MY RUM PUNCH ARRIVES AND IT’S DIVINE, LIKE SOMETHING I WOULD have consumed in a dorm room at UCLA, in the best possible way—plummy and sweet. On the waiter’s suggestion, we’ve both ordered the jerk chicken, which arrives plated with three large, bone-in pieces of blackened chicken, shoestring fries, and a condiment bowl filled with a spicy sauce so delicious I want to drink it. Before I’ve swallowed the first bite, I decide to order this food and drink combination as many times as possible on this trip. Watching Charlie’s eyes close in delight upon his own first bite confirms it.
We clear our plates in haste, and as we wet-wipe our fingers, Charlie asks the waiter refilling our water glasses, “Excuse me, would you mind taking our picture?” He hands the server his phone and we lean in from either end of the table, producing photo-worthy smiles. As the waiter positions the phone, Charlie reaches across the table, places his hand atop mine, and pulls it gently toward him. We are holding hands across the splatters of jerk chicken sauce and I force myself to remember, it isn’t real.
He thanks the waiter then focuses on his screen.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just kind of fun, posting pictures of us on this trip.” He evaluates the photo a little longer before replacing the phone in his pocket.
Every table is now full, and I see there are some families in addition to all the couples, though they are sparse. Despite the restaurant’s full capacity, there’s ample distance between tables and we might as well be in a private room that contains a private ocean. The temperature has dropped slightly and a playful breeze bounces across the space. I wrap my arms around my center. “Do you want me to run up to the suite and grab a sweater?” he asks.
“No, I’m okay. I like it,” I tell him.
“How’s the game going?” Charlie asks when the waiter has cleared our plates.
I sigh. “I haven’t even chosen my concept yet.”
“But you worked on it the whole plane ride yesterday and all day today, I thought.”
“I did . . . I mean I thought I was building something workable, but it turned out to be just a distraction.”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something great.” He says it so matter-of-factly that I almost believe him. “Your family must be incredibly proud of you, the way you’re pursuing your dreams.”
“Video games are a hobby, not a career, my mom says. Or at least, certainly not a career that seems promising to her. I want to prove her wrong. Prove everyone wrong.”
He listens intently and I keep talking, hoping the uncorking will allow some game-related creativity to escape me too.
“The only careers my mother would respect for me are as a doctor or engineer. Everything else will lead to me ending up with a sign on the side of the road begging for money, she thinks.” I shrug. “Luckily, Finn’s cute. I may get some sympathy side-of-the-road bucks because of him.”
“You’ve clearly thought about this.”
“I have.”
I reflect on the call with my mom the other night. Every day that goes by without a job in game design is another day closer to Plan B—the version of my reality where I work in engineering and marry a guy of my mother’s choosing, knowing I failed at building the life I actually desired.
“So you really think your parents wouldn’t help you out, if it came to that?”
“There’s no way I’d admit to my parents if this doesn’t work out. My mom’s got a whole horrible plan for me . . .”
“One that involves an office and no video games.”
I point at him. “Right.”
Charlie leans forward with his hands clasped, resting his forearms on the table. My eyes linger on the blond hairs against the tanned skin of his forearms. “I can relate,” he says. “For my parents, having their only child pursue acting isn’t exactly something they rush to tell the neighbors about. Especially when they’ve spent their lives doing humanitarian work. And especially when the biggest thing I’ve done is a spray-on abs commercial.”
I warm, realizing Charlie and I do have some things in common after all, besides recent heartbreak.
“So acting is the dream, then,” I say.
“Yeah. It is.” He presses his lips together thoughtfully. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been willing to admit that out loud since it hasn’t worked out yet, not in any real way. But perhaps you’ve inspired me a little.” Charlie lifts his water glass, hoists it into the air. “To pursuing our passions, regardless of whether it disappoints our parents.”
I clink his glass and can’t help but laugh a little at how in one brief conversation, Charlie has supported my dreams more than most of the people in my life.
Charlie takes a long sip of his water, sets the glass on the table, hand still wrapped around it. “You said what you’ve been working on was a distraction—what did you mean?”
