Stud

by Jamie K. Schmidt

  “Like I’m going to gain fifteen pounds working here.”

  “Is that a request for a salad?”

  She glared at me. “Fried dumplings. Boneless spareribs.”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  “And I didn’t even have to rub the lamp.” Terri winked at me and slung her purse over her shoulder. I was still looking around to make sure no one heard her when she left.

  When I got back to my office, I scrolled through my phone to call the director at Montefiore again.

  “Chris? It’s Mick. I was wondering if you had a chance to look over William Cooke’s application for the muscle and nerve study.”

  “Yeah, he’s definitely on the waitlist.”

  “Are you filled up?”

  “We had ten slots. They went quick.”

  I tapped my fingers on my keyboard. “What would you need to open up enough slots to cover the waitlist?” I could almost hear the wheels turning in Chris’s head.

  “It’s not quite that simple. I’d have to find another doctor and some more technicians. Plus, there would be more data to compile. We weren’t expecting the interest we received. Perhaps we’ll do another test in the fall.”

  I made a rolling gesture with my hand, even though he couldn’t see it. Bureaucrats always had to stretch things out. “If you had to put a dollar amount on expanding the participants in the trial, what would it be?”

  Chris coughed and harrumphed but eventually said, “I’d need about twenty-five thousand dollars and ethically I can’t put Mr. Cooke in the study based on your donation.”

  “I understand that. But if you were to receive the money and he is on the waitlist, is it possible he’d get in?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but it’s very likely.”

  “I’ll wire the funds over right now.”

  “Thank you. And your family’s generous contributions to the burn center have really come in handy this year. We were able to set up more beds and get in some state-of-the-art equipment.”

  “I’m glad. Keep me in mind if you need anything. The Wentworth Agency is glad to help.”

  “Well, now that you mentioned it we could use some help getting the word out for our annual campaign.”

  And that was a win-win situation because the hospital’s high-priced donors would naturally ask who Montefiore was using for their marketing. Chris and I got down to business and worked out a plan that benefited both our needs. Not a bad way to wrap up a week. Friday game night was becoming my favorite part of the week.

  Chapter 12

  Terri

  Normally, I’d try to impress my date with my skillful use of chopsticks, but I was so damn hungry, I had to use a fork. I felt a twinge of guilt about Billy, who was eating leftovers tonight. He hadn’t been too happy that Mick was coming over and even less so when I told him that he might be staying over. Not that I was planning on it happening. I just didn’t want everything to be going really well, only to be cock blocked by my brother. Can women even be cock blocked? I promised myself I’d freeze a few casseroles and a lasagna for him to make up for it.

  Mick brought enough to feed an army, so I probably could have invited Billy. But I didn’t want awkward. Once Mick and I figured out where we were going, if anywhere, I’d formally introduce the two of them. Until then, well, I guess Mick and I were just friendly co-workers. Co-workers who fucked all over his office before we were co-workers.

  At least he trusted me enough to bring the pre-beta release over and let me install it on my home machine. Now I could play around in the new expansion to my heart’s content. I couldn’t wait to show Billy. That should cheer him up some. He had been really depressed lately.

  I sighed. I didn’t want to think about that now. It was officially my night off—even though I was technically still working. Mick and I were sitting side by side on my couch collecting shells for the pharaoh’s banquet and battling river crocodiles. I think Mick was having a better time tonight than he was last week. Last Friday, he had been a little overwhelmed. Since the beer and wine almost made my panties fly off last week, I made pots of green tea tonight and we drank that instead. I was trying to be good, but it wasn’t working. I almost blew him in his office this afternoon.

  What was wrong with me?

  I looked over and he was stuffing an egg roll in his mouth. He was still sexy, damn him.

  “I got some good news today,” I said, making my character wave her crook over the head of his character to heal him.

  “Thanks,” he said, going to town on the crocodiles with his flail.

  “Billy got into the study at Montefiore.”

  “That was quick.”

  “Actually, I thought it was taking forever. He starts next month. Speaking of which, I booked my reservation for GameCon. I got into the conference hotel. It shouldn’t interfere with Billy’s sessions because I’m going down on Friday night and coming back Sunday night. What will you need me to do?”

  “We’ll support Lemmingware’s people, but I want to drive traffic to their booths and activities. I figure we can do that via social media as well as physically handing out flyers and putting up posters.”

  “Can I be a booth babe?”

  Mick snickered. “You’d be perfect, but no. I’ll need you at my side. Although, if we put you in Daisy Dukes and heels, the nerd stampede might be worth it.”

  I swatted him. “Those nerds are my friends.”

  “All of them?”

  “They’re my tribe.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Besides, I’d be in a toga. Or dressed up like Cleopatra. Are you going to cosplay?”

  “What do you think?” Mick laughed.

  “I think you’d look hot as a pharaoh.”

  He grinned and I shivered a bit. “I’ll be working, not playing dress-up.”

  “It’s great marketing for the game. And it’s so easy. You can go as a Viking if you want. We’ll get you some leather and fur to wear.”

  “I don’t want PETA to come after me.” Mick shook his head.

