Rise

by Piper Lawson

  Riley: Seriously? Way to go, superstar

  * * *

  Sam: Let’s celebrate

  * * *

  Since running into Charlie and Avery earlier today, I’d told myself I wouldn’t push Sam.

  So when I got her text, warmth spread through me. The fact that she'd been the one to initiate had to mean something, right?

  I wasn’t sure what we were going to do that wouldn’t conflict with my babysitting duties, but I couldn’t bring myself to say no.

  * * *

  Riley: Come over around nine. Come in quietly.

  * * *

  Sam: You have another girl there?

  * * *

  Riley: Yes. She’s four.

  * * *

  Sam: ???

  * * *

  Riley: You’ll see.

  * * *

  After Dori achieved all her existential fishy desires, I suggested it was time for bed.

  “Noooo!” Emily took off ‘swimming’ around the townhouse, giggling and flapping her chubby ketchup-streaked arms.

  Ah well. I could hose her down after doing the dishes.

  I let her play in the living room, keeping a close eye while I cleaned up from dinner.

  * * *

  Sam: On my way!

  * * *

  Riley: Door’s open come on in

  * * *

  Sam’s text sent a rush of anticipation through me as I worked on the dishes.

  “What do you think Em?”

  When my question was greeted by silence, I glanced over to see Emily passed out face down on the fluffy carpet, her hands curled into little fists next to her head.

  God she was cute. Hopefully she wouldn’t wake up when I carried her to bed.

  I put the last of the dishes away, enjoying the moment of peace and quiet.

  Footsteps on the stairs had me smiling.

  “Hey, you made it…”

  I trailed off as I turned to find Sam hovering at the edge of the living room. Something was wrong. Her purse was lying on the floor, her face white and her hand over her mouth as she stared.

  “Sam. You okay?”

  I crossed to her, forcing her to look at me. “Hey. What’s wrong.”

  I glanced over my shoulder, finally cluing in.

  A child, face down and motionless.

  Red streaks covering her pale skin.

  Concern and empathy raced through me. “Sam. Emily’s fine. She fell asleep after dinner.”

  “What?” Sam’s gaze came back to me but it was glassy, unfocused.

  “Come on. Let’s sit down.” I helped her to my room, sat her on my bed.

  Then went back for Emily. “Okay, Ninja,” I whispered in her ear as I scooped her up. “Time for bed.”

  I cleaned her up, got her teeth brushed, and installed her in the pull-out couch in the theater room that I’d turned into a bedroom, sticking her favorite toys—the soft ones, not the action figure—around her.

  “Night Em.”

  “Night Lee.”

  I left on the circus nightlight I’d bought her for her third birthday and turned off the overhead light before going back into my room.

  “Sam?”

  No answer.

  No Sam, and no indication she’d been there save for a few wrinkles on the bedspread.

  I walked through the house, noticing the door of the spare bedroom ajar.

  She sat on the window seat, her knees pulled up tight to her chest.

  “Hey,” I murmured. “You alright?”

  I reached for the light switch but she stopped me. “Don’t.”

  Ignoring the pull deep in my gut that always took hold in the dark, I crossed to her.

  “Come here.” I shifted onto the window seat and swiveled her, pulling her back against my front and wrapping my arms around her.

  “You forget,” she murmured against my forearm. “You forget what it’s like not to breathe.”

  I pressed my lips against her neck, the hair that stuck to her skin from the cold sweat.

  She turned in my arms. “I loved her so damned much, Lee,” she said when she found her voice. “And I loved you too. And the art I used to do. I didn’t want to forget any of it. But everything I’d loved has hurt. And I wanted to stop hurting.” She shivered and I held her tighter. “It feels like being eaten alive.”

  “I get it. Believe me.”

  “How did you get over it? The fear of the dark?”

  I looked around us in the corners of the empty room. “You don’t.” I turned back to her, my thumb brushing over her cheek.

  Sam’s lips parted, her eyes full of emotion. “It’s beautiful. This room, I mean. You should use it.”

  “It needs a little work.” I craned my neck to look up at the ceiling, the molding that ran the length of the walls.

  “We all do,” she said, and I smiled.

  She pulled my arm into her lap, started tracing patterns in my arm with a careful finger.

  Need streaked through me. Not the physical need, though there was always that with her. The need to be close to her. To know her, and to know what she knew.

  I tilted my arm toward the meager light coming in the window, like I was trying to make out the invisible shape.

  “What’re you drawing?” I asked.

  “You and me.” Sam dropped her finger away, making like she was inspecting her work.

  “I wish it’d never wash off.”

  “Because of my mad skills?” Her lips curved in the darkness.

  “Because it’s us.”

  The words could've been a weight, one more reminder of the fact that I wanted something she didn't.

  “Hey Sam.” I tried to put into words the feeling that'd been bugging me lately. “Why don’t you want anything from me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I took a breath, thinking about her words from before. “Someone told me I don’t let people in. And maybe it’s true. But you… you see me. You see everything. I don’t know if you broke in, or if I gave you the key. Either way, you’re in my head.” And my heart. “But it's like you don’t want to be there. Like you see everything I have and everything I am and you don't want a part in any of it.”