He watches as I mentally debate whether to share what I’ve spent my time on these last two days. The time that should have been dedicated to choosing and starting on a viable concept for Catapult. Before I can overthink it, I pull out the laptop from my bag and open it. He watches as I navigate to the right screen and then turn it to face him.
“Revenge Cheese,” he reads from my screen, eyelids narrowed in a question.
“You were so . . .” I want to say sad, but feel as though that description might poke at him. “So preoccupied yesterday and today. I set out to create the game for Catapult, but it turned into this and then I just kind of went down a rabbit hole.”
I click to the next screen and hand him the laptop, the avatar I created staring back at him. “Oh, wow!” he declares. “How’d you get it to look so much like her?”
“I stalked her social media last night, then built the avatar as close as I could get it.”
Before Charlie on the screen is an image that bears a strong resemblance to his ex. She’s wearing a crocheted bikini top, inspired by the one Brooke is wearing in the picture he showed me the other day. Her chestnut hair hangs in a wavy pile against her back. Though I couldn’t see the rest of her outfit in that profile picture, I’ve taken the liberty of adding a blue-and-green floral wrap tied around her waist and a pink plumeria tucked behind one ear to go with the beach-themed outfit.
“You made this?” He looks at me with regard, jaw slack, and it feels like a profoundly personal compliment.
“I did.”
“Wow,” he says quietly, eyes fluttering around the screen, taking in every detail. “You did make one mistake.” He shifts the screen to me. “Her eyes don’t look diabolical enough.”
I laugh awkwardly. Then why do you want her back? Why would you want to be with someone you have such animosity for? I want to ask, again and again. But again, I know the answer.
He begins to follow the prompts on the screen and soon realizes the game’s goal. He laughs—a real, crowing laugh I’ve never heard from him before.
I stand behind him now, leaning over his shoulder. “I figured, sure, you could walk around with a machete or a gun or something, but there are already so many violent video games like that, and when you’re building a prototype of a real person . . .”
He nods. “But cheese?” He laughs again. “How’d you come up with that?”
“You told me she was lactose intolerant.”
I watch intently as he navigates the prototype, leading his own avatar through the cityscape, looking for Brooke. He’s smiling the entire time, dimple etched deep into his cheek, as he navigates LA—walking south on Vine, past the Capitol Records Building, down the middle of an abandoned Hollywood Boulevard, across from El Capitan. When he eventually finds her, exiting a party bus in front of Larry Edmunds Bookshop, he yells “There!” then pushes the button to release her punishment. His avatar winds up, leans forward, and slings a slice of cheese, which lands squarely on her face. A direct hit. On my computer screen, she squeals in disbelief, her one visible eye wide and blinky.
“Nice!” I say over his shoulder, and we high-five.
He’s still staring at the screen, at Brooke’s avatar—a slice of yellow cheddar covering most of her face. “That was surprisingly satisfying,” he says on an exhale. “You did this all in the last twenty-four hours?”
“Some on the plane too. While you were sleeping. But yes, I stayed up most of the night, couldn’t seem to stop myself.”
He twists to look back at me. “How could you possibly build this so fast?”
“Concept prototyping can be done on existing platforms, so really it was just a matter of making some key decisions . . . the look of the avatar, replacing a gun with a slice of cheese, et cetera. And I figured I’d put her in front of a bookstore to throw you off.”
He shakes his head and smiles. “The music is my favorite part.”
I don’t tell him it’s one of my favorite parts too. Something I created for a previous design—an upbeat percussion ensemble reminiscent of the intro music of Sex in the City, which oddly fits the hunt.
“Sloane, this is incredible.”
Shocks of electricity bolt in my stomach as I realize the magnitude of the moment. I hadn’t thought about it before I showed him, but this is the first time I’ve shared any game creation, silly or otherwise, with someone other than the interviewing panel at Catapult. Tess hasn’t even seen any, despite her multiple requests, which I’ve held off with a “when they’re ready.” Even Zane never saw anything I had worked on. I was afraid he’d think my games were juvenile, underdeveloped and unsophisticated compared to his master designs.
