Countdown to a Kiss

by Mara Jacobs

  “I knew you’d majored in Graphic Design, but…”

  “With an IT degree, too. I’ve been designing for the last four years.”

  Brooks had never mentioned that fact to him. Or had he and Lewis just never processed it? Likely it was the latter. A thought came to him. “Those three games we bought? They weren’t yours, were they?”

  Darcy nodded, a smile widening across her face. “You’re looking at what my bonus on ‘The Geek Shall Inherit the Mirth’ bought me.” She did a little “ta-da” movement with her hand down her sparkly dress and to her see-through shoes. Well, shoe. “Oh crap, I lost my other shoe when I fell!”

  “I don’t know what Pegasus’ bonus structure is, but given what we paid for that game, I’m guessing that was a pretty nice bonus check.”

  “Exactly,” she said, but her tone had turned from triumphant to dismal as she stared at her shoe-less right foot.

  “And you spent it on a dress and shoes?”

  “Not just any dress and shoes. A Dolce & Gabbana gown and Louboutin shoes.”

  “I…what…”

  “Never mind. Fat lot of good either of them did me. Stuck in here all night.” She waved her arm around the small room.

  “You could wear the dress to next year’s party.” The look she gave him made him realize he’d once again stepped into it. “Or not.”

  “No,” she sighed. “But maybe somewhere in Boston, though I don’t get many invitations to formal events.” She wiggled her good foot, still ensconced in the impossibly high heel. “But I’ll never get to wear these again.”

  She let out another sigh, and Lewis thought this sigh could turn bad. Like, to tears or something. He had to do something to take her mind off her dumb, and crazy-expensive, shoes. “So, Munchkin, is—”

  “Darcy,” she interrupted. “I’m not a Munchkin anymore, Lewis. I’m a woman now, well into my twenties. I will always be small, okay? But petite. Not a Munchkin.” There was a definite tone in her voice.

  Ohhhhkaaay. Lewis didn’t understand women’s moods—didn’t understand other people’s moods much at all—but he knew this could get ugly real quickly. “I loved your games, Darcy. The minute I saw them I told my guys to do whatever it took to acquire them for KampsApps’ gaming division.”

  That perked her up a little. At least she stopped staring at her foot where the missing shoe would have been. “Really? I didn’t know that. I wasn’t in on any of those discussions. Designers at Pegasus never are.”

  “Really. Especially Mirth. The minute I saw the prototype demo, it was…I don’t know…it’s totally original, of course, and hilarious, but something about it just seemed…hmm…familiar, somehow. It was weird. But I had to have it.”

  Chapter Six

  It seemed familiar to him because Lewis was the model for the protagonist of the game. Darcy had designed that one as a labor of love. The hero, a geek with incredible brilliance but no social skills, must evade the pitfalls of everyday social life before he can obtain the love of the heroine. Who, suspiciously, looked a bit like Darcy.

  When she was told KampsApps was trying to buy it and two of her other games, she assumed they’d known who had designed it. But Pegasus, leery of having their employees stolen, kept a tight lid on proprietary information. And each one had to sign a confidentiality agreement about what they’d designed. So it seemed that it was a giant coincidence that Lewis’s company had bought her game.

  Which, of course, she took as a Sign. That’s when she’d started planning for this night. The one that now was being spent in a hospital ER with college kids puking en masse mere feet away from her.

  She couldn’t believe that nobody on his staff had told Lewis he looked exactly like Poindexter, the hero of Mirth. Was she the only one who saw it because she’d designed it?

  “Well, it’s no Call of Duty…” she acknowledged. Nor, in her mind, was it supposed to compete with that audience.

  “That’s the beauty of it. It’s simple, reality-based and funny. It goes more for the Facebook crowd than the hardcore gamers. People who never thought of themselves as video game players, but are beyond Angry Birds and Words with Friends. It’s a niche we think is ready to explode.”