  “You’re a spoilsport.” I really would love to see him bare-chested and strutting around a convention hall, but I’d have to beat off the women with my shield. “Maybe Lemmingware should contribute something to the conference’s goody bags?”

  “On it. We’re doing Egyptian-themed key chains.”

  “I’m looking forward to going. I haven’t been to a con in years.”

  Billy and I used to go to a few a year. We liked to learn new board games, and while I was a manga freak, he liked to do pickup games of D&D and other role-playing games. He used to joke, “Have dice, will travel.” I wished he felt good enough to go with me. He had tried to be happy for me when I told him I was getting comped to go, but I could see that it hurt. I’d have to make sure I brought him back something special.

  “It’s just another trade show.” Mick shrugged.

  “Yeah, but unlike a lightbulb trade show, this one has books, toys, games, and all sorts of fun things. It would be like you going to a martini convention.”

  His lips quirked up in a smile. “There’s only two ways to make a martini. Vodka or gin and vermouth with an olive or a lemon twist. The rest are just mixed drinks in a martini glass.”

  “Shaken or stirred?”

  “You always stir martinis. Anyone who shakes them is a barbarian.”

  “James Bond liked his shaken, not stirred.” I made a shaking motion with my hand, but it looked like I was jerking off air, so I stopped.

  “James Bond was an uncultured thug, at least in the books anyway.”

  I gasped. “Sean Connery. Roger Moore. Timothy Dalton.”

  “Really? Timothy Dalton?”

  “I liked him in Flash Gordon, what can I say?”

  “Besides,” Mick said. “Those were the actors. They brought a piece of themselves into the role.”

  “What’s so uncultured about shaking your martinis? It gets them cold.” I loved having my drinks shaken; they w
ere icy and super easy going down.

  “It also waters down the drink.”

  I snapped my fingers. “Aha! He was trying to fake out the bad guys. They would think he was drunker than he actually was.”

  Mick tilted his head. “Perhaps. But shaking the martini also makes it cloudy and it introduces air bubbles, which change the flavor of the drink.”

  “That’s horseshit,” I said. Mick didn’t know everything. He just liked everyone to think he did.

  “That’s science,” he replied, condescendingly. “It makes the gin bitter.”

  “Maybe he liked the taste that way?”

  “As I said, he was an uncultured bore.”

  “He was an assassin. So there.” I stuck my tongue out at him.

  Reaching out, Mick halfheartedly tried to snatch it.

  “So is that what you’re like at the club?” I asked, dodging his hand. “I’m all better than James Bond with my stirred martinis,” I said in a stuck-up voice.

  “Yeah,” Mick said with a laugh. “You’ve seen me. I’m exactly like that.”

  “Does anyone ever call you on your shit?”

  “Just you.”

  His smile warmed me from the inside out. OMG, I think we’re on a date. I sank back into my seat on the couch. We played the game in silence for a bit while I tried to process that. I’d better bring it back to work-related stuff. It was so hard, though. I liked hanging out with Mick. It might be a little more than sex and that kind of scared me because that meant I might actually like him as a person, instead of a convenient fuck toy or my boss.

  I cleared my throat and took a big gulp of tea to fortify myself. Professional work relationship. That’s all this was ever going to be. “We just need to level up to ten and then we can use the epics that Jim put in this pre-release for us to test out. Then we can go into the city and see if anyone will notice us.”

  “I still don’t get it. There are four million subscribers. We’re just two people. How are we going to get them to notice us?”

  “It’s the same principle as marketing shoes to teenagers. They want what looks cool, what everyone else has or wants and has value. In the case of shoes, it’s that they’re well-made and their favorite basketball player has them. In World of Legends, because there are four million of us, we want something that makes us unique. We want to stand out and have something that’s useful and pretty and not many other people can easily get. And since we’re the only Egyptians in the game right now, aside from the NPCs, we’re going to get attention.”

  “NPCs?”

  “Non-player characters.”

  “This game has more acronyms and stuff, I feel like I’m learning a new language.”

  “STFU noob.”

  He rolled his eyes at me. “So the new gear and appearance is a status thing?” Mick asked, leaning back in the chair.

  “Exactly. I guarantee you that I’ll get tons of comments on the Bast cat pet that’s following me around.”

  “Wouldn’t that be sacrilegious in Egypt? Bast is a goddess. Why would she be following around a level-ten character?” Mick stretched out and his leg rubbed against mine.

  If I moved, he might think I was uncomfortable with him being so close. But just the opposite was true. I actually wanted to cuddle up next to him on the couch. Jeez, that’s something else we’ve never done. Hug, cuddle, and show affection. I swallowed hard. Hookups didn’t do that. All we had was two really hot hookups. And if you counted these last two Friday nights, two sad, nerdy dates.

  “It’s a game.” I sighed. “There’s not that much reality in it; otherwise the Egyptians wouldn’t be leveling their hearts out in this expansion to fight the Vikings. The little black cat with the gold toque is going to be very popular with people who collect in-game pets, like cats, and who want something different.”

  “Are they going to fork over fifty bucks for the expansion for a cat?” Mick draped his arm over the couch. He was so big and the couch was so small that it was almost as if he had his arm around me. I could pretend, right?

