Page 56 of Game On

“So you’re foisting them on us?” Jamie asked, even as he reached into the bag.

Archie shrugged. “Someone’s got to eat them. Might as well be us. You ready for this overtime, JJ?”

“Sure.” Jamie smiled self-deprecatingly. “But only if one of you can tell me what Coach Shore was going on about earlier.”

“Take the other four bags of these crackers off my hands and you’re on.”

Jamie took the crackers.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Dorian did what he always did when his brain was being stupid.

He worked.

A lot.

He recalled the email he’d sent to Mark with Matt’s video attached for his approval, then spent an hour refining it. Then he did the same with Emery’s. Then he moved on to subscription box stuff, following up with vendors, researching products, and planning for next year’s spring box.

For three days, he covered the Orcas’ morning skate, went into the office for a few hours, and worked late in his home office. By the fourth day, he had Matt’s, Emery’s, Jamie’s, and a handful of other intro videos done and ready to go, and he had most of the spring box planned out.

On the fourth day, his boxes arrived.

“Ooh. Look at these, Poppy.”

Three hundred boxes came unassembled and in six crates of fifty, and he had the delivery driver drop them in a corner of his office. He opened one and pulled out a box, quickly assembling it to see what it looked like. He’d ordered a sample before approving the print project, of course, but this was the final thing, and the zippy current of joy that rushed through him had him bouncing on his feet to the music piping through the speakers in his home office.

He showed Poppy the assembled box. “What do you think?”

She was more interested in her chew toy.

He didn’t take her disinterest to heart. His box looked damn good.

He’d opted for a plain brown kraft box instead of something colourful. On the lid was his logo in black—Fir & Pine in block letters with the outlines of pine needles encircling the words in a half-moon. On the inside of the lid was the outline of a fall scene—a generic leafy tree, its leaves falling to the ground. Above it was the instruction: Colour me in and share on social media for a chance to win your next box on us! And the bottom of the box held his social media handles, as well as a note that ten percent of proceeds were donated to a provincial charity.

He’d opted for one that supported underprivileged families with learning resources, school materials, and tutoring, since the fall was traditionally back-to-school time. Proceeds from sales of the winter box would go to a food bank. For the spring box? Perhaps an environmental organization or animal rescue. Didn’t many species have their babies in spring? That seemed appropriate.

He was so excited about the boxes that he began assembling them before remembering that he didn’t need them for another few months. With the fall box scheduled to ship in late August, he didn’t need them assembled until that month.

Poppy was the only witness to his pout.

His good mood over the boxes popped like a proverbial balloon when he received an email from one of the makers for his fall box.

They couldn’t make his deadline.

Never mind that the products weren’t due to him until August first, giving them four and a half months to get him what he needed. But they’d had a death in the family and they had to travel—abroad—to take care of estate stuff. The business would be put on pause until they returned, which was looking like early June, and that wasn’t enough time to fulfill his orders by his deadline.

The biscuit mix couldn’t go in his fall box.

“Fuck my life.” Sitting back in his chair, he pressed his fingertips into his eyes.

The maker was happy to be included in the winter box because they could make that deadline, but Dorian already had the winter box lined up.

Rising, he grabbed his notepad and went over to his corkboard.

In his winter box, he had a cookie-scented vegan hand cream; candy cane meringues; an all-natural holiday-scented stovetop simmer to make the house smell like Christmas; sustainably made cozy socks; a felted-art desk calendar; mint-and-rosemary hand soap; and reusable gift wrap made of organic cotton.

“I could swap the meringues for the biscuit mix,” he murmured to Poppy.

---