Filed to story: Outplayed Story (Brooklyn & Ethan) Book PDF Free
‘Not great, the last time I looked.’ She pulled out a packet of papers from her bag. ‘I’ve picked up my brochures.’ It was collecting these that had made her late coming in. She pulled one out and opened it. Niro, a freelance photographer, had helped her design it. Brook used the virtual brochure in her email pitches, but she needed something to take with her if she actually got someone to agree to meet with her.
‘These photos are amazing, Niro. They look so professional.’
‘I am a professional,’ Niro pointed out.
‘I didn’t mean-‘
‘It’s fine. I know what you meant.’ Something pinged in the background. ‘My lunch is ready. I’d best go. You have a lovely afternoon. What are you doing today?’
Brook tried to gather her scattered thoughts. ‘I … am going to pitch some more blogs and podcasts and see if I can get any more pledges for the crowdfunding campaign.’
‘You know, if you just come clean and tell your dad and stepmum, I bet they could help you get it funded in no time.’
The mention of her parents burst Brook’s happy bubble. ‘No, they won’t. They’ll just come round and berate me about wasting my life. You know they will.’
Niro sighed. ‘Okay. Well, I’d better go eat this. You have a productive day and come back all psyched up to try out this funky headset they sent you.’
Brook smiled. ‘Yeah. See you later.’
‘Laters.’
After Niro hung up, Brook stared at the home screen on her computer for a few seconds, unable to focus. Every thought seemed to circle back to how she was going to be playing alongside Blaze.
‘Focus, Brook. Focus.’
There were several new emails in her inbox, most of them from people she’d sent pitches to. She was working her way through her ‘most wanted’ list alongside her more pragmatic, small-designer list. Most of the bigger places didn’t even bother with meeting her and rejected her by email. Polite rejection. Polite rejection. What a surprise, another rejection. Oh dear. Impolite rejection. Rej- wait. She went back a couple of emails. This one wasn’t a rejection.
We would like to offer you a chance to demonstrate your product and how it would fit with our brand.
Raven Millehouse
Head buyer, Boutique Belvoir Ltd
She checked the name. Brook’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘No way.’ This was a department store that had its own brand of luxury handbags. They were willing to meet her to talk about using her bag inserts with their handbags. This was turning out to be the best day!
Hot on the heels of triumph came the fear. She pulled up her crowdfunding page. She wanted at least a third of the funding to be in the form of small pledges from people who wanted one of the earliest batches, so she could show that there was a demand for her product. Her forecast meant she should have hit that by now. She was nowhere near her target. The crowdfunding site had a time limit and it ran out in just over a month. When she set it up, she had been sure that would be plenty of time, but now she had doubts.
She needed to approach more magazines and fashion podcasts to get her message out there. She had a list from her market research, and she was carefully tailoring her pitch to each one. She would have to work through them faster.
Except she had committed to playing video games in the evening – not for fun, but for the competition. Her chest clenched. She forced herself to breathe slowly.
She could throw the competition and get out after the first round. But that would mean making an idiot of herself in front of Blaze. She wanted to impress him – which meant practising her moves and taking the gaming seriously. Besides, if they won … she could use the money to get her first batch made, even without the crowdfunding. For a second, she let herself imagine it. But no. There was no chance she could win, even with Blaze there to ‘usher’ her. Everyone else was brilliant too.
She was just going to have to work as many hours in the day as possible to make up for losing her evenings. ‘Aargh.’ She leaned back in her chair and pressed her hands to her face.
At that moment, someone knocked on the door. She turned to see Ethan standing there, looking hesitant.
‘Bad time?’ he asked.
She drew a deep breath. It was a bad time, but perhaps a few seconds of talking to someone would get her out of the tailspin she’d got into. ‘Erm … no. No. How can I help?’
He stepped inside, leaving the door ajar. ‘I came partly to ask how your hand was.’
Her hand? Oh. The spilled coffee. She had completely forgotten about that. ‘It’s okay, I think. Thanks for asking.’
He shifted his weight. ‘Can I … buy you another coffee sometime?’
She looked at him. He was tall, with unruly dark hair, pale brown eyes, and glasses. Whenever she saw him, he had a slightly harassed air about him, as though he was worrying about something. When he’d given his talk, he had been a soft-voiced mess for the first ten minutes, but once he warmed up, his whole demeanour had changed. This was a guy who was confident in his work, but not in much else. Which was really not her type.
‘Sure. Not now, obviously.’ She gestured towards her computer.
He took a step further into the office and put his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. ‘Of course. But maybe tomorrow?’
Brook glanced at her computer again. He seemed nice, but she didn’t have time for awkward flirting right now.
He seemed to pick up on her hesitation. ‘You’re busy. Fair enough.’ He leaned forward and looked at her screen. ‘You’re crowdfunding?’
‘Yes. Not very successfully, it seems.’
‘Can I?’ He gestured towards the screen. ‘I’ve helped a few clients with theirs.’
‘Be my guest.’
He crouched in front of the screen and scrolled through her site.
‘I was hoping to have reached at least a third of the target by now, but …’ she said.
‘You make handbag liners?’ he said, a little distantly. He was reading as he was talking.
‘No. Bags to go within bags. So you can change handbags without losing the vital stuff.’ She moved her chair so that she was next to him. ‘You know. When you want to change bags, you swap the inner bag into the new handbag and off you go. Much less faffing.’
He glanced at her and smiled. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’ He looked back at the screen. ‘But why?’
‘What do you mean, why? I’ve just told you. Lot less faff.’