Dennis asked, “Why do you even work here if you don’t like games?”
She shrugged, examining her fingernails. “It’s a job. Daddy refused to continue my allowance unless I started working. And it’s easy. He lets me mostly do what I want.”
No surprises there. Except that, apparently, I wasn’t the only one who noticed Megan didn’t have an actual role with the company. I reached for my phone to text Ryan, but it vibrated in my hand before I unlocked it.
Ryan: I hate to do this to you, but I can’t come in today.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. He couldn’t possibly be bowing out of the contest at the last minute. I needed him. On my own, I could explain how to use Construct Me as a team-building exercise, but the game required at least two people to demonstrate it. Hans needed to see our full presentation to understand how we anticipated using the game to help with team-building and camaraderie.
Maybe Ryan was joking? With great trepidation, I texted back.
Me: Noooooooo! What? I need you!
My initial instinct was to pick up the phone and call him, but I stood close enough for Dennis and Megan to overhear. Nowhere in the office felt safe from curious ears. My second instinct was to scream at him via text. But this was Ryan. We’d been friends for years. If he was going to bail on me for something so important, he must have a good reason.
Ryan: I’m sorry. I want to beat Dennis more than anything, but Zoe got hit by a car. We’re at the vet now.
My heart sank. Poor guy. He loved that little beagle with all his heart. OMG. What happened?
Ryan: The leash broke. She darted after a squirrel, ran right into traffic. :-( I couldn’t stop her.
Me: I’m so sorry. Do you need me to come sit with you?
Ryan: What about the competition?
Me: You and Zoe are more important than winning a team-building contest. I can pay for the conference next year. I didn’t add that it would take a huge chunk out of my savings. He had enough to worry about.
Ryan sent back a series of heart-eyed emojis. Then: Dennis will be insufferable if we don’t show up and he wins.
Me: He’s been insufferable for years. Together, we can deal with him.
Ryan: No. Do the presentation without me. Maybe one of your friends can stand in under the circumstances?
I had no idea if using a third party to help me would be allowed, but I had to at least ask. Talking about the game wouldn’t be good enough to win the prize. I kicked myself for not making a video of our practice sessions, but it was too late now. Gwen was traveling for work as usual, Holly’s pregnancy heartburn kept her in bed until noon most days now, and I didn’t feel comfortable asking Nathan or Cody to drop everything and come help me. But someone else might. Unless his girlfriend told him not to.
“Where are you going?” Dennis’s voice permeated my thoughts.
“To get a pedicure,” Megan said. “If I’m here, Hans might try to rope me into presenting something, and I’d rather not.”
Too bad Megan was so awful, because I could use a pedicure, too. We could go together, if we were friends—and if my work ethic let me skip out in the middle of the day whenever I wanted.
“What are you going to do once your dad retires?” Dennis asked.
“I’m going to work for you. Duh.”
Her heels clacked against the ground, headed toward the parking lot. I faded back into the shadows, as close to the wall as I could get. My mind raced as she walked away. I needed someone to go through the presentation with me, and while she’d probably be pissed once she found out, that wasn’t my problem. The question was, did I want to put Tyler in a position to fight with his girlfriend?
My initial instinct was, no, that wasn’t fair. Why ask my friend to help me, knowing it would cause problems in his relationship? On the flip side, my internal voice argued, I wasn’t supposed to know how badly Megan wanted me to lose this thing. How Tyler managed his relationship wasn’t my problem. Besides, if he worried about how she’d react, he could say no. It wasn’t my job to protect him.
Sometimes my internal voice sounded a lot like Gwen.
With a nervous glance at the time, I texted Tyler to tell him what happened. Before I could even finish my request, he’d replied.
Tyler: Competition starts at 11, right? I’ll be there at 10:45.
I should’ve known he wouldn’t let me down. The fact that he didn’t even need to take any time to think about coming to help lifted a huge weight off my shoulders.
