6. Brin
Brin
Listening to this woman revving us up full of holiday cheer with a booming voice and an exuberant slideshow should be exactly my jam, but Greg at my side feels like I’m being haunted with the ghost of a bad date.
Greg, the man that I met last year on Sugary.
As the woman up front is talking about the organizations that will benefit from the event, I tug at the hat on my head—a warm and slouchy knit cap that covers my hair. That’s probably why he doesn’t recognize me—my red hair would be a dead giveaway.
“SHiNY Season is Scavenger Hunt in New York’s newest event to celebrate the most generous time of year.”
I shift closer to Marco. I had no idea that he knew Greg, but I shouldn’t be surprised. They’re cut from the same cloth. Handsome white guys, more comfortable in suits, eager to please their bosses, cutthroat when they have to be.
Marco denies being a nice guy. Greg only thinks he’s a nice guy.
And now I’ve got Greg sitting right next to me, a friend of Marco’s, who’s got my whole body on edge, and not in a good way. I hate the shame that runs through me. I still can’t believe I signed up for a sugar daddy app, but I bet Greg didn’t even think twice about it.
“SHiNY already has an annual event, RUSH NY, which will be in its seventh year next summer,” the woman on stage says. It draws my attention back to her, and just in time. “Just like RUSH, SHiNY Season will benefit nine charitable organizations chosen by the board. This year’s recipients are . . .”
She runs through the list, taking a moment to talk about each organization.
It’s a variety—from an animal shelter to a community farm.
I’m impressed, actually. I was a smidge worried that we’d be supporting some nonsense organization for a tax write-off for the wealthy, but I’ve heard of a few of these charities.
When she’s done, she turns to logistics.
“Each team will get access to the Discord server in a few minutes. There are two types of challenges: open challenges, which you’ll be given a list of today and can be completed anytime; and burst challenges, which are open to all participating teams for a limited time. ”
She clicks to the next screen, which displays a points rubric.
“This is how you’ll be scored. Every task description will include how many points you will collect from completing it.
At the end, points will be awarded to each team for creativity.
Those points will be decided by our panel of judges and awarded on December twenty-seventh, followed by the final tally.
Creativity counts for forty percent of your points, so don’t be in such a rush to complete a task that you forget to do it with flair. ”
Next to me, Marco shifts and leans into me. “Holiday flair, huh? That makes you my secret weapon.”
Greg’s head turns, listening and watching Marco and me.
I smile, but it feels wobbly and of course Marco notices, doing a double take, his brows drawing together in confusion, or maybe concern.
Mentally shaking myself, I try again, and this smile feels better. Marco’s frown eases a bit, and he turns back to the presenter.
“We are so thrilled this year to announce that we have some of the highest pledges on record. Pledges are per point awarded to the team, so the more tasks you accomplish, with as much flair as possible, the more you’ll raise for charity.
If you’re familiar with the other scavenger hunts that SHiNY has run in the past, you’ll know that no team will score a perfect hundred points.
The team with the most points, however, will receive a position of honor at the celebration party, a bundle of gifts donated by our generous sponsors, and the ability to direct ten percent of the funds raised to an organization of their choosing. ”
There are murmurs of excitement all around the room. Marco and Greg raise eyebrows at each other over my head.
The woman smiles out at the crowd. “I’m glad you’re as excited as we are.
But if I can have your attention for one last minute, I’ll let you go to start the game.
Your first task is waiting for you at the back door as you leave: a box of toys, with all the supplies necessary to wrap and deliver the gifts to Toys for Tots.
And now . . .” She clicks to the next slide, and a QR code fills the screen. “Let the games begin.”
Marco insists on paying for a ride home, which is fine with me.
The box full of toys and supplies isn’t heavy but it’s bulky and cumbersome.
After Marco and I scanned the QR code and joined the Discord server, we had shuffled slowly out of the hall behind everyone else waiting to get their box of toys.
I had to spend most of that time staring at the back of Greg’s head .
. . er, his shoulders, because he’s taller than me.
Okay, it was his shoulder blades. Fine, whatever, I’m short. Most of the time I hate it, because men already feel intimidating as it is. It’s a rare man whose height makes me feel safe.
