Page 18 of The Grump I Loathe (The Lockhart Brothers #3)

Eddie perked up. “I forgot that was this weekend! How’d it go?” I gestured to the notes on my desk. She leaned forward and scanned them. “‘Bruh?’ Ha! So…not great then?”

My jaw tightened.

Eddie bit her lip as if trying not to smile. “Maybe you’re hindering the protocol,” she teased. “I think we’ve established you’re not exactly good at the ‘fun’ thing. ”

“This is not helping,” I snapped.

“Are you asking for help?” She pursed her lips in a way that was damn distracting. “Because if you are, there’s a magic word.”

“Please,” I growled.

“Nope,” she said. “The word is actually ‘Eddie, the funnest, most awesome person I know, please bestow upon me your good ideas and save my Juni Protocol from certain doom.’”

“Those would be many words,” I muttered. “And you’re on thin ice, Edith. Watch it.”

She waggled her eyebrows at me. “Sounds dangerous. Danger can be a little fun.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

She stood up. “All right, calm down, Lord LockMill. I never said it was a joke, but if you really want the kids to enjoy the protocol, you have to think like a kid.”

“How exactly do you propose I think like a kid?”

“You start by being inspired. And you’re not going to find any inspiration holed up in your ivory tower like this.” She jutted her hip out in a way that had me thinking of my hands on her waist. “Do I have your permission to work my magic? Because if we’re gonna do this, we need to do it my way.”

I drummed my hand against my desk. At this rate, my way was only going to send me home to Grace in an awful mood. “Fine.”

Eddie’s face curled into a wicked grin as she did her best evil villain laugh. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, she transformed my office. The shades were open, a bowl of M&M’s appeared, and she connected my Spotify playlist to the overhead speakers .

“Top artists. Scarlet Rush,” she said, her lips puckering as she scrolled my playlist.

“Grace listens to that.”

“Sure,” she teased. “I can spot a Rushie from a mile away. Just admit it, Connor, you were at the Love, Scarlet tour.”

Despite her teasing, I was marginally better by the time she’d sprayed my office down with peppermint oil because it was apparently good for concentration.

Hope you’re not brooding at the office , Max texted me.

No time. Eddie’s here. She’s turned on music and now my office smells like Christmas.

Ah, gonna do a little office tango? Max wrote, sending a winky face.

Shut up . I tried not to let my thoughts stray back to the club. That wasn’t the real me anyway. The real me focused on taking care of people and solving problems. He did not put himself first or focus on his own needs with no thought of the consequences.

Eddie was too young for me. Too joyful. Too unsullied by the realities of shitty people and shittier relationships. Getting together with a guy like me was the last thing she needed. Not to mention the employee thing.

If you’d stop overthinking everything , Max wrote, it could be a good thing.

I know you’re the one who told her it was a good idea to show up here on the weekends.

Excuse me for noticing the way she actually wakes you up instead of letting you sleepwalk through life.

I don’t care if she helps me land a damn rocket on the moon. Butt out .

Max insisted I was letting the world pass me by since the divorce, but he was wrong.

I’d narrowed my focus after the divorce, homing in on what really mattered.

Grace and the company. I stashed my phone away as Eddie returned with a bright red marker to compliment all the black already on the board.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s start with the most obvious solution to your problem. What does Grace like in her video games?”

My eyebrows drew together. “I don’t know. She plays everything.”

“You do know,” Eddie said. “Because there’s something she’s drawn to the most. Think.”

I paced the length of my desk, running through the games Grace played the most. “She really liked your Alterbot . And she plays a farming sim with her uncle. Oh, and she’s been playing this Bubble Blaster game with animals all the time lately.”

Eddie nodded like this was confirming what she’d already suspected. “And why are those games exciting to her?”

I shrugged. “Because…I don’t know. The colors? You had pink turnips.”

Eddie glared at me. “She’s not a toddler. C’mon. Why does she like playing those games?”

“Because…She likes things with animals.”

“Yes, exactly,” Eddie said, writing ANIMAL on the board. “But what is it about the animals that she loves?”

I drummed my fingers against my chin. “That she gets to take care of them, I guess. And they have their own stats. She’s always going on about their cool abilities.”

“Okay, that’s really good. The animals directly influence game play.

Right now, it sounds like the kids are hating the Juni Protocol because they essentially don’t matter to the game.

There are no stakes for the player. They have no abilities…

” Eddie rushed out of the room suddenly, returning with a piece of paper.

She pressed it to the middle of the board. “So here is my solution.”

