Page 7 of Cross Check Daddies
Ace scoffs quietly beside me. “We don’t need a game. We need a championship.”
Jeremy Henry looks at him and says, “Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Ace holds up a hand. “I’m saying we’ve been in the media more for who’s screwing who than who’s scoring goals. You want butts in seats? Win games. Run a clean season. Get Daisy to write a redemption arc if we need headlines.”
“No more tabloid bait,” Kapoor says flatly. “We want brand sustainability.”
That’s when Lena speaks up. “We’ve been vetting a few digital gaming companies with the goal of creating an interactive game modeled after the Miami Icemen—something fans can not only play but also stream. We approached two companies. One was FuryWorks Studio. It was big and flashy, with a good pedigree.”
She pauses. The air changes.
“The other was GameHatch.”
Jason, one of the analysts, frowns. “Isn’t that the smaller one?”
“It’s female-led,” Lena continues. “Innovative. They’ve broken every projection this year. Their last launch clocked over a million downloads in the first seventy-two hours. They’ve got Twitch streamers wearing their merch, influencers pushing their beta codes, and they’re developing an all-female e-sports team. It’s smart. It’s fresh. It’s exactly the kind of partnership we want.”
Jason shakes his head. “Still risky. FuryWorks has the track record.”
“But Brooke built GameHatch from scratch,” Lena says. “And she’s local. This team needs more than reputation right now. We need direction. Brooke knows how to turn something messy into something magnetic. I think what she’s done is exactly what we want to align ourselves with. And she’s not starting from zero—they’ve already got modular engines and frameworks they can build on.”
My stomach knots.
Brooke?
I glance down at my phone, pretending to check the time, but my thumb is already pulling up the GameHatch site.
The loading screen flickers, and then there she is. The photo is professional, but her face is still the same—full lips, freckles, and a jawline that used to tighten right before she came. And those eyes, sharp and warm, the same ones that used to flash every time she argued with me just to get a rise.
I almost choke on my coffee.
The credentials scroll below her photo: CEO and Founder of GameHatch. Former game developer at PixelGirl Studios. Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in tech. Keynote speaker at the Women in Gaming summit. Features in Wired, Polygon, and IGN. Accolades stacked like she hasn’t slept in five years.
Brooke is the proposal.
Brooke is the fucking proposal.
I lean back in my chair, pulse low and heavy in my neck. She’s the one woman I never planned to see again, not after she left back then, not after she left again last night, and now her name is being passed around this room like she’s just a checkbox on a contract.
I don’t hear the rest of what Lena says. I don’t hear Jason’s rebuttal or Ace’s slow sigh. I don’t hear the owners deliberating on next steps or the new PR guy pitching teaser trailer concepts. All I see is Brooke’s name and her photo and that smirk she always wore right before wrecking me.
And now we’re giving her a contract.
I can already imagine the launch parties and cross-promos, and her walking into this arena in heels and a blazer and not even looking my way. Or worse. Looking and seeing nothing.
I lock my phone and force myself to breathe.
The meeting wraps up, but my brain’s still lagging behind. Everyone’s gathering their files, tossing around buzzwords like synergy and engagement, but I’m stuck on one thing. Brooke.
I don’t say anything as we file out of the conference room. Ace gives me a sidelong glance like he knows I’m somewhere else, but he doesn’t ask. Smart of him. I’d lie. My phone vibrates with a message from Tanner—just a dumb gif—but I don’t reply. I head down to the locker room, pretend to grab something from my cubby, then change course entirely.
She built a company from the ground up, got her name printed in Forbes, and somehow managed to not show up on my radar until now. Not even a whisper. I should’ve known. Of course she’d go dark and then explode like this. That’s always been her. Quiet until she’s not.
I get into my car, sit there for a few minutes with the AC on full blast, staring at my phone. Her photo is still open in one tab. She looks polished and powerful. My chest tightens in this strange, uneven rhythm, but it’s not panic. It’s anticipation. My hands tighten on the wheel, and I start driving.
It doesn’t take long to get there.
GameHatch’s offices are in a sleek, remodeled warehouse in Wynwood, the kind with matte black signage, big glass windows, and murals sprayed down the side in layers of neon and soft pink.
