Page 74 of The Fae Menagerie
It was longer now than it had been earlier in the day, and I probably still looked like a half-drowned rat. A wave of exhaustion threatened to take me down, but Edward grabbed my elbow and steered me to the company owner, Mx. Bulsara.
"Wonderful to meet you in person, Parker," they said. Their voice reminded me of Chani's, so much so that I glanced around for a second set of arms. They had radiant brown skin and theireyes, only one set, were the same light gray. "I look forward to hearing your presentation."
"Thank you," I said as Edward pulled me away again.
"You lied to me earlier," he whispered as we slid into our seats. "You went to the salon for a touch-up."
"I can't make it to the salon and back in the time it takes to go to the bathroom," I reminded him. The sunlight outside my dad's office windows was too bright for me to catch my reflection in the conference room's glass. Edward's jealousy said my hair wasn't too far out of place, or if it was, at least it looked stylish.
The longer I sat at the conference table and listened to boring side conversations, the more I thought the menagerie had been a dream. Bret must have dragged me to the basement, hit me over the head, and left me for dead earlier in the day. In the seat across from me, he hunched in on himself like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
My dad cleared his throat, indicating the start of the meeting. He gave a brief introduction of himself and his company. Then we went around the table explaining job titles, how long we'd been in our current position, and a fun fact about ourselves.
The only thing connecting me to the menagerie was the coin still in my pocket. I ran my thumb over the pattern facing outward, trying to determine if it was the dragon or the raven.
When it was my turn, I mumbled the job stuff I could recite in my sleep since we said it often enough. As an afterthought, I shared the video game I had obsessed over months back.
"I've played that," the head programmer said, echoed by the rest of her team. "You should join us sometime," she said. "We'll share gamer profiles."
My dad cleared his throat again, his way of calling an unruly meeting back to order.
"After the meeting, of course," I said.
When it was Bret's turn, he shared he'd played the same video game. His voice was so soft, only Edward and I heard him.
Introductions over, my dad turned to me. "Parker has been working on this gambling application for some time now. He'll take it from here."
I rose from my seat, waiting for the usual clamp of anxiety to settle over me, but it didn't. I laid my notes out on the table before me and Edward kept pace with me, flipping pages at the right places. I didn't need them. I gave the entire speech from memory without a hitch. I even shared some silly jokes I'd thought of during those long hours seated on the viewing couch with nothing to do but read bad romances and talk to Doyle.
Doyle. My chest seized so hard, I missed the first question from the head developer.
'I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
"What is the estimated timeline for the build?"
Bret opened his mouth, but I silenced him with a glare. "I'm not an app developer."
The team followed my poor attempt at a joke with nervous laughter. They didn't know how to take me, and I didn't blame them. I had an entire timeline laid out in my folder, but my gut told me they would take one look at it and turn us down.
"I'm just the son of a casino king," I said, giving my dad a slight bow to show I meant no harm by the strange honorific. "I don't want to rush it to market if it's full of bugs, but we need to hurry if we want to be the first international gaming app on the market. If we make this deal, I'll be interested in seeing the timeline you create."
Mx. Bulsara shifted in their seat, loosening their crossed arms and resting their elbows on the table instead, leaning forward and glancing at each member of the team.
"Well, what do you think, team?" they asked.
"We can bring it to market in three months," the lead developer said.
My dad's eyes nearly bugged out of his head before his face lit up with his brightest smile. "That works for me," he said. "Does that work for you, Bulsara?"
They grimaced at the missing prefix, but shook my dad's hand, all the same. "Yes, Mr. Moynahan. With the initial sale price and 60/40 split of profits Parker suggested, we are happy to make this deal with you."
After the meeting, the head developer pulled me aside to gush over the deal. "I can't believe you'll let us set our own timeline. We were already working on this project because we thought you'd try to micromanage us." My dad, and our company by design, had a bad habit of that. "We were going straight to the Holts if you'd said something unreasonable."
"I'm glad you didn't, or I would have to marry Penny Holt," I said. "That would have been awkward, since I turned her down once already."
She laughed at me like I'd told the best joke in the world and clapped me on the shoulder.
"Congratulations, Parker," Mx. Bulsara said as they shouldered the developer aside to shake my hand again. "Doyle will be very proud of you."