  He continued, clearly in his element. “The apps we design around these games make them more compatible for tablets and phones. Yeah, sure, you designed them to play on a home gaming system, but Kamps can make them accessible to people who don’t want to spend the time and money on all that hardware.”

  “That’s great. But Lewis, let me assure you, there’s nothing in any of those games that the NSA would be interested in. I know that code inside and out…there’s nothing there.”

  His head tilted for just a second, his chestnut hair flopping slightly, but he was already nodding and straightening it. “I guess I knew that. And I guess I was just hoping maybe that was the reason. But I think deep down, I knew that wasn’t it.”

  “So?”

  “You were right. They just want to pick my brain on coding. Probably the secret kind.”

  “Holy crap, Lewis. You’re like out of A Beautiful Mind or something.”

  “Nah.” He shrugged it off, but Darcy knew—had always known—Lewis had so much more in reserve in that head of his, even with all he had already accomplished. “I guess I need to just suck it up and meet with them.”

  “Yes, you do. Maybe it’s some National Security thing that you could really help out with.”

  “Maybe. I’ll call them after the holiday.”

  “Aren’t you going back to the party? You could just find that guy who…” She trailed off, not wanting to mention Grace. No need to swing that shiny pendulum in front of his mind.

  “I wonder why they just didn’t have Grace contact me? Why this other guy?”

  So much for not sending him down the road of Grace Devine. “Maybe they asked her and she said no?”

  His brows furrowed, he pushed his glasses up. It wasn’t a head tilt this time. Not thinking, no. Confused. “Why would she say no? Why would she not want to meet with me?”

  It was seldom that Lewis seemed vulnerable. This was an opening, and Darcy recognized it. She could say something along the lines of “Maybe she just didn’t think there was much of a reason for her to do it. After all, it’s not like you mean anything to her. She has no special relationship with you beyond being childhood neighbors.” But that would hurt him. And she could never knowingly hurt Lewis.

  “Maybe…I don’t know…she felt she couldn’t be objective interviewing you. That there’s too much history?”

  He jumped at it. “Right. Yes. Of course.” But he wasn’t totally sold, she could tell. She wanted to say something more, to soothe him somehow, but Nurse Georgie made her entrance.

  “Sorry about that, kids. Lord, what a mess.” She motioned for Darcy’s forms.

  “Are they going to be okay?” Darcy asked as she handed Georgie the clipboard.

  “Those four? They’ll be fine. We’re pumping them up with fluids and keeping a watch on them. Not much else we can do for them. It’s all coming out on its own, anyway. From pretty near every orifice. But, if you’d planned on going to the Sushi Garden for a late night dinner tonight, I’d suggest you skip it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lewis said. Darcy thought she would never eat sushi again after what she’d just seen, and continued to hear.

  Georgie read through Darcy’s forms, then cocked a brow at her. “Darcy Bennett? I guess somebody was a Pride and Prejudice fan.”

  “My mom,” Darcy answered the familiar question.

  “Actually, she was going to name her Elizabeth, to be a purist, but her dad put his foot down and they compromised on Darcy,” Lewis said.

  Which was news to Darcy. “What?”

  “Yeah. You didn’t know that?”

  “No. How did you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I asked your mom about it once.”

  “You asked my mom about my name? When?”

>   The head tilt again. “I think after my freshman year at MIT. When I’d read it. I hadn’t put it together before then.”

  Well. That left her speechless.

  “It’s not quite so obvious, but some people would get it. Kind of like Darcy herself.”

  Darcy stared at Lewis, flabbergasted by his…insight. He was looking at Georgie who was nodding along as she finished going through the forms. “We can put a call into your company for the insurance member number.”

  “I can run my card over tomorrow if that would help.”

  “Honey, by the looks of that ankle, you aren’t going to be running anywhere tomorrow, or for at least a couple of days. My guess is the doctor will want X-rays, but looks to me like a really bad sprain. I’m thinking we’ll wrap it and you’ll need to ice it for a while. Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll give you a script for pain meds. Lord knows you deserve a little la-la after spending New Year’s Eve in the ER. And looking so pretty and all.” She touched Darcy’s shoe on her good foot. “Are those Louboutins?”

