Page 19 of The Grump I Loathe

“Through here, gentlemen,” Connor said, thankfully ending the awkwardness. I let out a stale breath.

Connor hung back for a beat, words hissed between his teeth. “You look ridiculous!”

“You can’t say that,” I said. “I look exactly like you.”

He turned his nose up at me. “Not even close. Now stop drawing attention to yourself. If you’re so inspired by me, follow my lead by getting to work.Quietly.”

Seriously? What was this, church? A funeral service? Some kind of convent where we’d all taken a vow of silence? I opened my mouth to tell him that I would, in fact, not be quiet, but Leigh snagged my arm, dragging me away.

“For your own safety,” she muttered. “Before you say something you regret.”

“I don’t think I would have regretted it.” I scowled after Connor as he led the potential distributors into a glass-walled office. He flicked the blinds closed. “What’s that?”

“Connor’s office.”

“Why is it down here and not on the admin floor upstairs?”

“He likes to keep a close eye on production.”

“Mm-hmm.” Lord LockMill in his watchtower. “I’m sure he does.”

After Leigh passed me off to Darius, where my suit was forever immortalized in my ID photo, I sorted out parking and computer access and was told to help myself to any of the snacks in the kitchenette. I didn’t feel any desire to check them out. They were probably all chalky health bars chosen by Connor himself.

When we were done, Leigh introduced me to the rest of the high-level team. Aside from Max, who I’d met at the interview, there were a slew of gameplay designers, level designers, programmers and artists. Coming from the indie world, it still amazed me every time I landed a role with a big company where every job was done by a different person.

“I’m bad with names but great with faces,” I promised. “So give me a couple weeks to get it all down.” I got a lot of stares, some curious, others pitying after witnessing my run-in with the boss. To make things more awkward, it was becoming increasingly clear that I was one of the youngest people here. An unsettling bead of doubt crept into my mind. Did I really belong here?

“I’ll leave you and Noah to chat,” Leigh said. “You can fill him in on your idea for the POV shift for the opening sequence.”

“Right,” I said. Noah Beckett was the lead writer. He had mousy brown hair and glasses and wore an adorably nerdy sweater vest. When the rest of the team had cleared out, I plopped myself down on the edge of my desk. “So you been working for LockMill long?”

“A few years,” he said, dragging over a spare chair.

“Do you like it?”

He shrugged. “It’s good.”

“Did you work on the first game?”

He nodded.

I sighed, giving him a smile. “Either you’re super introverted and not great with strangers, or I’ve already made an awful impression.”

Noah shoved his glasses up his nose. “Sorry, was I supposed to?—”

I jumped up, rifling through my bag. “First of all, just relax. I’m not assessing you or whatever.”

“Er…” He fidgeted in his chair. “Okay.”

I found the Tupperware box of snacks I’d packed. “You wanna hear my ideas for the opening?”

He pulled out a notepad. “Sure.”

I shook my head. “Oh no, that notepad has to go.”

He blinked at me, startled. “What?”

“I don’t want you to write down what I say.”