  “That’s what you think?” She tilted her face up to meet my gaze. “I’ve felt a lot of things for you, Riley McKay,” she murmured, a fierce conviction in her voice. “Sometimes it's like I've felt every feeling possible, like they've bent my body and my heart out of shape for feeling them. And even though I don't know if I can go there again?” She grazed my jaw with careful fingers. “I don't know if I can stop.”

  Something had changed in her, in us, tonight. I could feel it in her even before she shifted into my lap, straddling me. It was like a breeze through an open window. The change of the seasons. The relief of drawing fresh breath after being underwater for far too long.

  When her mouth found mine it was soothing and urgent at once.

  We stripped off our clothes, shifting on the window seat.

  Without pulling my mouth from hers I managed to lay her down beneath me.

  She was beautiful, even in the dark. I’d never gotten what she meant about seeing something, but now… without the light I could feel her more. Sense her. Smell her. Every imagined curve, and swell, and look.

  My fingers slid down her body, finding their way between her thighs where she was already soaked.

  “Lee,” she whispered against my lips, with an upward inflection at the end.

  “I love it when you say my name like that.” My chest tightened.

  She watched me with hooded eyes. “I don’t want to be afraid of anything. Not with you.” I blew out a heavy breath as her finger trailed down my cheek, my jaw.

  “I don’t want that either.”

  “Good.” Sam hesitated, longing and uncertainty on her face in equal measure as she pulled her lip between her teeth. “I’m on the pill.”

  I blinked.

  Wearing a condom had been unquestionab
le for me. I was hardwired to use protection given the way I’d come into the world.

  But I wanted this.

  Not only because I wanted children someday, or because I trusted her implicitly, though both were true.

  Because nothing between us could ever be wrong.

  “Okay, then,” I said quietly.

  Her mouth fell open. “Okay?”

  I nodded. “Let’s do this.”

  She stifled a giggle. “It’s not a Survivor challenge.”

  “It could be,” I disagreed. “We might be doing this for a long time. No breaks for food, or water…”

  Her face, full of emotion, dissolved into a smile as she pulled me toward her.

  I grazed her warm, welcome heat with my cock and she moaned, closing her eyes.

  I didn’t know how it would feel, but something told me there was nothing I could do to prepare for it.

  I claimed her mouth as I pressed inside her. My heart stopped.

  At least, that’s how it felt.

  My senses were gone. I was blind to the world.

  All I could feel was her, slick and hot around me.

  I didn’t stop. I drove into her, finding a rhythm that had us both gasping.

  There was the wood ledge, hard under my knees, and the darkness, threatening to swallow me whole. More than either of those there was Sam, my light through it all.

  And she was more than enough.

  27

  You knew this was coming

  This morning I was late to work. Why?

  Because I woke up next to the most beautiful woman I’d ever met.

  One who’d stayed over more nights than not since I babysat Emily over a week ago.

  One who sang when she brushed her teeth, instead of in the shower like a normal person.

  One who’d finally capitulated to being my girlfriend. (Literally, I’d pinned her down the other morning and wrote ‘Riley’s girlfriend’ in pen on the inside of her arm as she laughed until she cried.)

  Things were finally good between us. A barrier had come down, and I’m not talking about the latex.

  I’d always liked the predictability of being in an actual relationship. But dating Sam was like a regular relationship on crack.

  Not because she was unpredictable, though she could be.

  Because everything she did provoked a response.

  I was fascinated by the way picked out her clothes in the morning. Perplexed by the art blogs she read. Blown away by the fact that she made her dad lunch and dinner every day, mostly as an excuse to check up on him.

  He’d been trying to get her to move out, which I was all for.

  I had a giant townhouse and not nearly enough Sam.

  It was crazy that I felt like I needed more of her, when two months ago I had none of her.

  But you know what else was crazy?

  The way she’d shown up at my door last night wearing a black leather skirt—a damned skirt.

  Game over.

  I’d shut the front door and before she could say hello, pressed her up against it and thoroughly enjoyed the way my name sounded echoing in the foyer.

  (Then again in the kitchen.)

  (And the shower, because by that point, we were too dirty for anything else.)

  I loved that I could be as fucking depraved as I wanted and she never once told me no, because she wanted it every bit as much as I did.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Jimmy when I arrived at Titan.

  “We’re running an Omega demo.”

  The team of coders was clustered around a console setup at one end of the pit, wired up to a big screen television.

  Max and Muppet sat side by side on beanbag chairs playing the latest version of the game. Their avatars moved over the ground until they came face to face with the enemy.

  “There’s a glitch right there,” Muppet murmured. Max remained expressionless, his shoulders tight and his arms twitching as he manipulated the controller.

