A-Hole to A-List (PR Girls & Instalove 1)

Andrew

Dropping off Jenna without kissing her goodnight on Saturday was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. She was practically glowing with pride at all of the connections she’d made and contacts she’d gotten on my behalf.

Thanks to her, three significant players had agreed to wear our exclusive shirts at Wednesday’s event, which was going to be incredible publicity. Several more had said to send it to them, and they’d think about it. I wouldn’t have even thought of that, but since Jenna forced us to make some personal connections, it seemed easy.

Monday morning, she emailed a request for a box of the shirts and caps to be sent to her office so that she could have them specially wrapped to arrive at the players’ homes the morning of the event.

My fingers tapped restlessly on the desk in front of my keyboard. I wanted to please her. I wanted to make her job more manageable. But I also couldn’t let the merch out of my sight until Wednesday.

Not only did the idea make me a bit jumpy, I knew that it would freak Terry out. He was busy preparing the sample laptops that were going to be at our event booth, so that our tech crew could demonstrate how much of an improvement our extra chip made.

His precise schedule had him finishing everything by Tuesday afternoon, so that he could try to relax on Wednesday and put the whole thing out of his mind. I already had a new task prepped for him, updating one of our previous circuit boards. I was going to tell him it wasn’t a rush and he should take the day off, but if he felt like he needed to keep working, at least it would be on something low-stress.

If he found out I sent shirts with the new logo out before Wednesday, his paranoia might go into overdrive.

I emailed Jenna back, asking if I could send the merch out directly, and she called me within minutes.

“Listen,” she started, “No offense, but there’s a real art to preparing a merch pack so that it looks decadent. It has to look so exciting that they’ll post photos of it, or even shoot an unboxing video.”

I scratched my head. “That’s a thing?”

“It’s a huge thing, and it’s amazing promo. So it’s important,” she said. “Please, Andrew, let me do my job.”

Hearing her say my name always made my heart lurch, but the tone of her sweet voice when she was trying to be stern was just too much.

“Why don’t you come over tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll package them together? That way, nothing will leave this office until early Wednesday morning.”

“Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll swing by tomorrow around four-thirty. Can you at least promise me the doors are working now?”

“The doors work fine. It’s the passcodes that update.”

Even through the phone, I could sense how annoyed she was. That shouldn’t have amused me as much as it did. “Whatever. I’ll be sending you a list of faces and names to memorize, and a refresher list of everyone we met Saturday night.”

Leaning back in my chair, I sighed loudly. “Saturday. When you were wearing that little backless dress. Will you wear that for me tomorrow?”

She hung up on me.

Okay, that was likely crossing a line, so I sent a text.

Me: Sorry. I was just trying to make you laugh.

Jenna: Haha. See you tomorrow.

The next day and a half was a whirlwind, as our techs ran through the demo with me for practice, and everyone was taking notes and trying to work out their nerves.

Wednesday afternoon at four-twenty-five, Terry emerged from his lab, setting four laptops on the games room’s main table.

“I thought you were only making two prototypes?” I asked.

“Yes, but something might happen to them,” he said. “Can’t be too careful.”

“Good thinking,” I said. “Hey, remember that I said our PR person was going to be around? She’s coming by right now to show me how to pack the t-shirts and things.”

He nodded, and I wasn’t sure if he was even really listening. “I need to go over my notes so that I can improve the next round,” he muttered, nodding to himself as his nearly black, wavy hair bobbed around him. His slight frame disappeared back into his room.

Going back to my office to answer emails while watching the security camera, I realized that I was more nervous about seeing Jenna than I was about tomorrow’s event.

When she arrived, I ran out to meet her, propping both doors open with chairs as I rushed to hel