Page 5 of Anti-Player

My smile slips on as my relief grows. “Great, you get it.”

“I definitely do.” Walking briskly to the computer, she grabs the Secret Reader, advances on me, then slams it into my chest. She begins to shut the door. “Goodbye, crazy man.”

“Wait!” Fuck, I'm saying all the wrong things. This isn't how it's supposed to go. Hell, anytime someone learns I'm Mikel Hause, the billionaire tech CEO of Hause Industries, they do their best to get closer to me, not further away! I'm the one awkwardly shutting doors in their faces, not the other way around. “Fawn, please, I just want to talk!”

My heart jumps when she leaves the door open a crack. Her single hazel-green eye stares at me suspiciously. “You tracked me down to change my mind about your terrible piece of junk. Even if you're not a psycho here to hurt me, you're trying to manipulate me. I'm not okay with that.”

Running a hand over my hair, I let out a sharp puff of air through my nostrils. “You're right, it must be a shock to you that I just showed up like this. But I'm not trying to manipulate you. I swear. I want to change your mind, and I want to change it genuinely.”

She hesitates; the door starts to swing inward. My hope crumbles as she suddenly shuts it in my face. With my stomach knotting up, I wonder what I'm going to do next. Call my team for advice? Move on with this hanging over me, driving me insane because this woman is the first flicker of honesty I've engaged with in far too long?

Her voice comes through the door, muffled, saying, “Give me five minutes.”

My joy soars. “Of course!”

While I wait for her, I slip the reading device into my satchel hanging on my shoulder. Has it always felt so heavy? Do I only notice it now because of what she'd said in her video?

The door pops open—the girl I know as Fawn of the Dead is standing there with her long brown hair loose around her shoulders, the bathrobe replaced by a hip-length gray and white striped cardigan, faded blue jeans, and a yellow tank-top with a black pineapple printed on it. “Follow me,” she says, giving me a wary look. She still doesn't trust me one bit. I have to change that fast.

She takes the lead in the dimly lit apartment hallway that smells too much like spoiled milk. I stay a few feet behind. I want to give her room, make it clear I respect her space. However... there is an unintended benefit I'm not prepared for.

Fawn—is that really her name?—has a stellar ass. The jeans highlight the perfect roundness, making me want to reach out for a double handful. I'm perspiring as I keep my composure while following her down the stairs from the third floor to the street outside.

The fresh air helps clear my head. There are distractions to aid me from staring hungrily at my new companion's gorgeous body. Why does she use a cartoon avatar on her stream? She has nothing to hide. I really don't understand the whole VR thing. I barely grasp social media. I'm 26, but I feel like I'm 80-something when my employees gossip about their followers or a viral tweet.

That was the whole point of sending the Secret Reader to Fawn in the first place. She's an online media star! Her word has power! But she hadn't said a single nice thing about my product.

“In here,” she says when we come up on a small coffee shop on the cracked sidewalk. It's crowded by sago palms and other greenery. The window displays a white-painted phrase: The Palm. She doesn't wait for me to respond, just pushes her way in.

It's a small cafe filled with the aroma of coffee and not much else. A woman waits behind a counter below a black-board of listed drinks. Fawn orders something quickly, is passed a mug, then she waves me over to one of the only three tables in the room.

I have a feeling she picked this place because it would be empty. Frowning mildly, I go to the counter, scanning the board. The woman standing there in her white apron gives me a giant smile and bedroom eyes. I fidget because, as usual, I don't know how to handle such overt attention. One of my co-workers told me it must be a curse to be so attractive yet so oblivious at picking up signals.

“Just a regular house coffee. Black,” I say.

Once she's done fumbling around to get me my drink, I carry it over to Fawn. She watches me approach the way a cat would watch a dog. Distrust is the word of the day. “Okay,” I say to her, sitting down, setting my satchel on the floor. “Where do we begin?”

“We?” she scoffs. “You start. Who the hell are you, why do you think it's okay to just waltz into my apartment using a GPS tracker like you're some undercover CIA guy from a Tom Clancy novel?”

I sip my coffee slowly while trying not to smile at her question. I never thought of myself as sneaky before. Placing my cup on the table near hers, I notice she's drained half of it while I was ordering. Is she thirsty or nervous? Both? “I told you, I'm Mikel Hause. I created the Secret Reader that you eagerly shredded on your stream today.”

“You were watching.”

“Yes. In my car.”

That gets a quick, humorless laugh out of her. “So you were in your car casing my place, waiting to burst in and bully me into saying sweet things about your busted reader.”

“No!” I snap—my own anger shocks me. Her, too; Fawn's eyes widen. I lean closer, voice low as I implore with all my might. “I didn't know you lived over there. It's a coincidence.”

“But tracking the device down to get to me wasn't.”

“It wasn't,” I agree regretfully. “I see now how that was wrong. I didn't think it through, just acted on my gut when I realized everything you said was right.” Her face softens. Sensing I'm getting through to her, I slide my chair forward. When I do, my knees brush against hers under the table.

It's brief. Barely a tickle.

Sparks of heat assault me without mercy.

Before I can pull away, she does it first, scraping her chair over the floor. The color of her cheeks is Santa-red, like when she saw me for the first time, but it isn't anger. With her lips half open, I swear she feels the same energy I do. The same desire.

It's the way the coffee-worker smiled at me, a desire to see what else I have to offer.

Just like how I couldn't stop gazing at Fawn's ass as we left her apartment.

“Excuse me, I have to—excuse me!” Pointing towards the restroom sign, she bolts out of view, leaving me alone with her half-full cup of coffee and my overflowing curiosity.

---