It was that damn rat holding a piece of cheese. “Mr. Cheesers?”

“Remember when I suggested giving Juni a sidekick NPC? Well, what if we take that to the next level?” she said.

“When the Juni Protocol is inactive, it’s an NPC.

When it’s activated, the kids can take charge of Mr. Cheesers.

A rat is tiny—it fits into cool places in the ship that Juni can’t go.

That means the kids can explore hidden areas.

They can complete easy missions or simple puzzles to unlock doors or supply crates for the main player.

And if you give Mr. Cheesers some basic fighting abilities, like a little tail whip, they can even be a bigger part of the action. ”

As Eddie scribbled her notes onto the board, I could actually see the idea coming together.

I sat down in my chair, my own ideas coming to life.

“Maybe we can even let the kids collect small ship parts which can be fashioned into armor. Grace loves modifying her characters. And different mods could give them different abilities like extra health.”

“Extra stamina,” Eddie suggested.

“Exactly!” She grinned at me as she plopped down onto the edge of my desk.

She was far too close, but I didn’t move, didn’t draw a boundary.

Instead, I let myself be drawn to her enthusiasm—and to the way she was smiling at me.

When was the last time I’d made a beautiful woman smile like that? “What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing, I just think you’ve finally hit on the heart of game design. At least, to me. It’s about putting a piece of yourself into the game and letting the world fall in love with it.”

I frowned. “I don’t think I’ve put anything into the game. ”

“You have,” Eddie insisted. “You’ve put Grace into the game as Juni.

That’s why it’s so important to you that you get it right.

” She nudged my leg with her foot. “I think when we truly love something, it comes through in the gaming details. The adventure is more epic. The investigation is more thrilling.”

Ali and Max and Grace had been trying to explain their love of games to me for years, and it had never really clicked, but Eddie’s excitement and explanation resonated with me.

My brothers put art into the world—Liam with his streaming service and Finn with his movie studio—but their audiences didn’t get to affect the finished product. A video game required that the audience make it its own.

In a way, we were building something together. This franchise, this world…it belonged to the players in a way that movie-goers and TV watchers would never experience.

“What if…” I started, “as part of the Juni Protocol, we have a mission that involves rescuing the other rats from the ship and setting them free? Grace would love that.”

“A mission within the mission,” Eddie said, jumping up to add it to the board. “Now we’re talking. Low stakes but high reward for the kids.”

Her complimenting my idea felt better than I could have anticipated, and a grin tugged at my lips.

“You know,” Eddie said, standing back to glance at the work we’d done. “Everyone here would probably think you were far less scary if you showed them this side of yourself.”

I jerked back in surprise. “People think I’m scary?”

Eddie smirked at me over her shoulder. “Maybe not actually scary , but intimidating, definitely. That’s why they’re all tripping over themselves trying not to break your rules. No music. No snacks at their desk.” She marched around like a robot. “No fun of any kind.”

“For the record, I never actually said people couldn’t do those things.”

“Well, you definitely said no to dance parties in the office,” she pointed out. “Which was very buzzkill of you.”

I rolled my eyes. “I have to keep you on task somehow.”

Eddie scoffed. “Office dance parties would increase productivity tenfold.”

“That can’t possibly be true.”

“I’ve got the data to back it up.”

“I’d like to see this data,” I said, falling into her again.

The green of her eyes. The ease of her smile.

The joy that fit around her like a second skin.

It was like that night at the club. I was suddenly on my feet, walking toward her.

I wanted to put my hands on those hips, feel the softness of her curves, listen to her go on about game design and marvel at the way she could weave ideas together.

“Then you’ll have to sign up for Eddie’s school of fun and fancy,” she said. Her gaze dropped briefly, looking at my lips. “I think you could use some lessons on being more fun. And lucky for you, I’m running a sale. Act now and get them while they’re hot.”

My thoughts skidded to a halt as I remembered the dancing lessons she’d offered to give me.

Shit , what the hell was I doing? I was playing with boundaries I had no business playing with.

I couldn’t keep putting myself in this situation.

Eddie was fire, and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to get singed. Not to mention the no-dating policy.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, tilting her head as she took in my pinched expression .

“You’re fifteen years my junior,” I said sharply, clearing my throat and taking a step back. “I don’t need lessons from you of any kind, Edith.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she gave me an intense look. “That’s not what it seemed like this afternoon. But good to know.” She handed me the marker, brushing by me so closely I could feel the heat of her—there and gone again. “I’ll let you get back to work, boss .”