Club Endless Fantasy

“Yes we did.” He smiled and sat down. “I know you don’t like for us to work over the weekend, but some inspiration struck me, and I couldn’t get it out of my system until I got some ideas down on paper.”

“I bet your wife was thrilled when you decided to work instead of spend time with your family.” I narrowed my eyes.

“She was shopping with her mother.” He laughed under his breath. “I was done by the time she got home.”

“What did you come up with?” I tilted my head inquisitively.

“I was thinking about the other projects we’ve been discussing and how we could capitalize on the success of the Secret Santa Romance app.” He put his tablet down in front of me and turned it on. “What if we just change it to a holiday roman

ce app—not just Christmas, but New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, hell, even the Fourth of July.”

“How would that work?” I leaned back in my chair.

“As soon as people sign up, they would be taken to an interface for the next holiday on the calendar. The rules would be the same—they get matched with someone, talk to them for a little while, and then trade gifts to celebrate the holiday.” He smiled. “I don’t know what kind of gifts you would trade for the Fourth of July, but I’m sure we can come up with something.”

“It’s an interesting proposal.” I nodded. “That would keep us from losing the momentum after Christmas, and we wouldn’t have to keep launching new apps. We could just increase the marketing before the holidays.”

“That’s what I was thinking too.” He picked up his tablet. “Should I have the team start working on an update for New Year’s Day?”

“No.” I shook my head back and forth. “Everyone has worked hard enough on this, and we’ve got some other stuff in development—like the app for Benson Enterprises. Let’s skip New Year’s and get together after the holidays and plan things out for Valentine’s Day.”

“Okay.” He nodded and smiled. “I think that would work better anyway.”

We had a solution for our post-holiday dilemma, which would take a lot of stress off of everyone at the company—especially me. If we were able to keep the momentum going that we had already built, then there would be no way for a competitor to sweep in with a new dating app. We already had a good share of the market, and there was a good chance that we could be a permanent fixture at the top of the charts by the time Christmas rolled around again. We would definitely need some new bells and whistles along the way, but I felt good about Joe’s idea.

“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you again.” Samantha poked her head into my office. “I just got a call from Mr. Jamison’s secretary. He wants to reschedule the dinner meeting you were supposed to have. Are you free any night this week?”

“This week?” I exhaled sharply. “I could meet with him tonight, but my parents are coming into town tomorrow. I’m going to be pretty busy the rest of the week—I definitely can’t meet with him on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.”

“I’ll see if he can meet with you tonight.” She smiled and nodded.

I didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity to land a new client, but I wasn’t going to sacrifice any time with my family to do it. I didn’t get to see my parents enough as it was. Samantha returned a few minutes later and told me that Mr. Jamison was free, which meant that I had to tell Elly I wasn’t going to be able to go straight to her place after work like we discussed. I hoped that she would understand. I considered having Samantha call Mr. Jamison back to see if we could just meet after the holidays, but there was a chance that someone else could get his business before then if I delayed the meeting. I picked up my phone and started typing out a message to Elly.

Ian: Hey, I’ve got a dinner meeting tonight. It’s a last minute thing…

Elly: Aw, I was looking forward to seeing you. Can you come by after it’s over?

Ian: It might be pretty late.

Elly: I don’t care. :)

Ian: You really want to finish Uncle Nick, don’t you?

Elly: Yeah, that’s exactly why I want to see you. I want to watch a movie!

Ian: Liar…

Elly: I might be wearing a new present for you to unwrap. :)

Ian: Then I’m definitely coming over. I’ll text you when I’m done with my meeting.

Elly: I’ll try not to start without you…

Elly didn’t seem to be upset that I had to cancel our original plans, which made me feel a little better about the meeting. I still wished I could spend the entire evening with her, but there were going to be times when my job didn’t make that possible. I assumed there would be times when her job interfered as well, especially when she started working on the Dillinger’s Department Store account full-time.

“I’m heading home to get ready for my meeting with Mr. Jamison.” I walked out of my office and closed the door. “Don’t work too late.”

“I won’t.” Samantha looked up at me and smiled.