Me: My hero. :-)
At exactly quarter to eleven, Tyler’s Civic pulled into the parking lot. I met him at the driver’s door.
“How’s Zoe?” he asked.
I loved that he asked about the dog of a guy he’d met once before even getting out of the car. “Still in surgery, but Ryan says the vet is hopeful she’ll make a full recovery.”
Taking the game from him, I led the way into the building and up the central staircase to my office. Outside the main doors, I took a deep breath. “You ready?”
“I am. Are you?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
He squeezed my hand. “You’ve got this.”
“No, we’ve got this.”
Inside the conference room, we found Hans and explained why Tyler would be standing in to assist with my presentation. Lucky for me, our new vice president had three dogs of his own. Dennis objected to the last-minute substitution, but he quickly realized he didn’t want to be the guy getting pissed about the injured dog. Without Megan there to back him up, when everyone called him out as an unfeeling monster, he changed his tune.
Once Dennis stopped complaining, Hans stood and clapped his hands together. “Okay, everyone, let’s get started.”
The people who had been milling around the room took their seats at the conference table. The presentation order had been predetermined by a random draw, leaving me and Ryan—well, Tyler now—last. I settled in to watch my coworkers’ ideas, thinking about what Dennis said about going before me and wondering if he’d somehow rigged the drawing. Was winning that important to him, or was it just bad luck?
I forced myself to shrug the thought away. If Dennis had somehow cheated, there was nothing I could do about it now. His deception would only make beating him even sweeter.
First up, this guy who worked in Accounting stood and discussed trust falls. Not a big surprise—someone always made that suggestion. But also not groundbreaking, and he wouldn’t win. I suspected, based on his monotone presentation, that Ragnar didn’t care much about going to the conference, anyway. He probably only showed up because management provided free lunch at the end.
Next up, Stuart from Marketing wanted to do an entire weekend at this local questing warehouse. The place advertised something like a hundred different rooms to explore, requiring teams of three to five players to beat them. My friends and I had visited a few times over the years, and we loved it. Nothing beat spending the day solving puzzles with your favorite people. For a major corporation with unlimited funds, this was an awesome idea. However, it far exceeded the budget we’d been given by Hans for the project. That’s why I hadn’t suggested the same thing.
Finally, it was Dennis’s turn. He swaggered to the front of the room. “Thanks, everyone, for coming today. I can’t wait to close things out so we can all enjoy the delicious sandwich spread kindly provided by our fearless leaders.”
Suck-up. He glanced over as if to gauge my reaction, knowing damn well I hadn’t presented yet. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting. Stared back at him as calmly and coolly as if he’d asked about the weather.
With a smirk, he made a big show of pulling a board game out of his backpack. A square yellow box with blue letters. He waved it above his head, looking directly at me the entire time. Construct Me.
A gasp rose in my throat, and I manag
ed to swallow it through sheer willpower, turning the sound into a cough instead. Somehow Dennis had gotten wind of my idea. Now he presented it to the partners as his own, leaving me with nothing to show them. Tyler patted me on the back as I sputtered, a reassuring reminder that he was on my side.
Dennis provided a brief overview of the game. His teammate, Justin, explained how the mechanic forced people to work together. Then they thanked everyone and sat. To my surprise, they didn’t demonstrate the game. Did that mean they didn’t know how to play? Or maybe they thought it wasn’t important.
Hans thanked them, then turned to me. “Last but not least, we have Shannon. What did you bring to show us?”
My mouth went dry. I couldn’t present the same idea as Dennis, not thirty seconds later. At the same time, after asking them to let Tyler fill in for Ryan, we couldn’t say we’d come empty-handed. The tea I’d recently finished rose in my throat. The room spun around me. It was only one convention, sure. Only one team-building exercise, one meaningless day at the office. That’s how most people saw it. The game came out years ago, after all. It won some major awards. I shouldn’t have assumed no one else would be familiar with it. Of course one of my coworkers would have had the same idea. We were a bunch of board game makers; we knew the market.
