Filed to story: Outplayed Story (Brooklyn & Ethan) Book PDF Free
‘Of course.’ He moved his arm, subtly directing her towards the door. ‘Thank you for coming.’
Afterwards, as she sat on the Tube on the way back to her small office, with the portfolio bag leaning against her legs, Brook realised that they hadn’t handed back her sample. She would have to sew another one. She leaned her head back against the window of the train and ran the whole interview through her head.
It always went wrong when they asked her about her manufacturing plans. None of the companies liked the fact that she didn’t have a loan or an investor, but was trying to crowdfund the money she’d need. They all seemed to think that she was being wildly optimistic about how many random strangers would put money into her enterprise. To be perfectly honest, she was starting to wonder if they had a point. Raising money by crowdfunding had been a brilliant idea in theory – it would put her in touch with people who enjoyed fashion and were likely to shout about it on social media, and it would help her form her tribe as she went along. Except it wasn’t working. She didn’t know why.
Everything else in her business plan held up, but if this one step failed, it could scupper her business before it even started. At this rate, she was going to run out of the redundancy money that she was living on and would have to go and find a new job within a few months.
She sat up straight again and looked down at the bag resting against her leg. This was her dream. Shanthi Bags. If she made it work, she could make life easier for thousands of women. Millions, even. She wasn’t sure when she’d started thinking about it, but it had been noodling away at the back of her mind for long enough that when she was offered redundancy, she had seen it as a chance to leave her soul-crushing day job and leapt at it. Now Shanthi Bags was that much closer to being a reality, she wanted to succeed so badly that it was almost painful. Except no one believed she could do it. And sometimes she thought they might be right. Ethan Cambry changed into his cycling gear in the bathroom and went back to his office. It was late evening and the building was emptying out as people hurried off home, people from the many small businesses based here. His own assistant, Pete, had already left, so he had the office to himself. He checked the time. He could do a bit more work before he headed out.
Instead of putting his laptop in his backpack, he pulled up his chair and opened up the accounts for that quarter. Their takings were down. Again. He’d had the online event company for seven years now and it should have been making a good profit by now. But it looked like there wasn’t going to be much to write home about this year. Again.
At least that meant he wasn’t going to have to give any more money to his business partner either. He rubbed his face. At the moment, Bradley was rarely in the office, but he still owned part of the company. Ethan worked all hours while Bradley did almost nothing. Ethan needed to discuss this with him, but he kept putting it off. The very idea of confrontation made his heart pick up pace. He breathed in and out carefully, forcing his pulse to slow back down. Not today.
He made a few notes to remind himself of things he had to check, then shut the laptop down. Not being able to pay himself properly was a real pain. He grabbed his bag but in order to get his laptop in, he had to remove the envelope that he’d tucked inside that morning. It contained the details for his arrangement with the online gaming company Syren Corp. He mustn’t forget to post that. He could have put it in the post tray at work, but he liked to keep his gaming life separate from his work. He didn’t want anything to connect them. He slid the letter back into the bag once the laptop was in and put a reminder on his phone to post it.
It was nearly seven o’clock when he finally headed to the stairs to leave. Noticing the lights were on in the main meeting room, he peered in through the glass door. Kim, the receptionist, was in there, tidying up. She should have left ages ago.
He knocked and stepped in. ‘What’re you still doing here, Kim?’
She flipped back her corkscrew curls and gestured towards the cups and saucers she was gathering. ‘Steering committee meeting overran.’ She reached for a plate left in the middle of the table. ‘Still, eh. Overtime.’
‘Here, let me help.’ Ethan clipped his cycle helmet on to get it out of the way and began stacking the cups and coffee mugs on a tray. At the other end of the table Kim did the same.
He and Kim had started working at The Nest when the small-business incubator was still brand new. Ethan and Bradley’s fledgling company had been one of the earliest tenants and Kim had been the building’s receptionist. They were part of the ‘old guard’ now.
They ended up with two trays stacked high with used cups.
‘You go ahead to the kitchen,’ Kim said. ‘I’ll lock up and follow.’
‘Righto.’ He picked up one of the trays and pushed his way through the door at the top of the stairs. As he descended, one of the towers of cups wobbled, but there was nowhere to rest the tray to steady it, so he carried on, praying nothing would fall over.
At the entrance to the next floor, he faced a door with a pull handle. He frowned and was considering putting the tray on the floor and sorting out the cup tower first, when someone pushed the door open. He looked up to see a woman holding it for him.
