Stiff Competition

by Micah Persell

  He was quiet for a moment. Maybe she should have just said something that callous a long time ago. Put a pin in this little infatuation thing so they could go back to being barely acquaintances again.

  His gaze met hers. “Want to go out Friday?”

  Well, there goes that hope and dream. Cassidy sighed. “Chris, no, I don’t.”

  “Oh,” he said again.

  Okay, he really needed to move so she could leave. If she had to look at him for one second longer, his dejected face was going to get to her, and she’d go into detail about just how amazing Gage’s dick piercing had felt last night.

  “Hey,” Cassidy said, looking at her wrist where there was no watch. “Don’t we have the pitch meeting to get to?”

  He perked up.

  Damn it. She’d said we.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll walk with you.”

  “Fantastic,” she muttered.

  As they made their way to the boardroom, Chris jerked his chin and said hey to everyone they passed, almost as though he were trying to draw attention to the fact that they were walking together to the meeting.

  Good God, shoot me in the face. Next, he’d be asking her to check yes or no on a hastily folded, sweaty note he pulled from the pages of his history textbook next to homeroom.

  They were the only two in the boardroom, owing to the fact that leaving for the meeting had been an utter ruse on Cassidy’s part and the actual meeting didn’t start for another five minutes.

  She didn’t suppose Chris would just let them sit in silence so she could replay the many ways Gage had blown her mind last night, would he?

  He answered her unasked question as soon as they sat down—right next to each other, of course.

  “So, Cassidy,” he leaned her way and said in a low voice, “you know if you need . . . you know—”

  She just barely kept from rolling her eyes. Can’t even say sex.

  “I’m here for you,” he finished.

  Cassidy took a slow sip of her coffee. Okay, mentioning the dick piercing was too cruel. But, I’m not interested in a relationship? You should really try Tinder? Those lines hadn’t worked. Nor had any of the other gentle letdowns she’d tried. They’d continued to have this exact conversation regularly over the past year.

  Luckily, two other co-workers decided to join the early-to-the-meeting party, and she was pardoned from having to find something innovative to say. Chris scooted back to his personal space as the other two guys, Greg and David, took chairs across the table from them.

  “Cassidy,” David said, elbowing Greg next to him, “got another amazing pitch for us?”

  Greg snickered.

  Cassidy glowered at them. Ha-fucking-ha, bitches.

  She did have a pitch prepared. It now burned hotly in her pocket on a folded-up piece of notebook paper, as though it were as embarrassed of her as she should be of it if the expressions on David and Greg’s faces were to be believed. She took another sip of coffee and shifted in her seat, unable to prevent a wince when the inseam of her jeans caught her in a particularly sensitive spot.

  In a last-minute rush to be on time, the rest of their co-workers filled the boardroom all at once, preventing her from retorting, which was truly a good thing, as she would most likely have said something unprofessional like No, I plan to sit around with my thumb up my ass while other people think. Kinda like you two.

  Even with all her co-workers around, she still had to bite down hard on her bottom lip.

  Mr. Callahan walked in exactly as the clock struck nine o’clock, carrying a pink cardboard box out of which the scent of processed sugar wafted. They perked up as though he were Pavlov with a damn bell.

  “Good morning, everybody.” Mr. Callahan dropped the box into the center of the table as he walked around to his seat at the head of it. The guys around Cassidy didn’t necessarily fall upon it like animals. But they didn’t not fall upon it like animals, either.

  “Morning, Mr. Callahan,” Cassidy said, sitting back in her seat and waiting for the initial rush around the donut box to subside.

  At her greeting, Greg rolled his eyes. Sure, Cassidy was the only employee who called their boss Mr. Callahan instead of Larry, but she was also the only woman who worked at Westward Gaming. She wanted the reciprocal respect she might get by addressing their boss formally.

  She hadn’t gotten it yet, but still. Her theory that it was coming someday was sound. She just knew it.

