Chapter 53
Lara
Congrats! Your bookshop is flourishing, and the smiling faces of the people of Novel Haven make it clear that you’ve used your time in this town wisely.
One Month Later
“It’s so cute, I’m gonna die!” Aria’s squeal is so loud that Ramon, who’s sitting to my left, pulls his headphones down over his ears with an annoyed expression. “Oh my God, did you do the hats yet? Put this one on him!”
Aria rattles my chair, pointing at the onigiri hat next to some others on the screen. I click on it, and a moment later, the capybara, who is now standing on his hind legs in front of the mirror, is wearing a little rice-ball hat.
“This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” Aria hugs me from behind. “Thank you.”
“No need to thank me; you did the illustrations, after all.”
“Oh, there’s so much more where that came from!
” Aria lets go of me, and when I turn around to face her, she pushes her long dark hair back from her face with a broad smile.
“We only have a few weeks left, and by that time I want everyone to be able to dress their pets and add more genres to their bookshelves!”
You’d think we’d deserve a period of grace after GameChanger, but the next trade fair—LevelUp in London—will be taking place this summer already.
That means that we’re already in the next round of crunch mode, because we want to expand the playable demo and present it there.
We never got a real break, but I’m loving it.
More than before. Maybe sometimes you’ve got to lose things or believe they’re lost to appreciate them fully.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m less dogged in my approach now.
I still like to add pieces of my past to the game.
It’s a force of habit and my way of breathing life into those lines of code.
But I do it with a smile on my face, not with the familiar tight knot in my chest. What also helped was visiting my parents and looking back on everything that happened with them.
My mum even downloaded the demo to her laptop.
Though she was ready to throw her mouse at the wall ten minutes in because she couldn’t handle the controls, there was pride in her eyes, not pity, and that’s what counts.
I go over a few more changes with Aria—we slightly adapted the design of the trees, added twelve new hairstyles, and the piano you can add to the lighthouse is now playable.
We still haven’t found a melody for it yet, but we hope a sound designer will take care of that soon.
After all, we can finally hire someone now.
When I present the changes—capybara, hats, and all—to the team, finishing my weekly summary, I’m met with a storm of applause.
And I wish I could applaud myself too, because although I must have talked for fifteen minutes straight, my voice feels wonderfully normal.
No scratchiness, I didn’t even need water, and my voice didn’t break once on the vowels.
If the few hours of speech therapy I’ve had already worked wonders, I think there’s hope for me.
Though maybe my newfound confidence is a factor there too.
“Great work,” Sophia tells me after she wraps up the meeting and I’m packing up my things. “I’d say we’re just about ready for early access now. And the list of streamers asking for game keys just keeps growing.”
“That’s Nat’s doing, I think,” I say, putting away my laptop.
“That’s all our doing,” Sophia replies. “Right, I think that’s it for me today.”
“Really?” Nat asks slowly, draping an arm around my shoulders. “And why would that be?” Sophia rolls her eyes, but Nat won’t give up so easily. She wraps a strand of her blond hair around her finger, waggling her eyebrows at Sophia. “You going to Liverpool?”
“I’m your boss; it’s none of your business what I do in my free time!”
“I reckon that’s a yes,” I add, grinning at Nat. “And I’m sure that’s why Maeve posted something about being excited to her Instagram story.”
“Oh yeah, I saw that too,” Kamal calls out from behind us. “So can we finally congratulate you two or what?”
“I’m leaving now,” Sophia says dryly, and at that exact moment, our doorbell rings.
“Thank God,” she mutters, glad for the distraction, and opens the door.
A moment later, my heart does a somersault, because Luca steps into our office.
This is no longer a rare thing, because he’s been picking me up from work a lot lately.
But it’s too early in the day for that, and besides, we didn’t have a date planned.
“Hi!” Sophia says, about as surprised as I am, and hugs him in greeting. “And bye!” She gives us another wave and pushes past Luca into the stairwell.
“What was that all about?” he asks, mussing his dark hair and looking confused. It’s grown a good inch or so since we first met, and it’s starting to curl a little. I have to pull myself together so I don’t bury my hands in it in front of everyone.
“Sophia has a date, and she’s too shy to tell us.”
“With Maeve? That they’re an item was kind of obvious weeks ago.”
I shrug. “She’ll talk to us about it once she’s ready, and until then, we’ll just have to tease her about it.”
Luca’s lips twitch. “Sounds reasonable.”
“And what are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to pick you up.”
“Pick me up? Didn’t we plan that for tomorrow?”
