Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Andi
I’m crouched on all fours when the door to my office busts wide open and someone half screams my name. Cold sweat beads down my temples. Caught between continuing to look for my pen cap—which I’ve just spotted—and jackknifing my body into a less compromising position, I freeze, as if hoping my assailant is one of those dinosaurs that can’t see something unless it moves.
Unfortunately, when I peek underneath my right armpit, I don’t see a prehistoric reptile. Instead, I see Cat Li. My breath collapses out of my lungs in one long ujjayi sigh.
“What the hell, Cat, you scared the crap out of me.”
“Sorry!” Cat quarter screams before biting her lower lip and repeating her greeting in a more measured tone. “Good afternoon, Andi.”
I unstick myself and get up, banging my head on the metal handle of a filing cabinet in the process. Rubbing my bruised skull, I take in Cat, who’s dressed in jeans and a red college hoodie. Instead of her usual overbright smile, she’s wearing a tight grin. Between her eyebrows is a crease that I’m sure I haven’t seen before, but then again, it’s not like I know this woman well .
“Good … afternoon,” I say, unsure. Why is she being so formal? And why is she still standing in my office? Was she not just passing by?
“How is your day going?”
“Fine?” Maybe she doesn’t want to call attention to the fact that she found me on the floor. Brandishing my capless pen at her, I explain, “I was looking for my top. The top, I mean. To this pen.” Fucking hell. I blame my awkwardness on the fact that my heart’s still hovering somewhere in the vicinity of my trachea; despite years of therapy, I’m not great at dealing with being startled.
Cat doesn’t respond to my verbal faux pas except to nod at me. I think I see her right eye twitch.
Oookay … Hurling myself behind my desk, I type in my password to get back to work.
A few seconds pass. I look over my dual-monitor setup and find Cat still standing there and grinning like Emil from NieR . Creepy.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“Is now still a good time?”
I frown. Now is never a good time when you’re leading a game the size of Hollow . “For what?”
Cat’s eye twitches again, definitively this time, and the furrow between her eyebrows deepens. “Well, you see, we have a one-on-one on the calendar, which is why I’m here, asking you if now is still a good time.”
“Oh, sure,” I say, holding up both hands. “Sorry. I didn’t realize. Let’s chat, then. Why don’t you take a seat?”
A scowl steals over Cat’s face, replacing her grin. Then, just as quickly, the grin returns, even wider than before. Before I can redirect her toward one of the chairs opposite my desk, she perches herself on the edge of my armchair. The same armchair I slept in last night because I had another nightmare and decided to bunker down in the office. Nothing like drifting off only to see a sea of strangers charging toward you and shouting obscenities before all turning into carbon copies of Jan.
Brushing off the cobwebs of last night’s bad dreams—they’ve been getting worse ever since I “agreed” to go to IAX—I get up and relocate so that I’m sitting across from her. “What are we talking about?”
Cat’s grin wobbles but holds. “I was wondering what you might consider a reasonable timeline for when I could expect feedback—or at least high-level thoughts—on what I submitted to you last week by way of your assistant, Carter.”
This string of thirty or so words is so hard to follow that, without really meaning to, I squint. “What?”
“Oh my god,” Cat says, throwing up her hands. “Did you even read Kelsi? Or were you waiting for me to print out five copies for you and hand deliver them?”
I rear back, confused by her sudden mood change. “I did read Kelsi, but it’s been a busy week. I have about ten emails in my drafts folder that I haven’t gotten around to finishing yet.”
“Oh.” Dropping her hands, Cat looks at me sheepishly. “Sorry. So, like, should I work on Evaralin next? Or should I flesh out Kelsi more? Or … what do you think? I’d love your expert opinion.”
My expert opinion? Is she making fun of me? With one hand, I massage my neck. What is with Cat today? It’s like she’s bouncing between personalities. Studying the woman opposite me—the crease between her eyebrows is back and more distracting than ever—I hear Philo’s voice in my head. Be nice. Be personable.