  Mr. Callahan tossed a newspaper onto the center of the table, and it slid until it bumped into the box of donuts. Right on sight, Cassidy knew what it was. She’d looked at it herself this morning.

  It was the Entertainment section of the Las Vegas Sun, and there on the front cover was a picture of their company superimposed with the front cover for Road of Trials. The headline read “Local Gaming Company Makes Waves with Promising New Game.”

  “We are bestsellers, folks,” Mr. Callahan said, clapping his hands together and then rubbing them vigorously enough to make a sound.

  A cheer went up around the boardroom. Cassidy took the opportunity to reach into the donut box while everyone was distracted.

  Only plain, glazed donuts left. Typical.

  Mr. Callahan shushed everyone, pressing open palms down through the air. “Yes, it’s all very exciting, and we’re to be congratulated; however, now the pressure is on. Our next game must be bigger. Better.”

  Cassidy straightened in her seat. The folded pitch in her pocket seemed to flare hotter.

  “So, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to pick two stories today and move forward with both.” Mr. Callahan looked around the room at all of them. “When it’s time to start promoting, we’ll pick the one we’re really going to push and put the other on the back burner.”

  At this point, she was practically vibrating in her seat. Two new games? They were a small company. They made one game at a time over at least a two-year time span, and it was all-hands-on-deck through the entire process.

  In other words: this was pay dirt. She had never had an opportunity like this. Whenever she’d pitched before—and, yes, it was a frequent occurrence—it had always been with the underlying knowledge that if she failed in her pitch, it didn’t matter. She was likely to fail, as she pitched way more than the company could even consider.

  But . . . two games.

  Cassidy licked suddenly dry lips. “Mr. Callahan.” She raised her hand before she could think better of it. “I have an idea.”

  A chorus of groans immediately filled the room. She gritted her teeth and slowly lowered her hand.

  Oh, bite me, you motherfuckers.

  Mr. Callahan sank into his seat with a sigh. “Of course you do.” He grabbed a pencil from beside the notepad in front of his place and tapped it on the table but made no move to drag the notepad within writing reach. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

  Already, her co-workers were silently tussling over their second donuts, dismissing her out of hand. No one was even looking her way anymore.

  A sick feeling sank in Cassidy’s gut. Had she really burned through that many bad ideas? Were her pitches that painful?

  She laid her open palm over her pocket, feeling the folded edges of the notebook paper it held as she silently looked at the bored faces of each and every one of her co-workers.

  She fisted her hand and returned it to the table. She tossed her hair over one shoulder and girded her lady balls. “Gigolos.”

  The word echoed through the room. Inside Cassidy’s head, an accompanying What the fuck! sang a duet.

  Mr. Callahan blinked. “Uh . . . what?”

  She cleared her throat. Where is this going, Hastings? “Gigolos,” she said again. “Like, a reverse Grand Theft Auto. The thief is a woman, and all the prostitutes are men.” What the hell? The idea was . . . actually good.

  Mr. Callahan’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline. All around her, the little noises her co-workers had been making in their bids for the best glazed donu
t settled to silence.

  “Male prostitutes aren’t really a thing,” Chris said from beside her.

  Just as she was getting ready to say, Oh, yes they are, Greg piped up with, “Dude, you live in Vegas. Really?”

  “Yes, they’re a thing,” Mr. Callahan said from the head of the table. “But that is a gross oversimplification of Grand Theft Auto. That game is so much more than their infamous prostitutes.”

  She straightened her shoulders. “And so will ours be. But the gigolos could be our niche.”

  Everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath as Mr. Callahan stared at Cassidy, wheels visibly turning behind his drawn brows.

  And then, he pulled his notepad toward him and pressed the tip of his pencil to paper. “Okay. Gigolos. How would they be our niche?”

  Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! She had never, in her entire career, gotten this far in the process. And now she had. By flying by the seat of her pants. Say something, Hastings. Say something! “Well, they’d be in the background, of course, but they’d add flavor through . . . oddities.”

  Mr. Callahan frowned. “Oddities.”