  The enemy advanced, the characters moving into combat. Max and Muppet continued to play, each of them calling out to another of the coders who was taking notes on the remaining issues. Their avatars were clearly winning the fight, thinning out the herd of opponents one by one.

  “Is the facial recognition on?” Max said.

  “Yeah,” Muppet responded.

  “Nothing’s happening,” I murmured.

  “Yeah. Exactly like the last month of doing this,” Jimmy replied.

  In the weeks since I’d returned from LA, I’d hoped for some progress on the tech side of things.

  But true to its name, Omega might be the end of us.

  I started to turn away and Jimmy followed. “Ry, can I talk to you for a second?”

  I gestured with my head and he followed me into the glass conference room. I glanced toward a seat, but he shook his head.

  “One of our competitors is making offers. I’m not supposed to say who, but given they’re doubling their workforce, you can probably guess.”

  I cursed. Axel, our biggest competition, had signed a platform deal just before year end giving streaming access to their games through a distributor. I’d nearly spit out my Red Bull when I read it in the tech news.

  “I’m not the only one who’s been approached.” Jimmy rubbed a hand over his goatee, looking back toward the demo happening on the other side of the room. “I think there are concerns about the future of Titan. The Phoenix game was the biggest launch in… ever. But it’s been nearly two years and we don’t have a new product on the table. Plus there’s a rumor going around.”

  “What kind of rumor?”

  “That we’re burning cash.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I’m sure it’s crap. But people spend sixteen hours a day here, they talk.”

  “I get it. Thanks for telling me. And Jimmy? It’s going to be fine.” He nodded and as I watched him walk back to his colleagues, a stone settled in my stomach.

  Titan needed something to put us back on the map. It wasn’t only about dollars, either. Confidence with the team had been up when the movie adaptation of Phoenix was announced. But since no one but me was involved with it—and Max had zero interest in changing that—they didn’t know whether it had any power to change their fates with Titan.

  Back when I’d heard about Axel’s deal to license their games on a streaming platform, an idea had taken shape. We could not only go direct to the platform, but involve Epic in a relationship that would leverage all of our brands, and advertising dollars.

  Boom. Fourth-of-July fireworks.

  Lining up Epic and a distributors and getting them to both put in a big chunk of cash was easier said than done, but hey—that was the gig.

  I reached for my phone, surprised when someone answered on the first ring. “David? It’s Riley. I need your help.”

  “I got your email,” Max said from the doorway of my office the next afternoon. “You wanted to talk. Let’s talk.” He pulled the door behind him and took a seat in one of the beanbag chairs in the corner.

  It wasn’t a beanbag conversation, but he’d committed, so I took the other one. I shifted forward to rest my elbows on my knees.

  “I told you I was scoping a new deal. You know Cobalt?”

  “They are the largest game streaming platform in the world.”

  I nodded. “They’re in. So’s Epic. We give them our games, we get a cut. Both Epic and Cobalt put in on advertising, because Epic wants to build the fan base who’s likely to see the movie. It’ll bring in another five mil this year, and up to ten mil next. With virtually no additional effort.”

  “I don’t like the cut they take.”

  “First, We’re bleeding cash trying to build out the functionality you want on Omega. Second, I called in a favor with our contact at Epic to make this deal happen.” If Max heard the frustration in my voice, he didn’t let on. But the reality was David had come through big time. “Did you see the contract I sent?”

  “Yes. They want to distribut
e Omega as part of the deal.”

  I ticked off my fingers one by one. “Our sales are slowing. We’re losing virtual shelf space. We need cash flow. And the staff needs security.”

  He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Our competitors are growing. And they’re poaching.”

  “If anyone out there wants to leave, they can go right ahead and do it.”

  I let out a half-laugh. “Everyone on this team we’ve handpicked. They’re family.”

  “If they’re family, they’ll be loyal.” He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “Speaking of. What exactly is a brand consultant?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There was a postscript on the email you forwarded me. The one with the contract.”

  Confusion washed over me as I reached for my phone and scrolled through the inbox. I clicked on the message from David and flipped to the very bottom.

  I’d been so focused on the attachment I’d only skimmed the rest.

  P.S. I haven’t forgotten our conversation last month. How’s $15k/month? It’s the best I can do on short notice. We’ll call you a brand consultant. Let me know if you’re in.

  Shit.

  I met my friend’s accusing gaze. “Max…”

  “You must be really motivated to jump ship to take a salary cut like that.” He lifted a shoulder. “If you’re looking for an out, you don’t need Epic to do it. There’s always been a door. It’s always been open.”

  “I didn’t ask for a job offer,” I said under my breath.

  “But you knew this was coming.” His voice shook at the edges.

  I didn’t answer his question. “Listen. When you started this company you wanted to make games. You think we can just keep doing what we’ve always done and carve out a niche in the market. We’re not a few people anymore. This is a corporation. It has brands. Assets. We need diversification. We’re running a business, Max.”

  Max rose from the chair, his face a mask of stubborn anger. “I started Titan to do one thing. Make the best games on the planet.”