Chapter 48 Caleb
The rubber ducks lined up on my desk judge me silently as I nail another perfect arc with my stress ball. Four months at Pixel Dreams, and I've mastered exactly one skill: how to look busy while having an existential crisis before a meeting.
The office hums with its usual chaos—a mix of keyboard clicking, cursing at code, and whatever unholy K-pop playlist Jules queued up for her debugging session.
Some tech startups have zen gardens and meditation pods.
We have three coffee makers, a wall of energy drinks, and a collection of Nerf guns that would make a ten-year-old weep with envy.
"If you break another ceiling tile, HR's going to write a strongly worded Post-it note," Jules calls from the next cube. Her purple hair appears over the divider, followed by the rest of her face.
"That was one time." I catch the ball mid-bounce, spinning in my chair. "And technically, it wasn't broken. Just . . . strategically ventilated."
"You threw a rubber duck at it."
"I was testing physics for the updated mechanics."
"You were showing off for the intern."
"She appreciated my trajectory calculations."
"She appreciated your arms in that T-shirt." Jules tosses a wadded-up sticky note at my head. "But sure, keep pretending it was your math skills."
My monitor pings with a calendar reminder, and my stomach does that thing where it tries to escape through my throat.
Meeting with Xander in five.
Even after months of working here, part of me keeps waiting for someone to realize they hired the wrong guy. But they haven't fired me yet. In fact, last month Xander ran with my idea for the haunted bookshop murder mystery game we're developing.
I grab my laptop, navigating through what appears to be an intense Nerf battle between the UI team and the backend developers. Someone's using a rolling chair as a shield. Another's constructed a fort out of Monster Energy boxes. Just another Friday afternoon at the office.
The best part about Pixel Dreams—besides the fact that they pay me to think up ways to torment digital characters—is that no one gives a shit what you wear.
Half the dev team looks like they got dressed in the dark.
The other half probably did. Pretty sure Dave from marketing has been wearing the same Star Wars shirt for three days straight.
The meeting room is all glass walls and questionable ergonomic chairs, but Xander's made it his own brand of chaos.
Our CEO looks more like a cool philosophy professor than a tech boss.
Today it's a faded, "I Debug Like a Boss" shirt, and his signature cargo shorts.
In November, because cold doesn't exist when you're successful.
His dark curls are doing their usual Einstein impression, and he's typing furiously on his laptop.
"Ready for our check-in?" He doesn't look up from his screen, but his mouth curves into a smirk that always makes me feel like I'm about to get caught doing something stupid.
"Yeah, ready as I'll ever be." I drop into the chair across from him.
"I just wanted to talk to you about your time here and how you have been getting on." Xander closes his laptop and meets my gaze.
Shit. This is it. I'm going to end up crawling back to Cheesy Delights, begging Martin to rehire me. I'll never live it down—
"You're killing it, Caleb."
I blink. "What?"
"The learning curve for this job is brutal," Xander continues, either not noticing, or kindly ignoring my goldfish impression.
"But you've picked up everything we've thrown at you.
Your code is clean, your design instincts are solid, and that demon cat familiar idea?
Genius. Though I have questions why it only attacks male characters. "
I cough, trying not to think about Salem's vendetta against me. "Just adding depth to the behavior patterns."
"Right." His knowing smile suggests he's not buying it. "The point is, you've exceeded all our expectations. Remember your first week when you called texture files 'shiny bits', and had a meltdown over accidentally deleting the debug server?"
"In my defense, I thought I'd broken the entire internet."
"And now you're designing complex interaction systems and pitching gameplay mechanics that make sense." He leans back, studying me. "You've found your groove. Which is why, after the holiday break, there's no real need for you to keep coming into the office."
"Wait—are you firing me?"
"What? No!" Xander laughs, shaking his head. "I'm saying you can work remote. Full-time. You're past the training phase, you know our systems, and honestly? That game pitch you sent last month? That's not junior dev thinking anymore."
Relief floods through me, followed by a fresh wave of panic. Remote work means flexibility. Freedom. The ability to work from anywhere.
Including home.
Including Hallow's End.
Including wherever Ivy is.
"Oh." I try to sound normal. Casual. As if the mere thought of going back doesn't crush my chest beneath a particularly vindictive anxiety elephant. "That's . . . yeah. Cool. Remote work. Very digital nomad of me."
"You don't have to decide now." Xander's expression softens, and I wonder if my internal freakout is more external than I thought. "You can think about it over the Christmas break."
"What do we get? A week?"
"Three weeks, actually." His grin widens at whatever face I'm making.
"Perks of running my own indie gaming company.
I make the rules. Though between us? My wife might have influenced that decision.
She's got this thing about holiday season.
Always plans these elaborate themed events.
This year we're doing a Snowman Soirée. There are matching sweaters involved. "
Ivy loves that kind of stuff. She probably already has her Christmas movie marathon schedule planned out, complete with themed snacks, and those little cinnamon-scented candles that make her whole shop smell like a holiday bakery.
Not that I should remember how her eyes would light up talking about December plans. Or how she'd wear those stupid reindeer antlers while restocking shelves. Or how—
"Caleb?" Xander's voice snaps me back. "You still with me?"
"Yeah, sorry." I force my face into something resembling normal. "Just . . . processing three weeks off. That's wild."
"Good wild, I hope?" He stands, stretching. "You've earned it. The whole team has. Now go finish those asset reports before Dave starts another Nerf war over missed deadlines."
"On it, boss."
The November wind bites through my jacket as I leave the office, carrying the weight of Xander's offer like a time bomb in my chest. I snag a pretzel from Ali's cart—the good one, near the Prudential Center, not the sketchy one by Park Street that definitely reuses their mustard packets.
All this time in Boston, and this is what passes for local knowledge. Which food cart guy remembers your order, which T stops flood when it rains, and how to dodge the tourists who think Boylston Street is their personal Instagram backdrop.
The city's already in full Christmas mode, because November 15th is late by Boston standards.
Faneuil Hall has that weird upside-down tree thing going on, and the Common looks like Santa tossed his cookies in twinkle lights.
Back home, we'd barely be thinking about Thanksgiving.
But here? The whole place is barreling toward December like there's a bonus in it.
Matt keeps saying I'll adjust. "City life grows on you," he said last week, while ordering some coffee that required three hyphens and a PhD to pronounce.
Easy for him to say. He's nailed the whole young professional thing.
Corner office, networking events, that weird CrossFit cult he joined.
Meanwhile, I'm still the guy who lights up over dollar slices like some broke college kid.
Don't get me wrong, I'm crushing it here. Sort of. I've got savings now. Health insurance that covers more than just "try not to die." Matt taught me what a 401k is (still sounds made up, but whatever). I even eat kale sometimes, though I'll deny it if Sarah asks.
But the truth is, I miss home. Not just the easy stuff, like knowing every shortcut and delivery route. I miss the ducks, who are probably full-grown now and terrorizing some other sucker for bread crumbs. Hell, I even miss Salem, that furry ball of vengeance.
But mostly—fuck, always—I miss her.
She blocked me everywhere after I left. Can't blame her. But you can't slide into DMs that don't exist anymore with, "Hey, remember when I treated you like my backup plan then bailed? My bad."
Turns out even Ivy Hart has limits.