Filed to story: Outplayed Story (Brooklyn & Ethan) Book PDF Free
‘Her, me. Same thing. The point is, all Blaze’s fans think that Bravura is going to make him lose.’ She tipped tinned tomatoes on top of the mince and stirred it. ‘If the guys at work are annoyed, just imagine how bad the commenters on Blaze’s actual feed are going to be.’
‘Let’s have a look.’ Niro pulled out her phone and started typing with her thumbs. After a few seconds she gave a low whistle. ‘Ouch. They really do hate you.’
‘The worst thing is, I can’t say I blame them. If I wasn’t me, I’d be annoyed at her too.’
Niro kept reading her phone. ‘Yeah. I’d stay away from the bottom half of the internet for a few days if I were you. Some of these are nasty.’ She recoiled. ‘Yikes. Sexist much?’
‘Is it that bad? Let me see.’
Niro held the phone away from her. ‘I wouldn’t. It’ll put you off your game.’ She retreated to the other side of the room and resumed reading. ‘Ew. I’m reporting that.’
Brook shook her head. ‘Not helping, Niro.’
‘Sorry, sorry.’ Niro put her phone away. ‘So what are you going to do about it?’
Brook put a lid on the pan and leaned against the worktop. ‘I’m going to have to practise more. I don’t know when, though. I mean, it’ll have to be at night. I have to work during the day.’
‘How’s the crowdfunding target going?’
‘Still nowhere near.’
‘Maybe you could-‘
Whatever Niro was going to say was cut off by the landline ringing. ‘I’ll get it. It’ll be your parents. They’re the only people who call this line.’ Niro grabbed the handset. ‘Hello, Lokuamma, it’s Nirosha.’
Brook and Niro weren’t actually related by blood. Niro was Brook’s stepmother’s niece. That was too complicated to explain, so they just said they were cousins.
While Niro made small talk Brook washed and dried her hands.
‘Here she is,’ said Niro.
Brook took the phone and walked into the living room. ‘Hi. How’re you?’ There was always the awkward start of the conversation. She didn’t like calling her stepmother ‘Amma’, but ‘Aunty’ was far too formal for this woman who had kept the family from falling apart and been every inch a second mother. One of her brothers had coined the term ‘Aunty-amma’. It still wasn’t perfect though, so Brook tried not to call her anything.
‘Brooklyn, how are you, darling? We haven’t heard from you in ages.’ Her stepmother’s voice was warm.
‘I’m fine. Doing really well,’ said Brook. ‘How are you and Thatha?’
She listened to her stepmother’s update. Busy, busy, busy was the gist of it. No change there then.
‘Your father’s here. Let me put him on.’
Before Brook could reply, her father’s voice came down the phone. ‘Brooklyn.’
‘Hello, Thatha, how are you?’
‘I’m well. You?’
‘I’m fine.’
The pause that followed was painful. Their mother’s passing had broken something between them. Even though Aunty-amma had helped each of them manage their grief individually, the link between Thatha and Brook was still awkward.
‘So,’ he said, ‘how is your work going?’
Work was normally a nice, neutral subject. She could ask for advice and he loved helping with that. Work and money management were good topics for Thatha. Everything else was her stepmother’s domain. But they thought she still worked for the management consulting firm. She hadn’t told them about being made redundant, or about Shanthi Bags. ‘It’s er … fine,’ she said. ‘Same as always.’
‘Good, good. I spoke to Gihan a couple of days ago.’
Her middle brother was the one who kept in touch the most. ‘Yes. I saw the picture of his new car.’
Thatha gave a small chuckle. ‘He’s very pleased with it, it seems.’
‘Yes.’
With that topic exhausted, there was another uncomfortable silence. Guilt gnawed at Brook. She should tell them about what she’d done. But she was in a fragile position right now and the resulting backlash could finish off Shanthi Bags before she’d given it a chance.
‘I’ll give the phone back to Aunty-amma.’
‘Bye, Thatha.’ She wanted to add, ‘I love you’, but he wasn’t the sort of person who went around saying things like that. Not anymore.
Her stepmother was back, all breathless enthusiasm. ‘Listen, darling, we’re coming down to London in a couple of weeks. It would be good to see you.’
‘That would be lovely,’ she said, even though it scared the living daylights out of her. She would have to do so much fast talking to make sure her parents didn’t get wind of what she was doing. ‘We should meet up for lunch or something. I can come to you.’
‘How about dinner? We could get string hoppers from the place in Cricklewood. I’ll email you nearer the time with details.’
They talked a bit longer, until Brook had to go and turn the hob off. She hung up and let out a long breath.
Niro was eating a packet of peanuts. ‘Seriously, dude, you have to tell them.’ She flicked a peanut into her mouth.
Brook hung her head. ‘I can’t. You know I can’t. They’ll be horrified that I’m not looking for another job.’
‘You can tell them about the business. You have a cushion, financially, from the redundancy pay. You’re not doing anything too wild.’
She shook her head. ‘They’ll be dismissive about it and … it’s all too fragile. I was going to tell them when I reached my crowdfunding goal, but not enough people have pledged yet. I can’t tell them when I know I’m failing!’