  “Yes.”

  “Those are some beautiful shoes. Almost worth not being able to walk in.”

  “I lost the one I fell off of.”

  Georgie got it. Her eyes went wide with compassion. “Oh, honey, no.”

  Darcy nodded, feeling the tears well up again. “I know. I can’t believe it, either.”

  “It’s just a shoe,” Lewis said, but quickly ducked his head when he saw the looks she and Georgie shot him.

  The nurse rummaged around in one of the trays that held equipment and came up with a pack of some sort. She put pressure on it until there was a small pop. She then put the pack over Darcy’s ankle. “A little late for the ice now, but with those four out there…”

  “It’s okay,” Darcy said, adjusting the pack on her ankle, the cold already seeping in. “They were in worse shape. And I appreciate you putting us in here.”

  “Normally we’d put you in one of the open units so we could keep an eye on you, but the sounds that were coming out of those kids? You looked like you were going to need your own bucket any minute.”

  Darcy nodded. “You’re right, I was.”

  “Okay, keep that ice on there, I’ll have the doctor come check you out as soon as he’s able. Though it might take a little time—we just got a car accident in. Nothing dire, but some bleeding that will need to be stitched up,” she said. She looked at her watch, wrote down in her chart the time she applied the ice to Darcy’s foot, then left them alone.

  Lewis looked at his watch and Darcy knew the decent thing to do would be to tell him to go back to the party. She was going to be stuck here for a while, but was basically fine (and not puking up her guts!). She could call for her parents to swing by and pick her up on their way home, or even take a taxi.

  Instead, she said, “So, Lewis, besides my games, what else is Kamps looking at right now?”

  That was all it took to launch Lewis into a twenty-minute dissertation on games, apps, expansion, and development. Which Darcy found fascinating, thus proving to herself that they truly were soulmates. Not that she needed proof.

  “And, well, the last thing that we’re kind of excited about is…No. Never mind, I’ve talked long enough as it is.”

  Odd. He looked almost embarrassed. Lewis embarrassed by something he was working on?

  “Tell me,” she prodded.

  He waved a hand in dismissal. “Nah, never mind.”

  He was standing by the edge of the bed and she nudged his hip with her knee. “Come on, Lewis, tell me.”

  He shook his head again. “I don’t think it’s anything –”

  “Lewis, spill.”

  “It’s a kissing app.”

  She was thinking it was going to be something top secret, maybe the reason the NSA wanted to talk to him. But…a kissing app? This could be interesting.

  “Explain it to me,” she asked in her best designer-to-designer voice. As if she had no personal interest in Lewis and kissing. “Talk to me about kissing, Lewis.”

  Chapter Seven

  Normally Lewis wouldn’t talk about an app that was still in development. Especially not with a fellow designer who wasn’t on his payroll. But this was Munchkin, she seemed genuinely interested, and they had time to kill before the doctor would come to examine her ankle.

  Much as Lewis would like to get back to the party—there was still time until midnight, but not a lot of room to maneuver his Plan B—he really should stay until Darcy was checked out by the doctor. That way he could give John and Ellen an update when he saw them. Maybe he’d even have time to take Darcy home and get her settled before he absolutely had to get back to the Club for midnight.

  Plus, it was just a fun little app—nothing that would change the world—and he’d like to get her take on it.

  He took his phone from where it sat beside her hip, still playing music, and started touching and sliding his way to his new baby.

  “It’s already available?”

  “No, it’s just a prototype, but I have most of the stuff we’re working on stored here,” he lifted the phone to her. “And my tablet. And my laptop. I basically don’t set foot outside the office door without everything in about three places.”

  “Still misplacing things, a lot?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “What’s it called?”