But for me, this competition was more than a team-building exercise. It was my chance to show everyone that I belonged here, despite being female. It was a chance to let the people transferring in know that I was serious about this job and not to discount me because of my gender. To show Jameson why he should pick me to run things once he retired. And being left empty-handed on my turn to present gave Dennis one more thing to lord over me. To my horror, tears pricked the edges of my vision. I couldn’t cry. I wouldn’t. That’s what Dennis wanted.
Beside me, Tyler squeezed my hand and whispered in my ear, “It’ll be fine.”
“How?” I whispered back.
“Watch this.” He stood, and the partners who looked expectantly at me turned to him. He raised his voice to address the room. “Playing Construct Me as a team-building exercise really is a great idea. So great that Shannon and Ryan thought of it as soon as they heard about this exercise.”
“No way,” Dennis said, a little too loudly. “If she’s got the same game, she must have gotten the idea from us.”
Until that moment, I’d naïvely believed this whole thing was one unfortunate coincidence. But the practiced disbelief in his tone told me he’d known all along what activity I planned to present this morning. I couldn’t explain how I knew, but I’d have bet Nana’s house that Dennis set me up on purpose. The only question was how he figured out my plan, and I didn’t like the obvious answer.
Dennis was friends with Megan. Megan didn’t want me to win this competition. Tyler and Megan were dating. I hated myself for even thinking my friend might have told her about my presentation. It couldn’t be. But it was the most obvious conclusion.
A stupid conclusion, though. Why would Tyler come to bail me out if he’d helped to sabotage me? He could’ve not responded to my text, pretended he didn’t see it. Or made up a meeting, some reason he couldn’t come help. No. I refused to believe he had anything to do with this.
As I stood trying to figure out what was happening, Tyler asked Dennis, “You’re a hard worker, right? Show up early, work late?”
Dennis puffed up his chest. “You know it. And who are you, anyway?”
“I’m the guy who came to help demonstrate the game, to show everyone how it’s done,” he said. “I’m also the guy who understands office dynamics. Shannon, do you always lock your computer when you walk away?”
“It’s policy,” I said automatically. But in my heart, I knew immediately where Tyler was going with his question.
“Sure. And most people shut down or lock their computers at night when they go home. But what about when you walk away for a minute? To go to the bathroom or greet a focus group or even to go to a meeting? Is your computer locked right now?”
I felt the color drain from my face. How very stupid of me. Even knowing Dennis would seize any advantage over me, I never thought to lock my computer when I walked away for a few minutes. No one did, because small offices like this tended to be trusting. It’s not like we dealt in state secrets. Suddenly, I remembered the day my chair seemed out of place, and I cursed myself for not paying more attention. I’d even figured Dennis moved it, but so I would look silly, not to steal my ideas.
Now I wondered what other information Dennis had “found” on my computer when I wasn’t around. Unbelievable. The second I got back to my desk, I was changing my password.
“How dare you? What are you suggesting?” As Dennis sputtered, his face turned purple. To Hans, he said, “Can you believe this guy? Are you really going to believe Shannon’s roommate’s lies?”
I stepped forward. “I never mentioned how I know Tyler.”
“M-Megan told me,” he said.
“How did you know I know Megan?” Tyler asked.
“I guessed. I know Megan is dating a guy named Tyler, and you know Shannon. I put the pieces together.” His tone grew more confident with each word. We couldn’t prove he lied, and he knew it. And maybe it wasn’t him, but someone had been in my computer. It could have been Megan. It’s not like BGG was going to dust for prints.
During this entire conversation, Hans’s head swiveled back and forth. Now, he spoke up. “Let’s simmer down, everyone. Dennis, Shannon, this game has been around awhile. I played it myself years ago. Using Construct Me for team building is a great idea, but not exactly like inventing the wheel. Especially since we all make games here, we should be familiar with what’s already available. It’s completely plausible that you both thought of it independently.”