  “They’re paying more than that for current armor and rare-equipment drops,” I said, leaning my cheek on the couch so my forehead rested on his biceps. This was nice.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “We haven’t reached the auction tents yet in the game. But you can sell the treasure and other stuff that drops from the monsters to the vendors for coins or you can have an auctioneer present it to those four million people.”

  “Okay, so you’re talking fake money.” Mick squinted at me.

  “You can use real money to buy fake money on Lemmingware’s site.”

  “I thought that was a joke.”

  I shook my head. “Let’s say you and I didn’t want to collect these ten shells. We could go to the tents and see if anyone was selling them. You’ve got ten silvers. You could buy the shells for that.”

  “It only took us a half hour to collect them. Seems like a waste of money both in-game and out-of-game.”

  “Okay, look at it this way. You want to level up fast so you can fight in the gladiator pits. You need to be level twenty. You’re not interested in doing all these dumb quests. So you buy your way in. If fifty real dollars saves you fifty hours, some people think that’s worth it. Some people will buy pets instead of hoping they get one in a treasure drop. To them, having something like the Bast cat walking with them in-game is worth five real dollars.”

  “This is a fucking gold mine.” Mick’s eyes were wide as he shook his head in disbelief.

  I patted him on the arm. “It’s a whole nother world in here, Dorothy. Someday you’ve got to take me to your hoity-toity parties and show me how the other half lives. I’m not trying caviar, though. Fish eggs are gross.”

  “Pâté is worse,” he said.

  “I hate liver.” I shuddered. “My mom used to make us eat it. I would smother mine with ketchup and mustard to hide the taste.”

  “Why on earth did she subject you to that?” He grimaced.

  “When we were kids, Billy’s and my iron levels were low.”

  “Why didn’t she make you molasses cookies? There’s like twice as much iron in molasses than there is in liver.”

  “Now you’re just making shit up. I almost believed the James Bond nonsense, but this is too much. I could have had cookies instead of liver? I feel so betrayed.” I clutched my chest and he laughed at my dramatics.

  “Doctors prescribe a teaspoon of molasses in a pregnant woman’s tea if she’s anemic.”

  “You know this from Janet?” I wondered how close he was to his secretary. She seemed awfully possessive of him. I’d bet cash money she had a crush on her handsome boss too. Janet had really been holding on to him this afternoon. I wondered if there was more to that story. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and she didn’t have any personal items on her desk, like a picture of her boyfriend. I wondered who the baby’s father was.

  His gaze slid away from mine. “No, my sister-in-law, Laila, had to drink that. Simon’s wife. Ask him, if you don’t believe me.”

  “I thought you didn’t want me talking to Simon.”

  “I don’t want you fucking Simon.” He used my words from before back at me. Was it wrong that I got the shivers when he used the F-word?

  “Why?” I asked, just to bust his balls. “Aside from the whole homewrecking portion of it.”

  “Same reason why I’m still not fucking you.”

  I blushed. “You mean aside from me saying I don’t want you anymore?”

  Mick scoffed. “Now who’s talking horseshit?” He saved his game and closed the laptop.

  I hated that he was right. “What’s wrong with two consenting adults who work with each other having sex?”

  “The fact that I’m your boss makes it a legal nightmare. And the fact that I’m having a hard time staying away from you makes a difficult working environment. And the fact that I want the CEO position over Simon means I can’t give him any leverage to use against me.
”

  “Are you saying I make things hard for you?” I leaned into him.

  “As much as I make things wet for you.” He leaned in closer.

  Here we go again.

  “I don’t have time for a boyfriend.” But I wanted him to kiss me.

  “I don’t want a girlfriend.” I knew he wanted to kiss me too.

  I let out a shaky sigh. “I don’t want to be one of your VIP girls.”

  “You can’t unless you blow me.”

  I gaped in shock and clenched my fist to hit him when he burst out laughing.

  “You’re a pig.” I refused to smile. He got me good.

  “Guilty as charged.” He started packing up his things. “Mostly because I was dead serious.”

  I gave him a fishy look. “You don’t want me to suck your dick?”

  “I don’t think those words ever came out of my mouth.” He stood up and slung the laptop case over his shoulder.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home before I start thinking with my dick and I wind up in trouble.”

  “I like trouble,” I said.

  “You are trouble. Don’t get up.” Leaning down, Mick kissed the top of my head. “Thanks for tonight.”

  “Thanks for the Chinese food.”

  “See you in the office on Monday. Don’t forget to bring in the external hard drive or it’s both our asses.”

  “I won’t.”

  I sat on the couch for a bit in a funk and then cleaned up the empty food containers. It had almost been like a date. We had a weird track record. We fucked on our first and second dates. Talked work and played a videogame on our third and fourth dates. Only, we weren’t dating. I was so damned horny, I couldn’t see straight. I tried to take a cold shower to see if that would help, but I was too much of a chicken and wound up adding hot water. After I dried off and put on my PJs, I snagged my laptop from the other room and crawled into bed with it. Once I was snug in my bed, I went back to the game. I switched over to the Viking world to do my daily quests with the hopes that would keep my mind off my crazy attraction to my boss.