Like Marco behind me right now, a reassuring hand on the small of my back as we wade through the crowd. We get separated from Greg and don’t see him again, thank god. I don’t want to give him a chance to recognize me, to bring up how we’ve met before.
Back at our apartment, I immediately begin unpacking the box, while Marco brings his laptop out of our room and sits on the couch, his long legs stretching out in front of him.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Creating a strategy. What are you doing?”
I throw my hands out and survey the mess around me. I’ve already un-shrink-wrapped one of the rolls of wrapping paper—a shiny vaguely wintery silver—and stacked the toys according to size. “Earning us points. I only have half an hour before I need to leave for work.”
Marco leans forward. “Is your plan to just do every task as they’re presented to you?”
“How else would you do it? And this is the only task we have so far.”
Marco sighs and rolls his eyes, but it’s in an exasperated how-silly-are-you way. He leans back and pats the couch cushion next to him. “Come here.”
I roll forward over my crossed legs and crawl toward the couch. Marco’s dark eyes meet mine for the briefest of seconds before his jaw tightens and he looks away.
I hide a snort. He’s so annoyed that I’m diving right in instead of making a plan.
When I plop down next to him, I peer at his laptop. “A spreadsheet?” The ugh is implied.
“There’s going to be more than one task at a time, and how will we decide which one to work on?”
“Whichever one gets us the most points, right?”
Marco shrugs. “Something might be worth more points, but maybe there are more opportunities for creativity, or maybe it’ll be further away from us than two tasks nearby of equal or more points.”
He starts making a table, columns at the top labeled task, estimated time, distance, difficulty, etc.
I lean against him and watch, his fingers deftly moving around the keyboard.
Then he switches tabs over to the Discord server, which still has just one thing visible: a giant clock counting down.
We have eighteen minutes left until the clock hits zero and we’ll get more information.
Marco lifts his head, eyes searching the room. “Wasn’t there an information sheet with the toys? Did it say how many points this task nets us?”
I slip off the couch and bend over, digging into the box. There’s still supplies in here—scissors, tape. I guess they assume we have nothing helpful. Level the playing field or something.
I find what I’m looking for and grab the sheet. I straighten and spin around, Marco’s eyes looking up from where I was digging around to my face. I wave the paper. “Found it. Okay, let’s see.” I scan the sheet, which has the address and some tips as I walk back to the couch.
If the toy or packaging breaks, call . . .
Deliver the wrapped toys to . . .
Drop a photo of both team members with the wrapped gifts in . . .
“Aha.” I plop down next to Marco, accidentally sitting closer than I intended. My knee nudges the laptop and I fold my leg, my foot going underneath my butt, my knee resting on Marco’s thigh.
He doesn’t seem to notice.
I frown. “Two points? That can’t be right.” I glance up at the pile of presents. “Two measly points for wrapping all of this?”
Marco frowns too and leans into me, looking at the paper. “That’s what it says. The activity points can total up to sixty, plus another forty possible judges’ points. We have three days; assuming roughly an even distribution over the days, that’s twenty points per day.”
“So wait. Billy Bob has made a pledge for every point that we earn, right? How much per point are we earning for charity here? What’s our time worth?”
The keyboard clacks as Marco adds another two columns to the spreadsheet. Actual time and Dollars raised per hour. Then I watch over his shoulder as he clicks around to his browser, then his email, and opens the PDF of our sign-up form.
I leap to my feet. “Whoa! Holy bananas!”
Marco holds up a hand. “Easy. That’s a mistake.” He squints at the PDF, where Billy Bob handwrote a two and four zeroes on the pledge line. “Maybe. Probably. Do you think he meant twenty dollars and zero cents? Like he’s missing the decimal?”
“If the total points available is a hundred, I was thinking that people would pledge, like . . . ten dollars. Or less. But also Billy Bob is fucking rich. He probably wipes his ass with twenties.”
“He has a twenty-five-thousand-dollar bidet,” Marco says absently while he types the number into his spreadsheet. “If we were to get all hundred points—”
“Which is impossible.”