Maybe Cat’s still intimidated by me? Maybe that’s why she’s acting so chaotically?
My patience is wearing thin, but I owe it to Philo—and Cat, I suppose—to try to reset things. Cat is, after all, a talented woman of color trying to make it in a white-male-dominated industry. I’m supposed to be cheering her on, mentoring her, taking her out to drinks and giving her the DL.
“Look, we got off to a bad start,” I say, crossing my ankles. Although I wouldn’t mind the Cat from two weeks ago right now. At least that Cat was honest, if abrasive. (That Cat also would’ve eviscerated me by now for not realizing we had a meeting on the books.) “A lot of that was my fault.” I smile to let her know I’m being earnest and win a weak—but real—grin in response. Encouraged, I push past the inexplicable fluttering in my chest and plunge ahead. “So let’s start over. Let’s just … both act normal around each other, okay?”
Big mistake.
My shoulders hunch up toward my ears as storm clouds scud across Cat’s face. “Normal? Normal? This is me acting normal.”
“I just meant—”
Cat pitches herself to her feet. “All I’m asking for as your employee is a little direction. Who do I write next? Evaralin? Catha? Dane? One of the optional party members? But no, instead of giving me a straight answer, you’ve spent the week—nix that—the month avoiding me.” I start to protest and explain how busy it’s been with Brett breathing down my neck like a hamster with halitosis, but Cat barrels on. “I know you have ‘more important’ things to do, that I’m just a lowly temp in your eyes. I know you probably think I’m going to burn out of this industry in about five seconds—three if you have it your way. Well, guess what, buddy? You’re not even a mini-boss in my book. You don’t scare me one bit.
“I’ve been bullied every day for as long as I can remember, by jocks and prepsters and other nerds who thought they were better than me. I quit my high-five-figure job to get paid peanuts while writing dialogue for fictional characters. My parents and sister are so embarrassed of me, they forgot to tell me last Thanksgiving that they were all going to Hawaii together. So sorry, Andi, but you’re stuck with me until you either fire me or work with me to write this damn game’s romances. And since I’m not sure you’re capable of catching a single feeling”—I flinch, my grip going tight around my ribs—“I’m guessing you need me to fart out some candy hearts for you.”
Finally, Cat pauses to catch her breath. I wait until her chest stops heaving. Then I stand, taking my time so she takes in how much taller I am than her. I watch with interest as her pupils darken to the color of ebony wood. They’re dilated almost to the edges, and for a moment, I sway and lose all proprioception.
Get ahold of yourself. Squaring both my stance and my jaw, I look down at Cat. There’s an ache in my torso somewhere north of my diaphragm, but I ignore it in favor of digging my nails into my palms.
“You want direction? Here it is. The first of November, I want full first drafts of as many romances as you can or want to write. Whether you dive deeper into Kelsi or outline Evaralin first is up to you. Either way, you know your deadline.”
“The first of November?” Cat says. “B-but that’s like a month from now. I need two weeks per romance, minimum. Just outlining Kelsi took a week.”
I shrug, flicking my gaze away from her eyes and to the wall clock over the door. “You’re getting the same timeline as everyone else. Finalized scripts are due the second of the New Year, which means our scope has to be set by the first of November. Of course, we’re hoping not to have to do too many rewrites, but there are just so many unknown variables we’re dealing with. New hires, for one.”
On the wall clock, the second hand swipes by the twelve. Our time is up. Crossing the room, I swing open the door and wait. After a beat, Cat follows.
“I’ll send you feedback on your Kelsi x Sentinel proposal by end of week,” I say once she brushes past me. “Oh, and Cat?”
“What,” she snarls.
I smile. “Save Spyglass—Dane—for me. I’ll write their romance with Sentinel. Don’t want you thinking I’m asking you to do something I can’t do myself.”
With that, I shut the door in her face.