The words came out in a staccato, unlike the drawl I’d gotten used to.

  “We’d maintain rights to the characters as stipulated in our previous contract.”

  He stared at the image on the screen. “I think we can get these into the pipeline.”

  “Glad to hear it.” I tucked my phone in my pocket and started toward the door.

  Compromise is a beautiful thing. But sometimes it feels good to win.

  I opened my laptop the second I settled into my first-class seat, one-clicking the overpriced internet package.

  The more I looked at the drawings she’d done, the more I couldn’t believe Sam hadn’t done this kind of work for years. Her work was on par with the art I’d seen on Epic’s studio tour.

  My fingers flew over the keys as I tried searching for Sam Martinez.

  The first result that came up was her website. No picture. Just a short bio and scanned images of some of her work from the gallery show plus a dozen other pieces.

  I tried pulling up a site where indie artists could post their work.

  I searched for the username “Sam Martinez”. Nothing came up.

  I might not be a genius coder like Max, but in high school I’d learned I was pretty good with usernames and passwords, hacking my way to a lifetime supply of licorice and an iPod shuffle using Grace and Annie’s embarrassing girl text messages about crushes as leverage.

  Still, after trying a dozen or more combinations of Sam’s name, her favorite bands, movies, books, and even words, I was about ready to give up.

  You don’t know her anymore. It could be anything. Some auto-generated user id you’ll never crack.

  I stumbled on one last profile. My breath stuck in my chest.

  I knew it was her from the first image, though there were a few pages of them.

  The most recent was six months ago. The oldest four years.

  There were comic frames like the ones she’d done in high school, Plus her own adaptations of popular franchises. Other characters were ones I’d never seen. Bikers. Dragon riders.

  All of them were decidedly edgier than what she’d drawn in high school.

  I shifted forward in my seat to study the drawings on the screen.

  This was a grown-up Sam. Confidence bled through every line and had me wondering what she’d been thinking when she’d committed them to paper.

  Click.

  Click.

  I flipped through one image to the next, feeling more like a voyeur with every tap.

  And wasn’t I? She hadn’t wanted me to see these drawings, or she’d have mentioned them.

  Click.

  My throat tightened, my itchy hand pausing as a new image filled the screen.

  A young woman sat on a rock in the middle of the ocean, her legs tucked up in front of her. She peered out it like she was looking for something.

  Or someone.

  The woman in the image’s dark hair fell over one shoulder in a loose braid, pieces escaping to tease the skin exposed by the top of a lace bra. The round swell of one breast.

  She reached out, wrapping me around her. Whispering secrets in my ear.

  My gaze dragged over the angles of her bare legs, her hips. Full lips, parted like she was about to speak.

  Or to beg.

  No one could see my notebook thanks to the privacy wall of my pod-like seat, but I felt guilty anyway.

  I rubbed my palms against my dress pants, the burning itch of lust snaking down my spine.

  Only one girl had ever left me with that feeling.

  I hadn’t recognized her because of the longing in her eyes. The decidedly sensual look of unfulfilled need on her face.

  It was a self-portrait. I'd have bet my damned life on it.

  It was art.

  And sexy as fuck.

  This Sam was lines and charcoal, not flesh and blood.

  Yet somehow, she filled the stale air around me, expanding until every scrap of oxygen in the first-class cabin was gone.

  Her presence as the artist and the subject twined around me, inside of me.

  It was the dirtiest three-way I never knew I wanted.

  I rubbed a hand over my neck, the hairs standing up.

  I needed an afternoon at the climbing gym where I could haul myself up as many walls as it took to leave me breathless, my muscles aching.

  I needed to take this edge away that'd been building for weeks.

  My gaze roamed, hungry, over the screen until I felt my cock press against the zipper of my dress pants.

  I shut the lid of the computer with a click, closing my eyes as my head fell back against the leather headrest.

  I remembered Sam’s expression when shed touched me at the range.

  No matter how much I'd tried to keep this professional, keep it friendly…

  There was unfinished business between us.

  We were going to have this out. All of it.

  Starting the second I landed.

  14

  May

  Senior year

  * * *

  “C
an you believe school’s almost over? In a month we’ll be graduates. We’ll be grown-ups,” Sam said as we sat in the back row of the indie movie theater waiting for the film to start.

  “We are grown-ups. And you are as of...” I pretended to consider, “…Today.”

  She smiled. “Eighteen, baby. It seems crazy.”

  “What’re you going to do with your new adulthood? Vote?”

  Her eyes held mine. “Eventually. First, I’ll get you to take me to all my favorite movies and buy me my favorite foods and tell me how awesome I am.”

  I glanced down at the roll of SweetTarts in her hand. “I thought that’s what we were doing.” My comment earned me a grin.

  The lights dimmed and we turned toward the film, but concentrating on Casino Royale was harder than it should’ve been.

  When she’d asked me to take her out for her eighteenth birthday, I didn’t dream of saying no. After hanging out for the better part of a year, movies at this theater were a ritual for us. The empty back row was a second home.

  We had the same taste in movies too, preferring pulse-pounding superhero and action flicks over comedies or dramas.

  But something had changed tonight, and it wasn’t her age.

  I knew it when I took her to her favorite place for dinner. When we’d walked down here in the fresh spring air. When she’d stood next to me in the short line to get tickets, her face beaming up at me with a combination of happiness and resolve.

  I reached for the roll of candy and unwrapped one.

  “Cherry,” we said in unison.

  She opened her mouth obediently and I tossed it up. She ducked to try and catch it but it bounced off.

  “Shit. That was the last cherry. Where did it go?” she exclaimed in the dark.

  I spotted it just above the neckline of her top. “Hold still.”

  I bent over and picked it up with my teeth. When I pulled back her eyes were wide on mine. Then I took it from between my teeth and offered it to her.

  “It’s okay. You can keep it,” she murmured.

  “What? Because it’s been in my mouth?”

  She shook her head.

  You can get good at anything if you practice it enough. For months I’d been practicing hiding my feelings for Sam. I’d keep her at arms’ length when we hung out. I’d return her smiles but look away when my heart started pounding in my chest.