Club Endless Fantasy

“No problem at all.” He leaned back from the speaker.

“Question though…” I contemplated whether I should ask it, but decided that I had to address it. “Am I the only one you’re taking proposals from, or will I have to compete for it?”

“Come on, Ian. You and I go back a long way…” He laughed. “You know I’m going to be shopping for the best deal—and the best product.”

“You’ll get both of those from me.” I smiled to myself. “I love a little competition.”

Especially when I win.

“By the way…” Bryant cleared his throat, and I heard something of a laugh echo on the other side of the line. “This Secret Santa Romance app you released? I think you have a hit on your hands. I’ve heard a lot of people in Carson Cove talking about it.”

“It is very popular.” I chuckled. “If only I could find a way to make it last longer than the holiday season…”

By next year, it will be old news.

The app Bryant wanted developed was an interesting one. Somewhere between closely reviewing the information he sent me and planning some mockups; I moved past the sting left behind from seeing Abigail again. It was a self-inflicted wound, and it wasn’t the first time I had forced myself to endure it. The only good thing was that it did seem to get easier with time. The first time I saw her several months after we broke up nearly wrecked me—because she was with someone else—and she looked happy. I hadn’t even learned how to be smile by that point, much less be happy. I just survived. I had my job—then I had my own company—and then the years that passed put more time between us than we ever spent together.

Long enough for her to move on, but not long enough for me to forget.

“Mr. Alexander?” Samantha pushed my door open. “It’s time for your meeting.”

“You mean the meeting I was supposed to have this morning?” I looked up and flashed her a sarcastic look. “The one that got rescheduled?”

“Yes, they’re ready for you now.” She put her hand to her mouth and snickered.

“Thanks, I might keep them waiting for a few minutes.” I leaned forward to stand. “I need to get a cup of coffee.”

“I’d offer to bring it in to the conference room for you, but I know you’d just turn me down.” Samantha walked to her desk.

Yep.

I called the meeting to get some updated figures on the performance of the Secret Santa Romance app. Normally, we could let an app get a foothold in the market before we started tinkering with it, but with an app that wasn’t going to last very long, we didn’t have that luxury. We needed to make sure it was flawless so that we could capitalize on the momentum it already had, then turn the success stories into a post-season version. There was no way it would be as popular, but that was okay—a tag line that told people they were looking at a new app developed by the same company that created a massively successful one was a dream come true for our marketing department.

“Alright, is everyone ready to get this meeting started finally?” I walked into the conference room a couple of minutes later with my coffee in hand.

“Yes sir.” Joe nodded. “The presentation is ready now.”

“Awesome.” I sat down and leaned back in my chair. “Tell me the good news.”

The presentation was something of a formality. I already knew the app was performing well—it was sitting at the top of the charts on iTunes and Google. That was the majority of the market. I was more interested in the second half of the presentation when they went over some options to expand before the end of the holiday season, and our plan to capitalize on the popularity as soon as Santa Claus went back to the North Pole for the rest of the year. The team seemed to have read my mind—and my email—because they had laid everything out that I asked for. Things worked smoothly when the team was cohesive and on the same page.

“I like what I see.” I looked around the room and smiled. “Go ahead and get started.”

“Yes sir.” Paul nodded.

“I’ll also need your team to get started on a new proposal for Benson Enterprises. I’m going to forward you the email I got from the CEO along with my notes.” I reached for my tablet and started typing.

“Anything we’ve done in the past?” Paul, one of the other guys on my team, tilted his head inquisitively.

“Similar, yeah.” I nodded. “But there are a few features we’ll have to build from the ground up—code and all.”

“We can take care of that.” Joe sat down and started looking over the email I sent him.

“Oh…” I looked around the room. “Joe, earlier you said there were a few kinks. Was all of that sorted out?”

“We’re getting there.” He nodded.

“There was nothing mentioned in the presentation.” I tilted my head inquisitively. “What’s going on?”