Filed to story: Outplayed Story (Brooklyn & Ethan) Book PDF Free
Real life stress.
Flick:
I’d offer a listening ear, but I know you value your privacy, so accept a virtual hug instead.
Blaze
: Gratefully accepted. Listen, it looks like she’s replied. I’d best go respond.
Flick:
Be nice to the girl.
Blaze:
She’s a fan, by the looks of it. I’m always nice to my fans.
He saw that Bravura had replied to him apologising for being crap. Now he felt bad for being rude about her, even though he’d only said it to Flick, whom he could trust to be discreet.
It sounded like Bravura could do with encouragement. As Flick said, he was getting paid anyway. While winning the prize would have been brilliant, it was unlikely that he would. So why ruin someone’s fortnight over it?
Blaze: Don’t worry too much. It’s just a game. Have fun. I’ll speak to you tomorrow before the start.
There. Hopefully, that would help. With any luck she would be less nervous the next time they met in the game.A few minutes later, Brook had tidied the hardware away and the living room was back to normal. Niro had swapped her popcorn for a blanket and was settling down to watch something on Netflix. Brook stood in the kitchenette and stared at the message from Blaze on her phone.
Don’t worry too much. It’s just a game. Have fun. I’ll speak to you tomorrow before the start.
Brook couldn’t help smiling at that reply. It was just a game to him. It was the experience of a lifetime for her. ‘Niro.’
‘Shh.’ Niro flapped her hand, not taking her eyes off the screen.
‘Sorry.’ Brook took her little secret and went up to her room. The idea that Blaze even knew she existed seemed like a miracle. The fact that he was messaging her directly was almost too huge to comprehend. She wanted to tell someone about it, but there wasn’t anyone. Well, apart from Niro, who had indulged her a lot over the past few weeks, but clearly needed a break right now.
Inside her bedroom, she leaned against her door and read the messages from Blaze again.
Maybe practise the fight moves. No kidding. She had been unbelievably slow and clumsy with her playing.
It’s just a game. Hah. No it wasn’t. There was quite a big prize at stake. Besides, she didn’t want to be the one responsible for dragging him down in front of his peers. She would have to spend her evenings practising. She could improve, she was sure. Maybe it was a good thing she’d been so terrible today. It meant that when she saw him again, he could be impressed with her progress.
She lifted her gaze to the rest of the room and her dream popped. Who was she trying to kid? She had a business to run. With only five weeks left on her crowdfunding campaign, she needed to keep her head down, and find more supporters and, ideally, a handbag company to partner with. She didn’t have time to spend on video games. She pushed herself from the door towards her mother’s wardrobe.
Since she paid slightly more rent, Brook got to have the bigger room in the flat. It was a Georgian house, one that had been split up to make the apartments, so the rooms were larger than in newer houses. It meant that Brook could have two wardrobes. One from Ikea and one that had belonged to her mother. If she’d had space for only one, she would have kept her clothes in a pile on her desk, just so her mother’s cheap and flimsy old wardrobe could live with her.
When she opened the wardrobe’s doors, she took a deep breath as she always did. That first movement of air always brought with it a smell – a hint of perfume or of leather that reminded her of Amma. The inside had been modified so that it held rows of shallow shelves and hooks. They were all full of handbags. Sixty of them. Amma’s collection only had fifty-six, but Brook had added four of her own. There were bucket bags, shoulder totes, clutches, tiny Nineties-style baguette purses, even a silver backpack. Nearly all were from the high street, although there were a few factory rejects from designer brands bought on trips to Sri Lanka. The value in the collection lay in what the bags meant to Brook.
She had been barely 12 when her mother died. Her brothers had been 14 and 16. Their father had withdrawn with grief. He was there, making sure they had food and whatever else they needed, but he never wanted to talk to them, and certainly not about their mother. So they talked to each other. Brook had spent many an evening curled up with a book while her brothers shot at things on a computer. After a year or so, their father met their stepmother, a nice woman who took one look at the children who were glaring suspiciously at her and made it her business to make sure they got their father back. She hadn’t fully succeeded in that, but Brook and her brothers loved her nevertheless. She had been a kind and steady presence when they needed her the most.
Brook pulled the bag she’d taken to work off the bed and removed her Shanthi bag from inside it. She did a quick check to see if she’d left anything in the larger bag before she wiped it down and put it back in the cupboard. Hmm … which bag to take tomorrow?
She chose one, popped in the Shanthi bag, and put it back on the bed. Instead of closing the wardrobe, she sat on the floor and looked at it.
Sometime in her late teens, she and her stepmother had got the boxes of handbags down from the attic and sorted them so that Brook could use them. Brook’s memories of her mother were hazy now, but sometimes, a particular light on a particular bag would trigger a memory so strong, she knew she hadn’t really forgotten. The best way to feel a connection to Amma was to carry one of her bags with her, every single day.
Her idea for Shanthi Bags came from the many times she’d switched bags and found that she’d left her purse or her keys in the old bag. She had made herself a small pouch, to begin with. Over time, it had evolved into the current design of a soft bag with an elasticated pocket for a mobile phone, another for lipstick and a packet of tissues, and enough space in the middle to take a decent-sized wallet and other odds and ends. For the prototype bags, she’d chosen brightly coloured fabrics, so that the inserts themselves were desirable objects, rather than something plain and functional. She’d called them Shanthi, after her mother.
Ethan had asked why she had started her business. This was her why.
She chewed her lip. Did she want to share that? It was such a precious connection that it seemed wrong to use it for something as tawdry as advertising.
Ethan tried to stifle a huge yawn and failed. He’d been up late last night, messing around on the SyrenQuest training site. He had hoped to be a bit more alert for his meeting with Brook. He slumped at a table in the cafeteria, with his coffee by his elbow, and pulled up the SyrenQuest chat app on his phone. There were a few more messages in the pro-gamer group, but nothing interesting.
He put his phone away and looked up to see Brook getting her coffee. She smiled at him and his pulse suddenly got louder. From past experience, he knew that ‘be casual’ was a recipe for disaster, so he decided he’d just be his normal intense self. He pulled out the notebook where he’d sketched a few layouts and suggestions on how to redo her crowdfunding site.
‘Good morning.’ Brook pulled up a chair to sit at the opposite side of the table.
He noticed that she was using a reusable cup with a lid. He pointed to it. ‘In case of spillages?’
She grinned. ‘I learn from my mistakes.’
He nodded and smiled. She was very pretty. That smile was incredible. The smile faded and was replaced by a look of puzzlement. Oh dear. He was staring, wasn’t he?
He looked down. ‘I … er … made some notes. Here.’ He turned it around, so that it was the right way up for her and started explaining what it all meant. As he spoke, he could see the expressions that flitted across her face – some of what he was saying clearly meant something to her, but some of it was way off the mark. That was okay. No client ever liked a hundred per cent of the suggestions. He never normally cared, but it was important to him that she liked what he’d produced.
‘What do you think?’ he asked.
She nodded, slowly. ‘A lot of it makes sense.’
‘You could use the images that you already have. You might need some more, though, including some of you perhaps. There are plenty of examples of the bags.’
Her lips pressed together.
He could sense the hesitation. ‘You don’t agree?’ he prompted.
‘I sell bag inserts. I think the website should focus on the product. Not me.’