She was brown-skinned with black hair cut into a neat bob. Long eyelashes, plump lips, impressive eyes. Very impressive eyes.
Ethan’s mind went blank.
She moved into the stairwell and gave him a distracted smile. She gestured for him to go through.
He managed to say, ‘Thanks.’
As he stepped forward, the cups wobbled.
The woman made a concerned face. ‘Hang on.’ She hitched her big handbag onto her shoulder and reached out to quickly rearrange the cup towers.
Ethan stood there like a lemon, not sure what to say. She smiled at him and his world went sepia-toned for a second. He said, ‘Thanks’ once more, before hurrying through the door.
‘You’re welcome.’ The glass door closed behind her as she kept walking.
Ethan paused in the corridor with the kitchen at the end. The girl stopped at the reception desk, where she seemed to be signing out. She must work here then. He quickly carried on down the corridor before she noticed him staring at her.
In the office kitchen, which doubled as a staff room, he loaded the cups into the dishwasher, his mind not really on the task. Why was he so useless when it came to talking to people? He had just met the most beautiful woman in the world and he’d not said a word. And worse, he realised, he’d been in his cycling gear with his helmet clipped on and carrying a tray of dirty cups. That was a terrible first impression to make.
He pulled the bottom rack out and started putting the saucers in there. He would have to find out more about her. Maybe even work out a way to talk to her when he was wearing normal clothes. The easiest thing would be to ask Kim, who knew everyone. But that was out of the question.
He heard Kim coming into the kitchen and hastily straightened up before she made a comment about his arse.
‘Don’t change position on my account.’ Kim grinned at him. ‘How on earth are you still single?’
And that was why he couldn’t ask Kim about the mystery woman. He would never hear the end of it. He was used to her teasing by now, but there were limits. He made a face at her.
Kim ignored it. ‘I can take over from here,’ she said. ‘And seriously, thanks for helping.’
‘Not a problem. Do you want me to stay until you lock up?’
‘Nah. I’ll be fine. You go home. I’m sure you’ve got exciting evening plans.’
Ethan laughed. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said. ‘Wild, crazy plans. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He cycled home, microwaved himself some dinner, and rushed around getting chores done until it was time. Then he let himself into his spare room, which contained his gaming computer and microphone set-up. This was his favourite part of the day. It was when he could forget about everything else that was going on and become someone else entirely. He fired up the game he was currently playing, put on his headset, hit record, and became his alter ego. Blaze. Pro-gamer and YouTube star.
‘All right there, folks,’ he said, slipping easily into the strong Yorkshire accent of his childhood. ‘How’re we doing today?’Brook removed her work from the sewing machine and broke off the thread. It was past midnight and her eyes felt gritty and sore. She grabbed the scissors and tidied up the long bits of thread before she turned her latest creation the right side out and examined it. It was a new demo bag insert. It gave her a tiny jolt of satisfaction every time she made one.
Until she could afford to hire someone to help cut and sew the handbag inserts, she had to make all the samples herself. At least it meant that she could make each bag unique. She smoothed the soft fabric down with her hands and smiled. This one was dove grey and orange. There wasn’t another one like it. She liked a unique bag.
She stretched, feeling the tension in her shoulders. Enough for tonight. She would iron the bag into shape, sew on the ‘Shanthi Bags’ label, and take photos for the website tomorrow. Running a small business involved a million tiny tasks, which always added up to more time than you’d think.
Once she’d finished tidying up, she was still too wired to go straight to sleep. So she made herself a hot chocolate and curled up on the sofa, ready to indulge in her one guilty pleasure.
Her cousin, Nirosha, had already gone to bed, so Brook plugged her earbuds into her phone and pulled up YouTube.
Her first memory of watching gameplays online was when she was 12 years old, sitting on the sofa next to her brothers as a walk-through of a game played in front of them. After their mother died, their father’s grief had pervaded the house, making them tiptoe around it. Brook and her two brothers, left to themselves, stuck together. The boys played video games and Brook, not as keen a gamer as her brothers, tended to just observe. More and more, she watched one gamer’s videos in particular – Blaze. She felt comforted by his friendly voice, his animated narrations.
Things were different now, of course. Thatha had remarried and the boys had gone off to their jobs. But Brook had carried on watching Blaze’s videos whenever she felt down. As Blaze himself never featured on screen – the videos were of various games, with his voice narrating over the top – she could only imagine what he looked like. There were a few blurry photos of him, taken by people at conventions, which told her that he was tall-ish, slim. She had a lot of fun imagining what he might actually look like. It was silly, she knew, but you took comfort where you could find it.