Begrudgingly, I agreed that it was possible, although unlikely. Dennis snorted and nodded a bit while staring at the ground.
“Great. Glad that’s resolved,” Hans said. “Now, you’ve got an excellent idea, but we can only have one winner. You can’t share the prize, because there are four of you and only two conference passes available.”
I repressed a shudder. As if I’d go to a convention with Dennis. Especially when the prize package included only one hotel room. “What do you suggest?”
“Let’s play,” he said. “You’re both familiar with the game. You’ve each got a partner. Three rounds. First team to win two gets the grand prize.”
Tyler had to be thrilled at this turn of events, but he maintained a perfect poker face. “I’m in if you are.”
“Let’s do this,” I said.
It only took a moment to set up. Dennis and I moved to opposite sides of the conference table with a pile of pieces in front of each of us. Tyler and Justin stood at the head of the table, each holding a card so we couldn’t see the picture on the other side.
When I looked at Dennis, he swiped at his forehead with the arm of his hoodie. I bared my teeth at him in a grin, cool as a cucumber. Nathan and Holly’s method for playing this game wouldn’t have worked for me and Tyler, since we weren’t big fans of The Office. But over the weekend, my roommate had helped Ryan and me come up with a similar strategy.
Hans held up one hand for attention. “Everyone ready?”
Tyler and I exchanged a smile before we both looked at him and nodded. Dennis grunted, which Hans apparently took for agreement, and Justin said, “Yup.”
“Excellent. On the count of three, then,” Hans said. “One… two… three… go!”
“Okay,” Tyler said. “Lay Mr. Darcy flat. Place Jane on one end in the middle. Balance Mr. Knightly on top. Stand Lydia up against the whole thing, touching Darcy and Knightly.”
As he spoke, my hands flew. Knowing which name went to each piece let me grab them with ease, turning and stacking without hesitation.
“Time out!” Dennis yelled. “What they’re saying doesn’t even
make sense.”
I ignored him. To my left, Tyler kept calling out instructions, which I followed until he said, “That’s it!”
“No fair,” Dennis said, “they cheated.”
My hands went to my hips as I turned to face him. “How?”
“Your partner is saying weird stuff to distract me.”
“No, he’s telling me which pieces to use. We’re working together, which is the point of the exercise.”
Behind him, Hans grinned. “Nothing Shannon did is inconsistent with the rules of the game or the spirit of the contest. They just came up with a more effective method of communication.”
I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him. Something about Dennis made me want to act like a five-year-old. Sticking my fingers in my ears and saying “Nyah nyah nyah” would have been a slight step up, but with a superhero effort, I refrained from that, too.
Tyler, who didn’t have to work at the company, apparently saw no reason to respond with maturity. He put his thumb to his nose and wiggled his fingers at Dennis. I could’ve hugged him for displaying exactly the sentiment I couldn’t.
Hans cleared his throat. “The agreement was that the winners are whoever wins two out of three rounds, yes? Let’s set up for round two.”
With a grin, I pushed Tyler the pieces so he could build the next structure and took one of the identical cards Hans held out to me and Dennis. He counted down, and when he gave the signal, I started firing instructions.
“Start with Mrs. Bennet, lying along the ground. Line up Bingley and Lady Catherine on either end, with space in the middle. Stretch Elizabeth between them like a bridge.”
Tyler followed my words with no hesitation, quickly replicating the image on my card. Meanwhile, Dennis glared at me, so angry that we completed the exercise before he’d uttered a single word to his partner. “Done!”
Hans quickly confirmed our victory, and this time I didn’t hold back my joy. I whooped loudly and launched myself at Tyler, knocking him off balance with my exuberant hug. He recovered quickly, scooping me up and twirling me around before setting me back on the ground. The air around us sizzled with my excitement.
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