“It’s throwing cheese at someone’s face in a video game. A rip-off of an old TikTok trend. I’d hardly call it incredible. And it’s not much more than a mock-up.”
He shakes his head and hands me the computer. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Downplay what you’ve done here. It’s brilliant. You’re really talented, Sloane.” He takes a sip of water, holding my gaze. “Can I play it every night before bed while we’re here? I think it’ll help me sleep.”
I cannot contain my delight. “Absolutely.”
He smiles at me, a sincere, tender smile that makes my throat burn.
“Thank you,” he says, and I truly feel as though I’ve given him some kind of gift.
This. This divine, tactile sense of satisfaction is why I have to work in game design. I didn’t fully realize until now how desperately I crave the acceptance Charlie has just given me.
Throughout my relationship with Zane, I sought validation from him that I could be even a fraction as good as him at game design.
“Everyone thinks they can do this,” he told me once over eggs Benedict in his apartment after I had worked up the nerve to tell him I wanted to be serious about game design too. “Like, just because you might be able to come up with a decent game idea, that you can actually execute on it. Those are two very different things.” I remember looking down at my plate, realizing the ham rounds I’d used might be expired. I silently watched him take another bite as I pushed my own plate away.
I replace the laptop in my bag and look at Charlie. “Yeah, well, now I have you to blame if I have nothing to show the team at Catapult except a game of throwing slices of revenge cheese.”
“I think if you show them you can come up with something like that in forty-eight hours, then hiring you should be a no-brainer.” The right side of his mouth twitches into a half smile.
The rum punch begins to settle and so do I. I’m a bit euphoric from having shared my design—any design—and having it met with an overwhelmingly positive response.
Over the next thirty minutes we laugh a lot, recounting the ridiculousness of the fire alarm and Mrs. Crandall’s antics. He even ribs me about the fact that I didn’t immediately recognize him that first night at the bar, which I accept affably. I sway to the island music, still riding the Revenge Cheese high.
“You okay?” Charlie asks amusedly from across the table that seems to be shrinking us closer with each minute that passes.
“Yes, fine, just enjoying this delectable punch.”
“We’re switching places from earlier, I see.”
I lean forward. “No. No, we are not. Because I don’t plan to drunkenly kiss you later.”
Been there, done that.
He leans forward and rests his arms on the table, our faces inches apart. “Is that what happened?” he asks, his eyes constricting. He’s so close I feel the warmth of his breath.
“What would you call it?”
He shrugs. “From what I remember, you kissed me back,” he says, and I’m suddenly unsure which kiss we are talking about. The fact that there are now multiple kisses with this man is the definition of dangerous.
“I’m surprised you remember it at all.”
“Oh, I remember it. And I don’t hear you denying it.”
We sit for a moment, staring at each other across the table. I don’t know what to say. He’s not wrong, but I certainly can’t admit it.
I wince as Zane shoves his way into my thoughts. I think of how he made me feel about my career dreams, how I stayed in my assistant position at the engineering firm way longer than I should have, afraid to pursue anything more significant.
I can’t get distracted from this opportunity at Catapult, I remind myself again. And I certainly cannot fall for the guy across the table who’s staring at me with an intensity that makes my stomach feel like it’s trying to escape me. Especially when I know he’s in love with someone else. There’s no scenario where this ends well for me.
He leans in again. “What are you thinking about?” His voice is softer, deeper than usual.
I tilt further into the table. “I’m thinking . . .” I say slowly as he grins at me, his eyelashes shadowing the tops of his cheeks thanks to the torchlight beside us. “I’m thinking I really, really love this punch.”
I lean back in my chair and grab my glass to accompany me as I do. I take a long sip, holding the pink straw between my thumb and forefinger. He clasps his hands in front of him, rubbing them absent-mindedly, and I keep drinking—one long, endless suck—until I hear the slurping of air.
“I’ll take another, please,” I tell the waiter, who is standing a few feet away. I feel Satan Sloane lurking and mentally elbow her in the gut.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Charlie asks, his lips still curved up at their corners.
“I’m not sure any of this is a good idea,” I say, licking the sweet punch residue from my lips.