Page 6 of The Grump I Loathe (The Lockhart Brothers #3)

CONNOR

“ D on’t forget, Mom’s calling you at two o’clock Saturday,” I reminded Grace on the drive over to school. “So don’t make any plans with friends until after.”

“I never forget,” Grace said, looking up from the Nintendo Switch in her hands. She leaned her head back against the seat and sighed. “I wish I could talk to her every day.”

“I know, sweetheart.” I swallowed down a ball of frustration, a familiar pang of helplessness twisting my insides. I hated the longing in her voice. I hated the fact that Grace wanted something I couldn’t give her.

I’d spend any amount of money to make her happy, but this was one thing I couldn’t throw money at.

Ali needed to meet me halfway, and right now she couldn’t even find her way to the court.

“But you know Mom’s just busy planning her wedding.

Once things settle down a bit, I bet she’ll have plenty of time to talk. ”

“Yeah, probably,” Grace said, her little eyebrows knitting together .

I squeezed the steering wheel until my knuckles blanched. Grace sounded unconvinced, and I could hardly blame her. She was more than smart enough to see that her mom wasn’t making her a priority.

“She’s better at fixing my hair for school,” Grace admitted, touching the back of her head.

“Hey,” I argued playfully, “I’m not that bad, am I?

” I was struck suddenly by the memory of Ali sitting on the couch in the mornings, Grace perched between her legs as she pulled back her hair with butterfly clips.

The pang in my chest twisted into a full ache.

I didn’t miss me and Ali, but I missed what we’d been for Grace before everything fell apart.

Because despite our current issues, Ali had been good at the mom thing.

Certainly better than me at braiding hair and picking out the right sneakers for fourth grade.

“I think I’ve successfully mastered the ponytail. ”

“It’s tight enough, but it’s crooked,” Grace said. “Colin says it’s going to make my brain grow lopsided.”

Who the hell was Colin and why was this the first I was hearing of this? “That’s definitely not true.”

“I know that , Dad,” Grace said, the duh implied. “Shelley’s mom says Colin skipped the day the teachers handed out common sense.”

I snorted. “Okay, good. But I’m gonna study up on the hair stuff, okay? I’ll get better.”

She packed her Switch away into her backpack as we joined the drop-off line outside St. Orwell Prep. “We can look up some YouTube tutorials,” I offered. “You can pick out whatever style you like. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” she agreed. “Love you.”

“I love you, too. I’ll see you later. ”

Grace hopped out of the car and flashed me a finger heart before racing up the steps as someone called her name.

I added “watch hair tutorials” to my calendar, then sniffled away this damn cold before setting off for the office.

I was dreading sitting in on another bunch of interviews, especially after last week’s had all been so awful, but we were running out of time, and I was determined to lock down the narrative designer for Shadow of the Hyperion today.

The drive over to SoMa was predictably jammed, and I made my way through a pack of tissues as I fended off the worst of the traffic, parked, and rode the elevator to the top of the twisting skyscraper before it spit me out into LockMill’s lobby.

By the time I reached the conference room, the pressure in my head was so intense, one good sneeze would send my eyeballs flying.

Max laughed at me the moment I walked in the door. “You look like shit.”

Max was the senior game engineer at LockMill Games and the one who’d developed the augment engine—the system responsible for in-game mechanics—for LockMill’s very first game. He was irreplaceable to LockMill, and he knew it…which meant he had zero fear when it came to talking shit to the boss.

It probably also helped that he was my best friend.

My eyes narrowed as I took in his smirk. “Shut up.”

“Actually, you look like shit someone stepped in and tracked down the sidewalk.”

“Why haven’t I fired you yet?” I muttered as I took a seat, whipping out my laptop.

“Because I’m the only one who understands your convoluted augment engines. And you don’t want to have to headhunt a new engineer on top of a narrative designer right now. And you love me too much and would miss me desperately if I were gone.”

“Funny,” I said. “Because right now you’re just pissing me off.”

Max grinned, way too used to my grumpiness to be put off by it.

There was also the fact that for all his teasing, he was just about the most loyal friend anyone could have.

When things had been at their worst between Ali and me, he’d stuck to my side like glue, making sure Grace and I had everything we needed.

My family had come through for me too, of course—my brothers and my mom had done all they could. But Max was the one in the trenches with me, helping me keep this company going when the divorce threatened to tear it all apart.

“Seriously though, why did you even come in if you’re still sick?” Max asked. “We can handle the interviews.”

I arched my brow. “Can you?”

Max crossed his arms. “You tell designers to go home if they have so much as a headache, and yet you’ve come in here with the plague.”

“I’m fine ,” I insisted. I had no intention of letting go of the reins of this decision. Too much was riding on finding the right fit to not only make that holiday season release date but turn out a game that would live up to all the hype.

We had to get this one right. And just to make sure we didn’t repeat any of the mistakes from the past…I turned my attention back to my laptop, putting the finishing touches on LockMill’s new no-dating policy, then emailed it to Darius for review.

“What are you doing?” Max asked.

“Updating the workplace dating policy.” If Ali and I hadn’t been married, the company wouldn’t have had to go through hell while our divorce played out.

