Page 68 of Achievement Unlocked

People who worked in gaming were so weird. I loved it.I’ll pass it along. Thank you.

I forwarded the information to Elliot, and got back to my own work.

When my desk phone rang an hour or so later, and Elliot’s name showed on the screen, I hitSpeaker. Since I was in an office alone, there was no one to bother with my conversations. “Yeah.”

“You woke up this morning and chose violence?” Elliot asked.

“Sure. Why not? What are you talking about?”

“The level of detail in this issue, and the fact that it was sent before nine on a Monday morning.”

Ah. Right. Maybe I should’ve done a better job of pretending I found that myself. “I found it while we were working on bugs last week.”

“And you sat on it because you wanted the long weekend?” Elliot sounded skeptical.

“Because I knew all of you wanted the long weekend.”

Elliot snorted in disbelief. “Yeah. Okay. It doesn’t matter, I can’t reproduce it.”

“It works on my machineis not valid feedback.” The sign hanging above my desk said the same thing. Megan had made it for me, and the flowery background and flowing letters were the most ornate thing in the room.

“Come show me then,” Elliot said. “I’ve got debugging on, and I’ll watch while you reproduce.”

Images from this weekend, of that first day I met Landon and he and Megan… It all rushed back to tease me. “Phrasing.”

“Bite a dick.” Elliot must not be loving his Monday morning the way I was.

I bit back the urge to keep the pissing match going. Which wasn’t like me, but I wasn’t letting his mood bring mine down. “I’ll be right there.” I chomped into the speaker for emphasis, and disconnected.

As I walked through the lobby, the front door swung open and I had a different kind of flashback, of Easton showing up to threaten me. My quickening pulse picked up even faster when Landon walked in.

“Hey.” I gave him a warmer smile than I intended. Part of me had been certain he wouldn’t show up today.

“Hey.” His smile was tight. He was wearing slacks and a button-down shirt, and looked different than I’d ever seen him. Still sexy though. “I’m early. I hope that’s all right.”

“Not a problem. I’m heading over to the Dev area, so if you can let me deal with them, we’ll start our tour there, too.”

Landon shrugged. “Sounds good.”

He seemed more removed today. Was that because Megan wasn’t here, or was I imagining it? I wasn’t the best at reading more subtle cues. Luna could probably tell me, she was attuned to the universe, but if she decided he had adark and soul devouringvibe like she had with me, she’d hate him on sight.

That wasn’t fair to do to Landon.

I showed Landon to the Dev room, and we strolled past everyone with their heads down, most of them with headphones on, none of them caring we were there.

I knocked on the frame to Elliot’s office, and he looked up. “I didn’t realize this was show and tell.”

He was on one this morning.

“Landon, Elliot, our Director of Development. Elliot, Landon. My friend.” That felt like an understatement, but we’d leave things at that for now.

“The stripper?” Elliot asked.

Landon frowned. “How…?”

Jeremy had grumbled publicly about the asshole stripper who took advantage of his sister at her party, telling everyone never to hire Landon if they had the chance. I’d have to talk to him about retracting both the thought and the story.

“Sonya and Jeremy tell stories,” I said. “Literally their jobs, but don’t worry, Sonya made sure people knew nothing happened.”

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