Page 12 of Playing With Matches
It’s a statement. If you don’t do the show, I think most of the investors are gonna bail.
I sigh. It’s not like I can’t self-fund the app, but I don’t like being that exposed. I’ve worked damn hard to get the kind of security I never had growing up.
Rob comes back into the room. “You hungry, Jackson? What say we grab some tacos for lunch to celebrate this partnership, and afterward I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team?”
“Sounds like we have a deal,” I slip my phone back into my pocket and stand to shake his hand again. I don’t really have a choice, and it’s the logical thing to do. I was going to do it regardless. But now that I’ve met Rob, I actually believe some good is going to come of this.
I just have to figure out how to get the stupid song out of my head.
Playing with matches, burning up the night,
Walking on the edge, but it feels so right,
Flickering flames of passion, we can't contain,
We're lost in the heat, playing dangerous games.
isla
“People lie all the time. You can’t trust a thing they say about themselves. But you can’t lie to an AI Engine. Santa’s got nothing on my app.”
~Jackson Porter, Playing With Matches Confessionals
I wolfdown a quick lunch at the food court in the shopping mall next to my agent’s office tower before calling for a car to take me to Goodfellow Productions. The seating area is evenly divided between harried mothers shaking strollers to keep their babies asleep and harried office workers guzzling coffee to keep themselves awake. I’m not sure where I fit, so instead of sitting down, I eat standing up at a cocktail table by the windows. I’m treated to a view of the cars whizzing by on the freeway below. The great mystery of LA traffic is how it’s always moving until you’re in it.
Once I’m in the Uber, barely inching along on the I-10, I reply to my editor’s insistent texts about my now overdue manuscript. What better time to address it? If only the twin miseries of traffic and unpleasant conversation will somehow cancel each other out.
My editor tends to nag me like she’s my mum. Except my mum has never nagged me about the things normal mums nag about. My mum texts me reminders to get waxed. She sends suggestions about booking boudoir sessions while my boobs are still perky. That’s my mum. Always looking out for me.
When am I going to see those chapters Isla?
I’m working on it
That’s not what I asked. You need to finish this book by October. You’re down to less than two months and I have not seen Chapter One!
I’m hoping to have plenty of time to get everything together for you when I get to the islands.
That's what I keep telling myself, anyways.
Wonderful. The show should really help with sales. The publisher will be pleased. It might buy you another chance.
Another chance for what?
Sylvia didn’t tell you they canceled the fall book tour?
No. My agent probably didn't want to double up on the bad news. But it’s not a shock. None of the bookstores I’ve stopped into while I’ve been in the US have had a single copy of my books.
Not enough orders?
Sad face.
I guess my books don’t align as well with the American market.
They are such repressed pervs over there. Have you considered spicing things up in this last one? Maybe adding some animal shifters to the mix?
No.
At the very least, some professional athletes and mob bosses? Maybe a former athlete alphahole who is a billionaire mob boss?