And if Leigh, our lead developer, and Tristan, our former narrative designer, hadn’t split up, he wouldn’t have walked out on us, leaving us in the lurch.

Workplace relationships were a recipe for chaos, and I wasn’t about to let it happen again. Being CEO meant making sure my team had all the tools they needed to succeed. If that meant protecting them—and myself—from our own worst impulses, then that was what I’d do.

Max shook his head. “Of course you are.” He tossed a folder down in front of me. “Well, when you’re done with that, there are the files for the interviewees.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“And before you get your hopes up,” Max said. “No, Ryker Lowe isn’t on the list.”

“He turned us down?”

“Apparently, he never responded to the interview invitation.”

I nodded, my grumble turning into a cough as I poured myself a glass of water. If I hadn’t gotten sidelined with that damn space sheep woman, I might have managed to catch Ryker at the con. Yet another thing she’d screwed up for me.

The door to the conference room swung open. Darius walked in with a notebook—I’d wanted someone from HR at the interviews—along with Leigh, a tall, willowy woman with chestnut-brown hair, freckles, and thick rectangular glasses.

“You saw the new policy?” I asked Darius.

He nodded. “I’ll get it formatted and sent out by end of day.”

I caught Leigh’s eye, wondering if Darius had mentioned it to her. “It’s smart,” she said, revealing that he had. “Games and romance clearly don’t mix. I think we’ve both seen that firsthand. ”

I was still seeing it because I was still dealing with the aftermath.

Yeah, my divorce from Ali had been finalized, along with the division of our assets.

She got the house and IP rights to some of our bestselling games, and I got Grace and the company.

But it could never truly be over while Grace was still hurting from it.

The worst part, the part I’d hidden from Grace, was that Ali had rejected the offer of joint custody.

It was only supposed to be until she could figure out what her new life looked like, but months had gone by, and there was no sign of the custody agreement changing.

If Ali couldn’t figure out how to be with Sawyer and be a good mother to Grace, I’d never forgive her.

“You good?” Max asked, nudging me.

“What?”

“You squeeze that cup any harder and it’s going to shatter in your hand.”

I put my water glass down, did my best to push the Ali drama and Grace’s heartbroken face from my mind, and picked up the first interview file. “Fine,” I said. “Let’s get started.”

“So…” I sniffled and cleared my throat, still trying to sound professional eight—no, nine—interviews and many cough drops later.

I didn’t even want to think about the total number of interviews we’d conducted in a little over a week, not to mention the dozens of applications we’d rejected before they even reached the interview stage.

That number compared to the number of candidates that actually seemed promising was starting to worry me. “Tell us about your experience with interactive narrative design. ”

“Sure,” candidate number nine said. I blinked at her, already exhausted.

“I mostly focus on reworking narrative structure. I think you can make a story more impactful when you scrap the whole framework and start fresh as often as you need to. I like to have max creative freedom to really find the story.”

My gaze cut across to Max and Leigh, and I gave a small shake of my head. This wasn’t going to work. Starting from scratch wasn’t an option when we were building off a hugely successful brand. This candidate clearly wasn’t prepared to adapt to the work we’d already put into the game.

Candidate one had been too inexperienced.

Candidate two admitted they weren’t really a fan of sci-fi.

And candidates three through eight…I rubbed my sinuses.

A couple of them might be workable. If we could get past some proposed scheduling conflicts, I’d at least be open to having a follow-up conversation.

But no one had convinced me they could match LockMill’s vision for Shadow , or that they had anything dynamic to bring to the table.

I wanted to be wowed. Instead, I was struggling not to yawn.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Leigh was saying, escorting the woman to the door. “We’ll be in touch.”

Never . Because she was all wrong for the role.

I checked my watch. I only had forty minutes before I had to grab Grace from school. It was usually my mom’s day to pick her up, but she had a meeting with her publisher that couldn’t be rescheduled.

“Damn,” Max sighed.

“You can say that again,” Leigh said. “Who’s next?”

We shuffled files around the table.

“Edith Sheppard,” Darius said. “I bumped into her at GeekCon. She’s got limited credits, but her most recent game is starting to build buzz in the indie circuits.”

“Oh, I saw her at the ‘Women in Indie Gaming’ panel!” Leigh said, an edge of interest in her voice I hadn’t heard for the other candidates. “She seemed really eager, really excited, full of fresh ideas.”

“Which game?” I asked, wondering if Grace had stopped to demo it at all. Please let this one work out .

“ Alterbot ,” Darius said. “Simple concept but a super detailed narrative arc. Great world building. Plus, she’s got ideas for sequels. Clearly a storyteller.”

“Well, this already sounds promising,” Max said, rubbing his hands together. “Can’t wait to talk to her.”

Alterbot …I frowned. Why did that sound so familiar?

Before I could ask, the door opened, and Edith walked in.

I was hallucinating. I had to be. Because standing there in the middle of the room, drumming her fingers against her thighs, was neon-hair sporting, hot sauce-wielding Eddie dressed in ripped jeans, Converse, and a T-shirt that said I paused my game to be here .