  She was losing him. Her throat tightened, and she pressed her sweaty palms to the tabletop. “Sure. They could be informants for the protagonist, but they gain their information through strange kink. Maybe by . . . dressing like a cat for the cat lady or being the only person willing to sleep with someone who has a tickling fetish.”

  Her stomach lurched. Had she really just divulged two things Gage had told her last night? While they were naked? Relax. It’s not like you’re ever going to see him again. Remember?

  She placed one of her sweaty palms over her tummy. The roiling grew worse when Mr. Callahan’s lips twitched, he looked down at his notepad, and his pencil started scribbling.

  He’d tacitly signed off on her game.

  Oh, my God, it worked. She felt the stares of all the guys sitting around the table.

  “Okay, I’m liking this,” Mr. Callahan said, thumping the point of his pencil against the paper vigorously. “A female car thief. That’s sexy. Very Gone in 60 Seconds.” His lips twitched again. “And I’ll admit, the gigolo thing is . . . could be hilarious. But it could also be horrible.” He narrowed his eyes. “So, Cassidy? Do your research. Find some people in the industry you can study to lend it credibility. Whatever happens, it’d better not be horrible.”

  Or you’re fired.

  He didn’t have to say it out loud. Everybody heard it just fine as-is.

  She truly had burned her bridges with all her bad pitches. She swallowed hard. Now her job depended on this idea that had been a shot in the dark.

  An idea that felt suspiciously like betrayal. Which made no damn sense.

  “Right.” Mr. Callahan thumped his pencil again, and she jumped in her seat. “That’s one on the books. Now let’s figure out what game will be competing with it.”

  Next to her, Chris leaned forward and cleared his throat. “I have an idea.”

  Her mind was buzzing too loudly for her to track what Chris said next, but there was lots of pencil thumping involved, so it appeared they’d found both of their games in short order.

  Fantastic. She was going to be competing against her former lover with a story inspired by her current one.

  Cassidy shook her head. It had been a one-time thing. It was over and done now. Which was just perfect, because she’d been ordered to find people in the industry to study. She knew only Gage, and she’d ensured she’d never talk to him again.

  What about Kip? Cassidy tilted her head. Her sister-in-law’s man was a former gigolo. For a second, she contemplated what it would be like to interview Kip about his sordid past. Worse than merely thinking about said past.

  She shuddered.

  No, definitely not Kip. And, damn it, she couldn’t even call Kip and ask if he’d recommend someone he used to work with. She’d found Kip for her sister-in-law through pure luck anyway. The man had never belonged to an agency, had simply relied on word of mouth to gain clients. Cassidy had happened to hear his name and number while she was in the bathroom at E3 last year and scribbled it down in her program because a girl never knew when she would need such information. So, Kip was a dead end in more ways than one.

  But Gage redefined dead end in miraculous ways. What was she going to do? Knock on his door and say, “I know we agreed to strictly one-time sex, but here I am girling out on you and hoping you’ll spend regular time with me—for free, no less—so I can harvest your memories for inspiration”?

  She shuddered even more violently. Definitely not Gage. Never. Nah. No.

  “Fuck,” she muttered beneath her breath as Mr. Callahan moved on to discussing the short list of bugs consumers had found in Road of Trials its first day on the market.

  What was she going to do?

  Chapter Eight

  He’d figured it out the moment he’d been ready to leave his apartment that morning, but it’d taken him a few minutes to believe he could be that stupid.

  He’d stared for several more seconds at the empty hanger his favorite leather jacket usually occupied, trying to deny the truth as long as possible. Eventually, he bit out a curse beneath his breath.

  He’d left his jacket at Cassidy’s last night.

  The thing that helped him stay in character for the clients who were paying a large sum for a particular kind of man. And, yeah, he’d saved a bit of money lately, but not enough to replace a jacket with the hefty price tag of the one he’d left behind.

  It’d been a long day. Luckily, he’d kept the Cassidy debacle from further screwing with his life by convincing his two clients today to let him fuck them while still wearing his black tank top. They hadn’t seen his scratches.

