Feels Like the First Time. Tawny Weber
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gratitude, he’d rolled his eyes and changed the subject.
Three years ago, after she’d quit yet another job, it’d been Zach who’d suggested Zoe pile all her qualifications into a portfolio and call herself a consultant. She could step in, boss people around, fix their problems, then leave before she got bored. Specializing in startups with growing pains, she evaluated, assessed and created business plans to help companies move to the next level. Or, a lot of times, to realize that they’d tapped out their market, in which case she pointed out options to reinvent themselves. It’d turned into the perfect—and very successful—solution to all of Zoe’s career woes.
And now her brother, who’d essentially given her her career, was losing his own company. She set her glass on the side table with a frown. Nothing like the heavy taste of debt to ruin a perfectly good margarita.
“He had this idea, though,” Meghan said, her tone hushed as though she was sharing secrets. “Zach was saying if he could get a hook, something special, he’d be able to make it work.”
“Something to convince buyers to try his system? That they could only get with it?” Zoe clarified.
“Exactly.”
“That’s a great idea.” Something Zoe had actually tried to suggest a few months back, but Zach had been in a weird macho I-can-succeed-my self-and-prove-I’m-not-a-loser mood so it hadn’t sunk in. If his business was in this bad shape, that probably accounted for his attitude, she realized now. What boredom was to her, failure was to her brother—pure hell. “What’s the problem?”
“Zach figures he needs one killer game. An exclusive attached to his system. And there’s only one game designer out there who’s really exclusive, you know? Who everyone’s heard of but who’s never worked for one of the big companies.”
Starting to see how this would circle back to her high-school reunion, Zoe waited.
“Apparently there’s this guy. He goes by Gandalf the Gaming Wizard. He’s the hottest video-game designer in the industry and he’s a total mystery. Nobody knows who he really is. Zach’s tried to reach him through Leeton, the company he works for, but no luck.” Meghan got up with a bad-tempered “huff” and stalked to the large plate-glass window to stare out over the San Francisco skyline. “I tried to help Zach research him, but it’s like digging in the dark. Nothing to go on but a few rumors.”
Which was where the reunion issue came in. Zoe reached for her margarita glass and downed the rest of the watery contents. Oh, yeah, she’d heard plenty of rumors about Gandalf.
Meghan turned and, apparently seeing the recognition on Zoe’s face, pointed in triumph. “You know him, don’t you?”
“No.” Not a lie. She had no idea who Gandalf was.
“But he knows you. He’s got the hots for you. Even Zach admits it, although he growled a little bit when he did. It’s obvious based on his launch game—Class Warfare.”
“Circumstantial,” Zoe dismissed, even though she knew Meghan was probably right. Five years ago, after hearing Zach rant about it, she’d checked the game out herself. The designer had obviously lived in Bradford at some point. The similarities were glaring: landmarks, sayings, class slogans. Her.
She gave a little shiver. She’d never been able to pinpoint if she was flattered or freaked that the main character, a busty heroine named SweetCheeks, had been based on her. Not so much in looks—or bra size—but in attitude. Some of her catchphrases, her habit of tapping her lip when she was thinking. The purple-tipped, spiked black hair she’d sported in school. And more specifically, the one-of-a-kind tribal wings tattoo on her shoulder blades Zoe had gotten at sixteen in memory of her mother.
It was like a strange homage to her teenage self. A nice antidote to the ignominy of being voted most likely to die a virgin. The guy obviously knew her. But him? As far as she knew, nobody had a clue who he was.
“Circumstantial my ass,” Meghan returned, slapping her hands on her denim-clad hips and glaring. “The answer to Zach’s prayers, the hottest video-game designer in the country, is from your town. And chances are, given that he knew you in school well enough to see your naked back, he’s likely your age. So he’d be at this reunion. Doh … it’s a connect-the-dots win. Even you can focus long enough to connect dots, can’t you?”
“Nobody likes a smart-ass,” Zoe muttered, her lips twitching as she uttered the lie.
“Sure they do,” Meghan claimed, sensing Zoe wasn’t going to slam the door on the discussion. “Zach and I love you.”
The trickle of guilt intensified.
Needing to move, Zoe got up and crossed the apartment to the kitchen. A push of the button on the blender whirred a nice loud distraction, as well as mixing up another batch of margaritas.
Central High. Cliquish, snotty and judgmental. Zoe had never fitted in. She’d been an odd dichotomy. A moody fifteen-year-old Goth-girl brainiac with a chip on her shoulder. She’d taken to the exclusive small town and its high school like a cat to water. Thankfully she’d had Dex. Because of him, her one friend, she’d been able to ignore how poorly she’d been accepted. Until she was sixteen and her parents had died in a car accident and she’d had to deal with another nasty small-town reality. Gossip. While she’d been trying to deal with her shock and grief, the gossip mill had gone into overtime, whispering on every corner rumors of her parents’ pending divorce and claiming it was over her mom having an affair with the school principal.
Zoe had wanted to drop out, go anywhere and hide. But Zach had insisted she graduate. He’d set aside his dreams to be responsible. Despite the rotten high-school experience, she was grateful that he hadn’t let her wienie out. Wasn’t it her job, now, to set aside her irritation with the past to give his dreams a chance? After all, she wanted him to succeed, And even more, she wanted to prove herself. To him. And to herself.
Zoe sighed. Talk about pressure. She carried the pitcher into the living room and refilled both glasses.
“You know he’d be pissed if he found out you were doing this,” she muttered to her sister-in-law as she sat back down. But she still picked up the invitation. “Nobody’s even sure if Gandalf is from Bradford. You know that, right? He could have just passed through. There’s no real reason to believe he’s going to be at the reunion.”
“Zach thinks he will be. Anyone that sentimental about his hometown would go to his reunion. The timing, a bunch of things in the game, suggest he’s your age. Zach’s been racking his brain to figure out a way to find the guy.”
The guilt was a waterfall now.
Seeing the crack in Zoe’s armor, Meghan moved in for the kill. She gave a perky smile and tugged a fat envelope out of her purse. “Look, here’s more information on the reunion. I found the link when I used that Web site, you know? The Classmates one? When I saw your class was having a reunion, I e-mailed them to send me the invitation package.”
Zoe’s eyebrow arched. So that’s how they’d really found her. She’d wondered. It wasn’t like she’d left a trail of breadcrumbs for her ex-schoolmates to track her down.
“There was even speculation about Gandalf there on the message boards,” Meghan continued, once she was sure Zoe wasn’t going to chide her for the behind-the-back maneuvering. “People wondering if he’s really from your school. What class he was in. If he’ll come to the reunion. That kind of thing.”
Figured. More gossip, this time cyber-style. Zoe just rolled her eyes.
“Even if he is there, it’s not like he’s going to be wearing a sign. The guy’s managed to keep his identity a secret from major competitors for five years. He won’t show up wearing a pointed hat and carrying a game controller.” Seeing the stubborn look on Meghan’s face, Zoe sighed. Then, as she did when faced with any impossible business challenge, she started breaking it down into smaller tasks to research, areas to consider, things to do. In other words, her brain had gone into