Ian came by the booth again, letting us know that the social media alerts from our show presence made us the media darling of the convention. The biggest PR boost was a write-up from BetaGank, yes, the same gaming media outlet who had leaked the news about our game in the first place. The blurb was written by senior correspondent Gavin McGrath, who had uploaded pictures and real-time updates from GameCon. I enlarged his bio photo. Holy shit, Gavin turned out to be the guy I thought was someone’s dad! Thank goodness he took a bag of our best giveaways.
Cautiously optimistic, I read his review:
The Seventeen Studios booth was certainly one of the plainest displays at the show, with your typical booming music, typical game demos, and no-frills booth design. The thirty-second game trailer for Ultimate Apocalypse impressed me, though, as it wasn’t the typical twenty-nine seconds of explosions and one second of game logos. The writers focused on a clear story arc here (strippers unite to save the world!), and the team at Seventeen whittled the trailer down to a solid half minute of stunning cinematographic and intriguing game play. In addition to the allure of having two fantastically gorgeous male models walking the floor with gleaming (heavenly?) smiles and chests, the game creator and lead producer, Melody, hung out on the floor, too, fielding my annoying questions. She was sharp, passionate, and approachable as she described her game with so much enthusiasm it made me want to download it on the spot. Unfortunately, it’s not available yet.
I’m not part of the gaming illuminati, or in the target market for this mobile masterpiece, but I do think this title is worth a second look, for all the naysayers who dismissed it without really seeing it first. Shame on you for the one-star reviews, by the way. The game looks entertaining, fresh, snarky, and there’s plenty of both male and female eye candy, even though the characters are more overtly covered than expected. I’m going to download the game when it releases in a few months. Good job, Gamer Girl, Melody Joo.
In a rare moment of completely losing my shit, I galloped around the booth squealing, “Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my GAWD!” This Gavin guy, a senior writer at BetaGank, was the illuminati of gaming, and he just endorsed my game on a highly trafficked website. Holy. Fucking. Shit. “Guys! This is HUGE!” I laughed and then hugged my coworkers and some conventiongoers standing close by. Luckily, no one called security on me. Or HR.
WITH A HUGE smile plastered on my face, I hummed and whistled while packing away our main equipment in boxes for safekeeping. The next weekend shift would be setting up again the following morning, sans stripper talent.
I’d tried to send Wil and Nolan home, but because they were still so pumped with adrenaline, they went to one of the show’s exclusive after-parties. They had somehow become GameCon demi-idols: in just one day they had been in hundreds of uploaded selfies and gotten thousands of likes in social media. Each of them received invitations to host upcoming gaming esports events and bachelorette parties, and both had even been invited to work at another game studio’s launch party (Nolan said, “No thank you, we are exclusive to Seventeen Studios,” and declined politely).
Thanks to Asher, Nolan, and Wil, we’d catapulted Ultimate Apocalypse into the spotlight, despite all the negative baggage we had to overcome to do so. A miracle had been pulled off, and this was easily my biggest career accomplishment to date.
As I responded to texts and social posts congratulating me for not fucking up, Ian pulled Asher aside to speak with him. Ian flapped his hands around and continually shifted his stance. Left. Right. Left. Right. Repeat. Asher stood next to Ian unsmiling, yet nodding. Did someone in Asher’s family die?
Then Ian said rather loudly, “I’m expecting big things from you,” and friendly-slapped Asher in the back, nudging him back to the booth. Asher frowned and shot me a pained look. I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask.
“Hey, Ash, what was that dudes-only pep talk about?”
Asher didn’t answer right away. He chewed his bottom lip before speaking. “Uh, he told me not to say anything but I feel like I should tell you—”
Ian reappeared in a flash, like one of those bad guys in a horror movie who just can’t leave the protagonist alone. Surprise! “Melody, on the heels of that amazing BetaGank review, I wanted to let you know that we’re launching a new flagship game. Asher pitched it to me a few months ago. It’s called Girls of War, or G-O-W for short. Ultimate Apocalypse is just too risky to be our flagship title, and Asher’s father suggested we mitigate the risk by adding a new title to the portfolio.” Asher fiddled with his zipper on his fleece jacket, avoiding eye contact. “His dad is investing ten percent in the company and is one of our key stakeholders. Now Asher’s game is priority number one, so we’ll be changing your status from flagship to back burner.”
