Page 20 of The Grump I Loathe

“You don’t want me to take notes?”

“I mean, yes. Notes. But not like that. It doesn’t feel very collaborative. Do you guys have a…” I glanced around the floor, spotting a darkened conference room with a giant whiteboard inside. “Field trip!” I grabbed my snacks and marched on. Noah scrambled after me.

“This is more like it,” I said, flicking on the lights.

Noah glanced around. “We only use this room for team meetings.”

“Is there a team meeting this morning?” I asked. “I mean, are we going to be in anyone’s way?” There was no point in setting up shop if we’d get kicked out in ten minutes.

“Well…no,” he admitted.

“Awesome. Then there’s no reason for us to not make use of the space,” I said, snatching up a marker. I wrote the wordALIENSin the middle of the board, drawing a big arrow to the wordJUNI. “So, we need to get from here to here, and I think we should open with a bang, you know? Immediately capture player attention. Speaking of bang, how do you feel about music?”

“Music?” he said, settling himself down in a chair. “You mean, in the game?”

“Absolutely in the game, but I actually meant right here and now. Mind if I play some? It helps get me into the thinking flow.”

Noah didn’t say no, so I went ahead, keeping it low enough not to disturb the rest of the floor. Yeah, we were behind a closed door, but I didn’t know how good those glass walls were at blocking sound.

“Okay,” I said. “Back to business. The last game started with the aliens slaughtering half the ship. So for this game, we need to make them feel less slaughter-y and more like beings the players might actually want to help.”

Noah still looked entirely bewildered. “Slaughter-y?”

“Yep.” I broke out my pack of M&M’s, offering him some. “Chocolate also helps me think.”

He waved me off. “Connor’s not a fan.”

That was the second time I’d heard that this morning. “Of chocolate? Give me a break.”

“Eating at our desks—or in conference rooms. We have the kitchenette for that. Or the cafeteria down a few floors. And the music probably isn’t going to go over very?—”

I sighed. “I’m getting the feeling Lord LockMill would like to live in a bland, gray, noise-canceling bubble.”

“Um…” Noah clearly didn’t know how to respond. “I don’t…I’m not sure. He’s just…sort of intense, you know? Sometimes he’ll just stare across the floor, locking in on you, and youknowyou’ve messed up.”

I leaned against the table, lips twitching. “Sounds like you’re scared of him.”

He blinked. “Aren’t you? He’s, like, the definition of scary.”

“What, you mean he walks into a room and Death Star music starts playing?”

Noah looked taken aback. “Well, no…but?—”

“The color palette of the room changes? Shadows start stretching over the walls?”

Noah finally cracked a smile. “Not exactly.”

“Do horses scream in the background every time you say his name?”

At this, he just looked confused. “Young Frankenstein?” I tried. “Frau Blücher? Nothing?” He shook his head. Oh, this poor misguided soul. Good thing he had me now. “It’s cool, no worries—we’ll have a Mel Brooks night sometime. It’ll be great. But anyway, what I was getting at is that Connor’s not a master villain. He’s just a guy. And no, he doesn’t scare me. Unless…”

I frowned, something new occurring to me. “He wouldn’t actually fire someone for eating in the conference room, would he? I don’t mind standing up to him, but I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

Noah shook his head earnestly. “Oh no, he’d never do that. Daneesh brought his snake in once and freaked Janet out so badly that she screamed and threw her coffee all over a stack of important contracts, and all Connor did was have Darius take her to the coffee shop down the block to calm her down while he told Daneesh that next time, he should take a personal day to look after his sick pet instead of bringing it to the office. Connor doesn’t fire people unless they’re dishonest, cruel, or incompetent.”

There was a…lot to unpack in that. But just to make sure I’d gotten the main point—“So you don’t think he’d fire you? Or yell at you?” I asked. Noah shook his head. “Then whatwouldhe do?”

“He’d lookdisappointed,” Noah confided.