“Thanks, buddy. Now, if you could only tell me how to break it to the family that I’m seeing Angela Taylor.”
I walkoff the elevator and through the lobby. I texted Jerry to let him know I’d be in later today after my visit with James. He tried convincing me to take the day off, but I need to stay busy and what other way than to come into work.
“Hey, Donnie,” Carter greets as he joins me in my walk to my office.
“You know I hate that nickname.” I open the door to my office and flick on the lights, before deciding to keep them off and just use the corner lamp along with the natural light from outside.
“Until you give me another name to call you, it’s sticking. Which, at this rate, I’ve been using it for a decade, and you haven’t told me to stop.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a lot to deal with?” I ask lightly as I drop into my chair.
“Yes. Yes, I have heard that.”
I snort and login to see the plethora of emails that have filled up my inbox. Groaning, I start at the bottom, but see Carter out of the corner of my eye, looking incredibly nervous.
“What’s up?” I ask and direct my attention to him instead.
“How are you and Angie?” he asks instead of answering my question, but I see his body move and know he’s shaking his leg.
I narrow my eyes at him and give him my full attention. “We have our challenges, but we’re good. However, that’s not what you wanted to talk about, is it?”
He shakes his head.
“Is it the guy you’re seeing?”
Carter nods.
“Okay, pal. The only way this conversation can work is if you talk.”
“He wants to meet my friends,” Carter blurts out.
“Is that a bad thing?” I ask with a tilt of my head in confusion and try to hold back a smile.
He shrugs and that gesture makes him look like the eighteen-year-old boy I met over a decade ago. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen Carter confused and upset. One time was at James’s funeral, another was during our graphic design seminar our senior year because he was nervous out of his mind, and the last time was when Carter celebrated being a first-generation College graduate amongst his family. So seeing my friend torn up over his partner wanting to meet his friends makes me want to go to battle for him.
“How about this,” I begin and revel in the way his face lights back up, “let me see what Angie’s schedule is this weekend and we can do dinner at my place.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Plus, it’ll give you another chance to get to know Ang without a bar between you two.”
Carter nods and lets out a deep breath. “Okay. Thanks, Brandon.”
“Of course. So where are we at with the game?” I ask, wanting to get back to work.
“It’s in audio production right now for sound effects and character dialogue, and then we’ll do another round of testing—maybe that’s when you bring in your brothers to do a test,” he pauses and waits for me to nod, “and then we’ll add the background music, followed by another test.”
“And we’ve double checked that quality looks the same on every gaming device, correct?”
“Quadruple checked it. But I’m gonna go and do another check to make sure that it passes every level of inspection,” Carter tells me and stands up.
“Thanks, Carter,” I tell him.
“No problem.”
Once he leaves, I crank out a few responses to emails, and a smile crosses my face when one from Angie pops into my inbox. When I finally got her all the information for the company’s social media pages, she hit the ground running. I go through the drive of the fifty attachments for the game launch that she attached, and each one has my jaw slacking more and more.
I pick up my office phone and dial Jerry.
