His eyes get dangerously sparkly again. “I’ll show you if you want. We could head down to your place, let me strip off my shirt in private.”
I bite my lip and warn the frisky voice in my head to keep her mouth shut. It’s going to be weird enough seeing Sam naked, but it will be even weirder if we jump into it too soon, before getting the chance to get to know each other again. And with my furry legs and ungroomed undercarriage in their current goblin state, I can’t risk things going too far tonight.
Besides, his comment reminded me of something very important that’s been bothering me since the second he prowled into my peripheral vision…
“How did you know where I live?” I ask. “Let alone that I was having a party tonight? I don’t post stuff like that on social media. I’m not stupid and I value my privacy.”
A sheepish expression tightens his features. “I may have called your mom.”
My eyes widen so fast, pain flashes through my optic nerve. “You what?”
“I still had your home number and she remembered me from high school. I told her I wanted to get in touch with you about a job offer. It wasn’t a big deal, I promise.”
“It absolutely is a big deal,” I screech, my pulse twitching in my throat. “She doesn’t know I quit my last job, Sam. I haven’t told them yet. I was going to tell them on Sunday, when I went down there for a visit.”
“I didn’t say anything about you quitting,” he says in a calm voice that makes it clear he still doesn’t understand the magnitude of this misstep. “And your mom was very chill on the phone. She seemed happy to hear from me and excited about the thought of us reconnecting.”
Surging to my feet, I begin to pace the fake grass, my panic escalating with every passing second. “Of course, she was chill on the phone. My mother excels at pretending to be chill with the outside world, when in reality she’s spiraling into a vortex of stress and tiger mom anxiety and planning to assault me with questions at the earliest opportunity.”
“Seriously, Jess,” he begins, rising to his feet. “I don’t think—”
“You don’t need to think,” I cut him off, pacing faster. “Ithink andIknow. I bet if I went downstairs and checked my phone right now, I’d already have a dozen messages from her, demanding I tell her what I’m up to with you and insisting I keep the job that she doesn’t know I quit because quitting things gives her stress hives and generally losing her shit that I’ve beenkeeping things from her. She can’t stand people keeping things from her, especially when that person is also her only child and basically an extension of herself and the entire Cho clan.” I slap a hand to my forehead and lean back against the brick wall surrounding the roof. “God, I can feel the freak-out vibes flowing all the way from New Jersey. I’ll be lucky if she isn’t on my doorstep first thing in the morning demanding an in-person interrogation before I’ve even had coffee.”
Sam leans against the bricks beside me. “I’m sorry. Would it help if I called her back and explained things a little more? Told her about the amazing recruitment package Paradisus is prepared to offer you, maybe?”
I drop my hand from my face with a sigh. “No. Thanks, but…no. She doesn’t trust outsiders. Even outsiders who are also old friends. I’ll handle it on Sunday. I can put her off that long. I’ll just make sure she knows I won’t be home tomorrow anyway, so there’s no point in taking the train up.” I sigh, a hopeful prickle at the back of my mind pulling my thoughts back to the drama at hand. I peek up at Sam, arching a brow as I ask, “But how amazing a recruitment package are we talking about? I know you probably can’t spill all the beans, but it is my birthday, and I could really use some good news.”
“Mid six-figures to start with bonuses built in for meeting sales targets on any game you develop with your team. Five weeks of paid vacation per year, a four-day workweek, and the option to work remotely or to join the team in the London office. Should you decide to relocate to the UK, your flat rent would be included in the package, as well as a meal delivery service for days when you’re at the office. That way, you don’t have to worry about cooking when you get home.”
My jaw drops and my skin flushes hot all over. I try to fight the smile threatening to rip across my face but lose the battle as I whisper in a scandalized voice, “You’re fucking kidding me.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not.”
I slap his buff-as-hell arm and insist again, “No. No way this is real.”
He grins. “I can text the offer over to you tomorrow morning if you want. You can look it over with your lawyer, see if there are any modifications you’d like to make before you sign on the dotted line. Just between the two of us, thereisstill some room to bargain if you see a need that isn’t being met by the current package.”
I snort. “Like what? A pony to ride to work? A formal welcome to the country from the Queen of England? I mean, don’t tell your bosses, obviously, but that’s way more than I was getting at Brain Chill. Like…so much more it isn’t funny.” An unexpected wave of emotion floods through me, making my voice shake as I add, “Honestly, just being treated with respect would have been enough of a raise. I’m so sick of working twice as hard and being three times as good, only to be treated like I’m on perpetual probation as the token girl in leadership.”
“You’re one of the best designers in the world, Jess,” he says in a warm, no-bullshit voice that makes my throat even tighter. “Especially for the kind of immersive, story-driven games Paradisus wants to focus on in the next five to ten years. You don’t just create games; you create whole worlds—happy ones, where people can go and escape their problems and the violence and sadness in their lives for a little while. You’re going to do great things, Cho. No doubt in my mind.”
I pull in a ragged breath and will my brain to get all the emotional shit under control. As lovely as all this is to hear, I need to keep my head on my shoulders. Because something about this still doesn’t make sense.
A lot of things, actually, but most importantly, I’m left wondering, “How do you know? You haven’t played any of my designs since high school, only one of my college games is up on Indie Gamer Galaxy, and the project I was working on for Brain Chill is still in development.”
“Doug, my head on this project, got his hands on your reel,” he says with a bob of his shoulder, like that’s no big deal.
I shake my head. “What? How? I’ve only shared that with Brain Chill, when I first applied for an internship my junior year of college, and I don’t have it uploaded online anywhere. They told me I couldn’t, or I’d be in violation of my contract.”
He shrugs again. “Doug has his ways. Paradisus is an ethical company, for the most part, but they don’t mind bending the rules now and then in the name of the common good.”
“And hiring me to design games is in the common good?” Something about this still seems…sketchy, even though I’ve never read anything but positive articles about Paradisus and its corporate culture.
Aside from the fact that their CEO and founder is a mysterious billionaire who lives out in the middle of the woods somewhere in England and never shows his face or reveals his name to the press, they’re one of the most refreshingly boring companies around. They work hard, treat their employees right, and give back to the community.
And now they want me badly enough to hack into Brain Chill’s database—or my laptop, I suppose, ugh what a horrible thought—to get at my designer reel.
I suppose I should be flattered, but…