  He hadn’t seen them all day either—had steadfastly refused any opportunity to. Didn’t mean he hadn’t felt them all day long.

  He drummed his fingers on the countertop in his kitchen. There was no getting around it. He was going to have to go back to her place and—he gulped—ask for his jacket back.

  Maybe . . . maybe, she wouldn’t think he’d left it there on purpose as some sort of plan to get to see her again.

  She’d insisted that last night be a one-night stand.

  I’m not that lucky. She was going to peg this as a stunt right away. Just like he would if she showed up on his doorstep with some lame excuse straight out of a poorly plotted, made-for-TV movie.

  So why is my stomach doing that excited, jittery thing?

  He pushed away from the counter with a huff. Gross. Excitement over seeing a woman.

  There was only one person he looked forward to seeing. Ever. And that was because Ryker, the guy who had grown up in the foster system with him, was the only person who had proven he was worth two shits in Gage’s life. Everyone else had proven the opposite, Cassidy included with her hasty dismissal of him about two minutes after he’d made her come her brains out.

  Wait. Gage froze in the middle of his kitchen. Was he offended by that? He rewound his thoughts and went through them again. Yep, definitely pissy. He was offended that a woman had done exactly what they’d agreed that she would do.

  “Wow, Gage.” He chuckled. It was either that or punch himself in the face, and he needed that thing to make money. “Very mature. You should be proud of yourself.”

  Okay, so he would march himself over there. Be civil to her because she deserved it as a member of the human race, much less as someone who had only done what they’d discussed. He’d get his jacket back and beat a hasty retreat.

  It didn’t matter if she thought it was a trick, because after this, they weren’t going to run into each other anymore. Hell, her blinds had been closed all day anyway—a new habit of hers, apparently. They were done.

  He tugged on the bottom of his T-shirt and shoved his fingers through his hair—not to make sure he looked acceptable. He simply . . . wanted to.

  He rolled his eyes. “Jesus.” Time to get this done.

 
; The walk over to her apartment building seemed both longer and shorter than it should have, giving him plenty of time to castigate himself over the whole situation while also surprising him when he was suddenly looking at 7G peeking through countless video game stickers.

  He didn’t even know how he’d gotten in the building. Someone had to have opened the door for him. Again.

  He clenched his teeth.

  Get this over with. He knocked on her door.

  Immediately from within, there was a shout, followed by a spate of gunfire. Every muscle in his body stiffened. He leaned forward. “Cassidy?”

  Another gunshot and then silence.

  “Okay, fuck this shit.” He grabbed the doorknob and tried to twist it, but it held fast. Damn it. Locked. “Cassidy!”

  No answer. Gage took two steps back and examined the door. This was going to hurt. He locked down the muscles in his back and hips and fisted his hands at his side, turning a shoulder toward the door.

  And then it opened. “You’d better be pizza. I didn’t even order one, but so help you . . . ” Cassidy stood in the open doorway wearing blue sweats with R2-D2 on the right thigh; a white, ribbed tank top; no bra; and perfectly puckered nipples just dark enough to cast shadows through her thin top. “Gage?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  He jerked his gaze away from her nipples. A sudden shift of his weight drew attention to the fact that his pants were now slightly tighter than they had been moments before. He forced his gaze to her face, but, of course, the first thing he noticed were the freckles across her wrinkled nose.

  You’re staring.

  “Uh . . . hey.”

  And then, the oddest thing happened. Something flashed in Cassidy’s green eyes. He was a pretty good read of character, and that something looked like guilt, but that couldn’t possibly be right. Cassidy didn’t strike him as a person who regretted a one-night stand, or regretted anything for that matter.

  Why guilt?

  He had to be mistaken.

  She tilted her head, her nose still crinkled across the bridge. “What are you doing here?”

  Her tone was perfectly conversational. He felt the words like a condemnation, however. I know, I know. I shouldn’t be here.