“Yep.” There’s a mischievous gleam in Luca’s eyes. “But if you don’t mind, I’d like to have you with me this evening. Or else it would be a shame about these.” He reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out two tickets. When I see a picture of Totoro on them, I let out a squeak.
“Oh my goodness, you didn’t . . .” I throw myself at him and grab one of the tickets. “Ghibli in Concert? I saw the posters all over the city.”
“I know,” Luca tells me dryly. “You pointed out every single one of them.”
“But it was sold out.”
“And you told me that once or twice too.”
“More like a hundred times,” Aria mutters from behind us.
“How did you get hold of them?”
Luca shrugs. “Company secret.”
I stand up on my tiptoes and kiss him on the lips. He wraps his arms around me, and I take a moment to just breathe in his scent, which has become wonderfully familiar. Luca is my home. My safe haven. And at the same time, he’s pure adrenaline.
And he bought me tickets for Ghibli in Concert!
“Oh my days.” I pull back and look down at myself. “D’you think I’ll be able to make it home in time to get changed? I’m not even wearing my Ghibli T-shirt.”
Nataly clears her throat, holding out a jute bag in my direction. “It’s right here. With a matching skirt.”
“You knew?” I ask, reproachfully glaring back and forth between Aria and Nat.
“He was so sweet; he put me onto the task of keeping your evening free.” Nat pats my shoulder, grinning at me.
Then she lowers her voice. “And to answer your earlier question: Luca’s been contacting the organizers every morning for the past month, asking for returned tickets.
Last week, it finally worked out.” Her smile is warm, but there’s a wistful, almost sad expression in her eyes.
“Girl, keep him. And please find out for me if he has any cousins or brothers.”
I’m grateful that hearts can’t burst, or mine would be in pieces right now.
But it stays where it is, beating strong and powerful, as alive as Luca makes me feel.
I snatch the bag from Nat’s hand and all but run to the bathrooms to get changed.
Once I’m there, I tuck the T-shirt into the waistband of my skirt, and then I take the medical sleeves from my rucksack, pulling them over my arms. I don’t need them indoors, but it’s sunny out, and if I’m honest, I could still do without all the pitying glances.
I’ve come far, but I’m not all the way there yet.
And that’s OK. Ultimately, the fact that I kept my walls up for so long had a silver lining.
Because it was Luca who tore them down, brick by brick.
When I walk back out, I see Luca sitting with Ramon, chatting animatedly. I go and stand next to them, and when I bounce on the balls of my feet in excitement, Ramon lets out a chuckle.
“I’ll get back to work; looks like someone’s in a hurry. Have fun, you two!”
“Thanks!” I call, reaching for Luca’s hand before he can even say goodbye.
I give the others a radiant smile, and then I all but drag him toward the stairs.
The office door falls shut behind us, but we only make it a few steps before Luca’s mobile pings.
This has been happening a lot lately; ever since the convention, his game’s ratings have gone through the roof, and he’s constantly bombarded with requests for interviews, live streams, and podcasts.
But what is unusual is the sight of his wide eyes as he reads the message.
And so is his stopping in the middle of the stairs, frozen.
“Everything all right?”
“We’ve reached our funding goal.”
“You’ve what?” I hop back up the steps to peek at the screen that Luca is still staring at, stunned.
And there it is. The bar on the crowdfunding page is green.
It made a decent leap forward last week already, after his parents hosted a charity event for Luca and Maleek at their theater.
But now they’ve finally reached their funding goal. “Oh my goodness! Congratulations!”
I throw my arms around him, squeezing him so hard that we nearly topple over backward. Luca bursts out laughing. “I can’t believe this. There are still three months left, and we’re already there?” Shaking his head, he scrolls down. “And look who wired us the rest of the money.”
“Benji Wilson,” I read quietly. “Well, I guess he’s just as big of a fanboy for you as you are for him.”
“This is mental.”
“It’s well deserved.”
Still shaking his head, Luca locks his phone screen and slides it back into his pocket. But instead of walking on, he turns around to me, taking my cheeks in both his hands. “Thank you,” he murmurs.
“What for? That was all your doing.”
He inclines his head. “Not really. Without you, I’d never be where I am now.”
I’m about to say something, but he smothers my protest with his lips.
As usual when he kisses me, the rest of the world blurs into a distant fog.
Ghibli, Novel Haven, my insecurities, everything around me dissolves until only Luca remains.
He tastes of salt and memories, but also of hope and the future.
And for the first time, I prefer the future to the past.