Page 8 of The Player Next Door
“She’s good,” she shrugged. She was used to making small talk with Craig but needed to figure out a way to bring it around to her pitch.
Craig tipped his head toward the door. “Derek broke up with his girlfriend. Again,” he said in a hushed, confiding tone. “So I’m sure you understand why I had to go easy on him in there.”
Clare searched for the right diplomatic response. “I thought his idea was good, I just think we’re leaving money on the table. If we’re serious about broadening our appeal, we can’t just do what we’ve always done. I think that’s what Leadership wants.”
“Even if you’re right, I’d assign this Captain Ellen—”
“Ellis.”
“Captain Ellis, sorry. I’d still assign her development to someone else. Maybe if we switched the gender, made her male, that might make more sense. Captain Elliot, or something. You could even keep the rogue angle, have him have a female in every port.”
“Those sorts of characters already exist,” she argued. “Captain Ellis, female, would be different. And as I created her, I think I’d be the perfect person to build her into the narrative.”
“I don’t know about that,” Craig said contemplatively. “If we did someone like that, I’d give it to Derek, probably. I know you want Noah’s job, but to be Senior Game Designer material you have to be more of a go-getter.”
Derek was a serial dater, but as far as she knew, his girlfriends never lasted longer than three months because he was a mansplainer of the highest order. Not exactly the love-’em-and-leave-’em type Craig was implying, but he did date a lot, she’d give him that. Clare shifted uncomfortably. “Because I’m not the type to have a one-night stand, you mean?” she asked.
“I don’t know if I’d put it quite that crudely, but yes, that’s the essence. You just don’t have the experience.”
“How—how could you be sure of that?”
“Don’t be like that,” he said with another wave of his hand. “No reason to take this so seriously. I’m just offering a bit of guidance.”
“Guidance,” she repeated dully. Craig was always offering her guidance and pushing her to think bigger, she reminded herself. This might be a little more personal, but it was in the same vein as when he wanted her to practice with the weapons to get a feel for them.
Right?
“Writing a character takes life experience,” he said.
“I don’t mean to be argumentative, but I don’t have a lot of life experience as a tentacle monster, either.”
Craig laughed, and a little of the tension in the room bled away. “Touché. I just feel—this sort of character and storyline might be a tough sell, and if you’re serious about it, you’d need to do it properly. Prove you know how to handle something like that.”
“But if I can prove that to you, you’ll seriously consider it? Including Captain Ellis in the new adventure, and letting me write her?”
He scratched the side of his nose. “You know what, yeah. If you go out and get yourself some real-life experience, I’ll consider it.”
“I just have to prove to you I can—I can, um, have a one-night stand?”
Craig smiled. “I knew you were a smart one.” Clare shifted and reminded herself that he meant that as a compliment.
He leaned forward, a conspiratorial grin on his face. “You know I’m just looking out for you, right? I don’t want you to pitch something you can’t handle and fall on your face again. Remember the fiasco with the online teaser?”
Clare smiled back weakly. She had jumped at the chance to work on that project her first two months at Quest, but it had landed with a thud with their audience. It wasn’t entirely her fault—she personally felt Noah had escaped without shouldering his share of the blame—but it had been humiliating. After the fact, Craig had pointed out that as someone who had never been in a kayak, she probably wasn’t the right person to handle a story about a river adventure and sent her out to try her hand at it.
He’d been right on that account, she had to admit. It was a lot more strenuous than she’d expected, and even though that didn’t have a ton to do with whether or not the audience responded to a teaser, she deferred to his experience there.
And she didn’t have much experience with one-night stands of any kind, that much was very true. She’d always been a girlfriend-girl, but if she wanted to be a serious writer, maybe she did need to push herself out of her comfort zone, get some more exposure to things she hadn’t done before. Working for Quest was Clare’s dream, after all.Achieving your dreams means thinking outside the box, right?“I see your point,” she said, and Craig’s smile grew a touch warmer.
“It’s just about life experience, kid. Nothing more. And if you want that job . . .” he said, trailing off pointedly, “well, you’re going to have to prove it.” Maybe his kindly tone didn’t land quite right, but she knew what he meant.
And she also knew what she had to do.
Chapter Six
“Hold the door!” Logan called, jogging through the exposed-brick lobby toward the elevator. He had been Instagram-stalking Amber as he walked, eyes barely lifting from his phone. She had posted a photo of her with a bland-looking guy, grinning cheek-to-cheek as they squinted into the sun. The man could have been anyone—a brother, even—but Logan knew instinctively it was the guy she wanted to date.
Logan just didn’t get it. They were both white guys who looked good in a suit. All that guy had that Logan didn’t was a face that was a seven out of ten at best, while Logan was frequently told he was a nine or nine point five.