“We’d be raising two hundred thousand dollars for charity.”
“Holy shit,” I laugh. I imagine all my debt wiped out in one go, with some left over to get my own apartment so I don’t have to accept Marco’s charity anymore. It seems impossible that with a simple swipe of a pen, Billy Bob’s just going to give away a life-changing amount of money.
Marco’s face scrunches up and he tilts his head all the way to hit the back of the couch. “I feel like working with William has made me out of touch with these kinds of things. Is this a lot of money for William? No. But is this a lot of money for a charity organization? Probably. Right?”
He looks at me like I have an answer. I shrug, palms out to the side. I wish I had a thousand dollars to throw around to charity, and that’s a fraction of what William pledged.
“They haven’t said anything about what the average pledge amount is, right?” I ask. “Or if there’s a minimum or maximum?”
I sit back down and we scroll the form. Nada.
“Hold on.” Marco pulls his phone out of his pocket and taps it a few times, and soon I hear ringing.
“Hey, man.” A shudder goes through my body at the sound of Greg’s voice.
“Quick question for you; how much did you get pledged for this game?”
“Feeling a competitive edge, are we?” He chuckles, and then tells us that his pledges are just under a thousand dollars.
“Why, what’s yours?”
“I have to talk to William about it. This paperwork is messy.”
Hmm. He dodged the question. Interesting.
“Well, we could make it more exciting,” Greg drawls.
I scoff silently. Like this is going to be boring?
“What do you have in mind?” Marco asks.
“Hmm . . . what about the loser sets the winner up on a date with a friend of their choice. Like, say . . . if I win, you set me up on a date with your teammate?”
My eyes widen and I shake my head vigorously.
Marco frowns at his phone. “You gotta do that work yourself. I’m not pushing you on Brin.”
Greg laughs. “Okay, fine. How about the loser has to be the winner’s personal assistant for a week?”
Marco looks skeptical. “How would that work?”
“When you lose, you have to spend a week doing anything from my job that I can delegate to you, plus you have to do things to assist me. My laundry, errands, et cetera.”
My roommate chuckles. “You mean when I win, you have to meal prep for me for a week, deep clean my running gear, and hand-pick William’s rotating art collection.”
I have to admit, I really like the idea of Greg hand-washing Marco’s running shorts.
And I know that picking art for William’s apartment is Marco’s least favorite job, because it requires taking a trip outside of the city to a climate-controlled storage facility and overseeing the art being packed up and then distributed around the house.
Three times.
Because even though Billy Bob gives absolutely zero guidance for what he’s in the mood for, he has strong opinions and doesn’t hesitate to make Marco do it over and over again.
“Don’t hold your breath,” Greg says. “What do you say, are we on?”
The guys quickly agree to their side deal.
When Marco hangs up, I turn on the couch to face him. “You didn’t tell Greg how much William pledged. Why?”
“I think this is a mistake,” Marco admits. “William must have put two zeros for cents in there. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Do you think he is even going to notice the amount that gets donated?”
“No . . .” he says slowly, as if it’s just now dawning on him.
“And if he gets upset, it’s his own fault. You have the paperwork.”
Marco rubs his face, thinking. “He did say he didn’t expect me to do much. To paraphrase, I think he said, ‘Show up, don’t embarrass me.’”
“So if he expected so little of you, then it would make sense that he would pledge that large of an amount. You do a couple of tasks, bada bing, bada boom, it’s whatever.
” I duck down to look in Marco’s eyes. “But . . . what if we won the contest? What if we got as close as we possibly could to a hundred points? It’s for charity.
We could win them a lot of money. And you know, it’s the season of giving.
” I lilt my voice up in a tease, knowing it’ll rile him.
Marco snorts. “The holidays are for commercialism and religious righteousness. Most charitable giving is token, and a mere pittance. Just look at William.”
But he looks at the spreadsheet again. Any money William has pledged is just a fraction of his net worth. The charities deserve it, and even if it is small change to William, at least it’s something.
“All right,” Marco agrees. “Two thousand dollars it is.”
As if punctuating the statement, the door to our apartment opens.