His words were so astoundingly brutal that breathing and blinking became instantly taxing. I steadied myself on a table covered in controllers that hadn’t been packed away yet.
To my dismay, he continued bombarding me with bad news. “We’ll be redeploying some of your staff to Asher’s team. Oh, and of course that means Asher will be off your team now. We need some of your developers, too, and a portion of your earmarked marketing budget will go to Asher’s project. You can maybe keep Kat for now and a small incubator team to get this game done.”
“Could I get Nolan to help, too?” I asked in a whisper.
Ian cocked his head. “Nolan? My nephew? No, you can’t. His internship’s over soon.”
“What?” A tight knot formed in my stomach. Why didn’t Nolan tell me he was leaving?
“I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.” Ian slapped Asher on the back a second time. “Melody, I know this takes the wind from your sails, but for the company, this is great! We’re a force to be reckoned with, thanks to UA being in the news!” He nodded at me. A nod of thanks for guaranteeing him an end-of-year performance bonus.
A hard lump formed in my throat, and swallowing didn’t make it go away. My voice caught as soon as I tried to speak, so I kept quiet. This was a blessing of sorts, because words would be followed by a tidal wave of tears, and I could not allow that to happen. Not after everything I’d already accomplished.
I couldn’t reveal what lurked inside me.
On the outside, with every ounce of my willpower, I tried to display strength, confidence, and flexibility. Inside, I was a cyclone of anxiety, vulnerability, and demoralization. Spinning out of control.
The day’s peak was the best day of my career. Then Ian and Asher pulled the rug out from under me, and I fell down flat with the wind knocked out of my chest. Then Nolan Fucking MacKenzie shattered my heart.
That selfish jerk, why didn’t he just tell me?
After all those blows, I couldn’t breathe and didn’t know if I could get back up again. Or if I even wanted to.
Chapter Nineteen
After my big GameCon day I lay in bed through the next afternoon. In the dark, under my covers, I could cry without witnesses. The hateful online posts, the threatening emails and calls, working till 11 P.M. most nights and weekends had all collapsed on top of me at once.
Nolan texted me dozens of times. He was worried about me. Blah blah fucking blah.
He finally sent a message that almost got my attention. Heard about Asher’s Girls of War game. ☹ Would doughnuts help?
Not even doughnuts could make me feel better. Not this time. Not even the chocolate old-fashioned ones from Top Pot. Instead, I sobbed into my pillow, waterlogging the down feather stuffing with my pool of tears.
Nolan called and I let it go to voice mail. He called again. And then again. I tried to turn it on “do not disturb” mode but my phone kept crashing. Exasperated, I picked up the next time he rang. “Hello?” I croaked.
“Hey, you didn’t reply to my doughnut text. You have me worried. Do you want to talk about it?”
I gave him the play-by-play of Ian and Asher’s betrayal and left out the part about his internship. “Now I have to get everything done with only half the team and a basically nonexistent marketing budget.”
“You’ll find a way. You’re resourceful. You always get yourself out of messes.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said drily.
“You know I mean that in the sweetest way possible.”
Feeling a smidge better, I smiled a teeny bit.
“If you want me to say it, fine, I’ll say it. You’re the strongest, smartest, coolest, most stubborn woman I know.”
The hurt I felt inside didn’t allow me to appreciate his flattering, heartfelt words. “Don’t forget abandoned.”
“Uhhh . . . what do you mean?”
I said flatly, “Ian told me your internship was ending.”
He let out a sputtering exhale. “Oh. Oh no. I’m so sorry. I . . . I was going to tell you, I swear. To be eligible for an internship, you need to be enrolled in school, and I just withdrew enrollment from business school a couple of days ago. My parents aren’t talking to me right now, because I explained to them that I just didn’t see myself taking over the family business, and now I desperately need a job to pay off school debt since they fully cut me off. I did try to stop by at work to talk about it, but you kept saying you were so busy, and I could see you were stressed about GameCon. And honestly, I didn’t know what to say. That I’ll be an unemployed loser, an MBA dropout, and have no direction in life?”