  He had it called up now, but they were still throwing around name ideas and he didn’t want Darcy to see the working title card. “Um, we’re still working on that.” She was reaching for his phone, but he held it away, waiting for it to load. That was one of the bugs they were working on—the thing took forever to load. “The idea is you load a picture on it, either sending it to your email or something, or even taking a picture of someone right from your phone or tablet. Or, there are some pre-loaded. It starts with a shot of their full face.” Which was now up on Lewis phone, but he still held it out of Darcy’s sight. “Then, when you’re ready, you touch the lips, and it zooms in so all you see is their mouth.” He did just that to his phone so that only lips, though definitely female ones, showed on his screen now. He turned it to Darcy, handing it over. And you…you know…”

  “Make out with your phone?”

  “Basically, yes.”

  She stared at the lips on the screen, then at him. “And you think people will do that? Put their mouth on the phone that they’ve been touching all day?”

  “More likely a tablet. That way when you started, the face would be more lifelike in size.”

  “Still. All those germs. You’ve had your phone in your pocket, or your tablet in its case, or out in the open…”

  “I think the market that we’re gearing this to don’t care about stuff like that.”

  “And who’s the demographic?”

  He shrugged. “The same guys who twenty years ago would have bought inflatable dolls. This is kind of a high tech version.”

  “Um, but Lewis, those dolls had, you know.”

  “Well, obviously, this is a little more innocent. Like I said, it was just meant to be a fun, little throw-away app. We’d give it away.” He reached for the phone, but she held her arm away from him. He would have had to stretch across the table—her whole body—to get it. Which actually didn’t sound like a bad idea.

  “Don’t be mad,” she said, reading him pretty well.

  “I’m not mad.” Defensive, more like.

  “Defensive, then. I’m sorry, but you probably have only guys working on this, and you should have a woman’s point of view.”

  She was right. He hadn’t thought about it that way. “Okay. You’re right. So, you wouldn’t use it. I get it. It will solely be for guys. Maybe we won’t even pre-load pictures of men on it.”

  “What about for gay men?”

  He nodded his head. She was good at this. But then, the designer of Mirth would be. That new fact still blew him away. “Right, again. We’ll keep the pics of men on it.”

  �
�And is there a goal? A way to score points? Or are you just…kissing your phone?”

  “You’re not kissing your phone. You’re kissing your ideal mate. The person you want to be kissing more than anything, but for whatever reason, you aren’t. So, this is the next best thing.”

  She was turning the phone, seeing the lips move from portrait to landscape view. He hoped they’d remembered to…yes, the lips stayed in place, it didn’t zoom back out to show the whole face.

  “And yes, there’s a scoring system. We did a weighted algorithm on the components of the perfect kiss, and you score more points as you achieve better proficiency at those components. Due to the…ah…nature of the game, you’d probably just be trying to beat your own best score. I can’t imagine you’d play against someone else.”

  “No, I can’t imagine that.” Her brow furrowed, and she bit her lower lip, obviously thinking, and Lewis found himself torn between wanting to hear what gem she was stewing on, and wanting her to keep biting that lip.

  Or maybe biting his?

  He stepped back, away from the table. Whoa. Where had that come from? This was Munchkin, who’d followed Brooks and him around since they were kids.

  But that was just it. Munchkin wasn’t a Munchkin anymore. She’d said it herself, and those curves and that softness he’d held in his arms confirmed it.

  “Unless…” she said, which pulled him out of his lust-filled thoughts for his best friend’s sister.

  “Unless?”

  “I don’t think guys would play against each other, no. You’re right on that. But, have you thought about marketing it to tweens?”

  “What’s a tween?”

  “In this case, girls around eleven or twelve.”

  “Girls? Young girls?”

  She nodded, twisted the phone in her hand. “Say you pre-loaded a bunch of hot celebrity photos on here. And you—oh my God.”

  “What?”

  “What group of fifth grade girls wouldn’t fight over trying to get the highest score of kissing, say, Justin Bieber?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh, Lewis, totally seriously.” The smile on her face was something to behold. He imagined it was the same smile she’d worn when she’d first thought up the concept of Mirth.