Page 16 of One More Round

I look into the sliding door and can see enough through the blinds that all the boxes from the living room and kitchen that she and her mom had been packing up are gone. Their furniture—the couch, the Lay-Z-Boy—is nowhere in sight.

She wouldn't do this.

She wouldn't leave without saying goodbye.

We still had a few days left.

My heart shatters as I stumble back to the realization that she did precisely that. I lift my phone to my ear again, not at all surprised that I get her voicemail from the start.

"Gia. Why would you do this? You're a fucking coward."

I'm pissed.

And damn it, my heart is broken.

The girl I love just left without saying goodbye and I'm willing to bet I'll never see or hear from her again.

Chapter Nine

Simon

“All I’m saying is that we should be able to raise more than three hundred thousand dollars this year,” Link exclaims as he pulls a Snapple from the fridge.

“Yeah, I know, but I don’t want to set our sights too high. Last year they only raised two hundred fifty thousand dollars and I know they were sweating it toward the end,” Dex counters.

We are in the gaming room, the space we occupy in the building for practice. While we call it the gaming room, it’s not what normal people would think of when they hear the term. It's the size of our three-bedroom apartment on the floor above. But it was gutted when the team bought it and now it’s pretty much a big open space. There is a bathroom, a kitchen area with a bar and a small but relaxing space with two overstuffed couches and a big-screen TV. The floor-to-ceiling windows that cover one full wall have been tinted so we don’t have to battle glare but can still enjoy the view when we’ve been holed up, practicing for hours on end. We have an excellent gaming setup for a team of five. Each of us has a nice-sized desk with two monitors. One monitor is hooked up to the PS4 gaming system and the other to a computer.

We spend eight to ten hours a day in this room. Think of it as our office.

Right now, we are having our first team meeting about the upcoming fundraising event we will be hosting. It’s for the publisher ofCall of Battle, VisionWare. The event is called The Endowment, and its purpose is to fund organizations to help unemployed veterans get back to work in quality jobs. It’s sponsored by one or two big name companies in the industry. We work with astream-for-charity website that will encourage our live-stream viewers to donate as they watch.Essentially, we’ll be playing the newCall of Battlefor seven days straight during the fundraising event.

While it’s a lot of fun to interact with the gaming community, it’s going to be very tiring because we are on camera for seven days straight. The team will take shifts, only being all together two or three times during the event. I’m thankful this only happens once a year.

I’m sitting on the couch with Dex, Bernie, Chuck, Ben, our manager John, and Link. Link left our team a while back but since he spends so much time over here, we still consider him to be one of us.

“Why are you here again?” I mock him. “This is a team meeting.”

Dex and Ben just smirk. Bernie gives me a disapproving look. But I’m just yanking his chain. He’s here because he’s a valuable asset to the team. He thinks of himself as our team’s business strategy consultant.

“I’m here, D-bag, because you guys need a strategy. You don’t just need a strategy for playing a video game, you need an effective plan to make the big bucks,” he replies.

“We do make the big bucks,” I point out.

“I’m just saying, you need someone outside the team, who has a great knack for business,” he explains. “A successful entrepreneur.” He’s starting to sound cocky.

“You run a YouTube channel,” I say blandly.

“Yeah, with more than two million subscribers. It’s a business, my friend.” He grins.

I flip him off. But he knows his marketing strategy genius is a valuable benefit for our team. After all, that YouTube channel makes him more than two hundred thousand a year. But, like professional video gaming, people don’t consider being a YouTube personality as having a real career.

“Alright, we’ve already gotten off topic several times, guys. I’ve got stuff to do today.” Bernie speaks over all of the chatter in the room. She seems to be the voice of reason, most of the time.

Dex snags the pencil out from behind his ear and taps the eraser end on the notebook in his lap.

“Back to the agenda.”

Yes, we have to have an agenda, or we won’t accomplish anything.

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