Page 37 of The Grump I Loathe
OnceAlterbotreleased, there’d be no end to it.
“Why don’t you get ready, and I’ll swing you out to the airport to meet Grandma before I head to the office?”
“Yay!” Grace cheered, rushing off to get dressed while I sent a message to the family group chat, explaining the situation. Mom and Liam both said that was no problem and Finn piped up, saying he and Sierra would take Grace out to Santa Monica Pier if she wanted.
I thanked them, then got up to pack Grace some snacks to take on the plane. I paused at the counter, frowning at the pictures she’d drawn of the dresses she wanted to try on. My heart broke for her all over again, and I cracked my knuckles, hating whateverthingAli had that had taken precedence over Grace today.
Once Grace and Mom were on the jet, I made my way to the office, arriving in time to catch the end of the scheduled playtest Max was running. If Ali had canceled any other day, I would have just brought Grace along to the office with me, but today was one of the most important playtests of the project—the secret “Juni Protocol.”
When the lastHyperiongame came out, Grace could only watch me play select scenes. The gameplay for the sequel was still far above her abilities, and the violence wasn’t exactly age-appropriate, but I intended to build an adaptation that allowed an inexperienced player to collect in-game currency alongside an experienced player. Today, we’d amassed the first group of kids, aged eight to twelve, to test the protocol, and bringing Grace along would have ruined the surprise.
“What’s the verdict?” I asked once Max had joined me in the conference room. “They looked like they were having fun.”
Max huffed a laugh. “Was that your takeaway?” He flipped a paper over on his clipboard. “The general consensus was…that the kids hated it.”
I frowned. “That can’t be right. Let me see the surveys.” I held my hand out for the clipboard and flipped through them myself, reading the highlighted notes. “Really boring…Too easy…It feels like I’m just standing around, killing time…” I scanned more of the surveys, a scowl dragging the corners of my mouth down. “This one just says ‘Bruh?’.”
“Yeah, that kid got so annoyed he walked out early.”
I rubbed my jaw. “You’re sure you gave them the right levels to try?”
Max gave me a flat look. “Of course. There’s a whole slew of comments like that.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “But that’s what these playtests are for. To work out the issues. We can take all these critiques and go back to the drawing board.”
“We don’t have time to keep going back to the drawing board,” I said, calculating when we’d be able to conduct another playtest. “We need to get this right, and we need it to happen rightnowif the Juni Protocol is going to launch with the game.”
Max lifted his shoulder. “The level designers don’t have the fix to your problem yet. And they won’t until the team reconvenes on Monday. I’d invite you out for a beer, but I can tell you’re in your ‘I don’t want comfort, I want solutions’ mode.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Call me later if you want to chat,” he said. “If not, I’ll see you on Monday. Don’t stay here all weekend and brood.”
“I don’t brood.”
“You’re worse than a hen,” Max said, heading for the door. “I mean it, Lockhart. Go home.”
I waved him off, giving the team time to clear out before I headed up to my office with the clipboard of notes. I plopped down in my chair, staring at the comments. I wasn’t a design guy, and I had no immediate solutions that would make the protocol better, but I couldn’t just abandon the problem from now until Monday without even attempting to come up with an idea to fix it. After all the disappointment Grace had faced this year, letting the Juni Protocol flop was another way I’d be failing her.
By late afternoon, I’d dragged Eddie’s favorite whiteboard into my office, listed out all the comments, and drawn a big fat question mark in the middle. When something slapped against my office wall, I turned toward it with a scowl, thinking it might be Max coming to drag me off to another club scene from hell. But when I looked up, Eddie stood there with a handwritten note.
Thought I was the only one who worked weekends?
My gaze shifted up and down, taking in her casual outfit. It was a far cry from the little black dress she’d worn in the club, but for some reason the faded skinny jeans and hoodie sent my heart racing in exactly the same way. I shouldn’t be this eager to see her outside ofworking hours. I flicked my head, and she waltzed in like she owned the place, throwing herself down in the seat next to my desk.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Max told me how chill this place was on the weekends when no one’s in. I’ve got a lot of roommates, so it can get kind of crazy at home. Sometimes it’s nice to get away, you know? I’ve been taking advantage.”
Of-fucking-coursehe had. I was going to change his name to Meddling Max. Max, who’d practically thrown me at her at the club. Max, who hadn’t stopped talking about how I should rip up the new policy and get together with Eddie ever since. Then again, I was no better.
Despite how hard I’d tried to scrub the memory of Eddie’s body pressed against mine, I couldn’t. Something was shifting between us. I felt it when I caught her eye after a meeting or when we passed in the stairwell on the way to lunch, shoulders brushing.
“What areyoudoing here?” Eddie continued. “Don’t tell me coming in on the weekend is your idea of fun.”
I snorted. “No, actually, it’s interrupting my time with Grace. But this was the best time to schedule the playtest for the Juni Protocol, considering our ideal audience is usually in school during the work week.”
Eddie perked up. “I forgot that was this weekend! How’d it go?” I gestured to the notes on my desk. She leaned forward and scanned them. “‘Bruh?’ Ha! So…not great then?”
My jaw tightened.
