In Her Wildest Dreams (8 page)

“Erica…”

She raised her hand, backing away.

“Erica, don’t leave.”

But that’s exactly what she did. Gavin stood in the middle of the sidewalk and watched as she hurriedly retreated, walking back the way they’d come. He could follow her if he thought it would do any good, but after the look of dismay that had crossed her face after their kiss, Gavin’s feet remained planted.

He balled his hands into tight fists, hoping that one impetuous kiss hadn’t ruined their friendship. As much as he’d been dying to kiss her like that, it wasn’t worth losing Erica as a friend.

Even so, Gavin couldn’t stop the smile that crept up his lips as he remembered the way she’d tasted, the way she’d felt against him. No matter what the fallout would be, he had to admit kissing her was better than he’d ever dreamed. 

Chapter Six

Laptop resting in his lap, Gavin glanced up at the muted television to check the score of the basketball game. The Hornets were still losing by double digits, which meant he could fully concentrate on the job description he was writing. Tonya had threatened bodily harm if he didn’t get it posted by the end of the day.

A reminder popped up on his screen, reminding him that he needed to send the ad he was running in the newspaper for Decadente’s Valentine’s Day special. He started to dismiss it, but he’d hit that postpone button nearly a dozen times already. The deadline was 11:59 pm if he wanted the ad to run the full two weeks before Valentine’s Day.

Gavin clicked over to his email and quickly composed the ad.

There was a knock at the door.

“Shit,” he said. He started to save the draft of the email, but with the way things were going, he knew he’d probably forget to go back to it. He gave the email a cursory glance and hit “Send,” mentally checking off another thing on his to-do list.

Gavin went over to the door and opened it. It was Dalton.

“I thought you had decided to stand me up,” he greeted his friend.

“Things got crazy at the office this afternoon,” Dalton said, walking into the living room and tossing his briefcase on the couch. “Tell me you have beer.”

“In the fridge.” Gavin gestured toward the kitchen with his head. “There’s a pizza in the oven if you haven’t eaten dinner yet.”

“Thank God,” Dalton said. A minute later, he returned to the living room with a beer in one hand and a slice of pepperoni and sausage pizza in the other. He hadn’t even bothered to take off his coat.

Shaking his head, Gavin gave his friend a superior look. “All these years later, and I’m still taking care of your ass.”

Dalton managed to flip him the bird with the hand that held the beer can. “You ready to do this?” he asked around a mouthful of pizza.

“I guess so,” Gavin said, tabling the job posting yet again. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

“You’ll need to login to the firm’s system. The program is saved in my work files. Can I trust you with my logon info?” he asked.

“I have no plans to sabotage the company I built,” Gavin said.

He pulled up the remote login page for Technology Concepts and logged in using the credentials Dalton rattled off.

“Give it here.” Dalton finished up his pizza and sat next to Gavin on the sofa, pulling the laptop from the coffee table and settling it in his lap. “You will not believe what these guys have come up with, Gavin.”

He pulled up the file, downloaded the program onto Gavin’s laptop, and started giving Gavin a tour of a social networking program designed specifically for the video gaming community.

“Members can play against each other online, they can trade games, there’s even a feature that allows members to earn credits to buy things from a central store.”

“Where does revenue come from?”

“Advertisers will support the free version, or gamers will be able to buy into a premium ad-free membership.”

“I’m not a gamer, but I’m pretty sure there are already a few Websites like this one,” Gavin said. “What makes this special?”

A huge smile broke out across Dalton’s face.

“This,” he said. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a small black box, no bigger than a deck of cards, with a tiny lens on one side of it. Using the attached USB cord, he connected it to the laptop, and then positioned the screen so that the webcam brought both him and Gavin into a small frame in the corner.

Dalton clicked a couple of keys and a basketball court appeared on the screen with a computer-generated figure holding a basketball. The graphics were pretty elementary; Gavin was already running through a mental list of things he could add to spruce it up.

“Okay, now stand,” Dalton said.

Gavin gave him a reluctant look, but stood. Dalton typed a bit more, set the laptop on the coffee table, and then pulled his hands away. “Now, take a shot.”

Gavin gave him a quizzical look. “What?”

“You heard me.”

He pretended to make a jump shot. The computer-generated figure mimicked his movements, but then, out of nowhere, another figure appeared and blocked his shot.

“Whoa,” Gavin said. “What the hell was that?”

Another small box popped up and two young men appeared. Their grins were huge. “Sorry for blocking your shot,” one of the men said.

“Wait a minute? They’re playing against me?” Gavin asked. 

Dalton nodded, his grin matching those of the MBA students. “Meet Michael Baker and Rashard Lambert,” Dalton said. “Guys, this is the former business partner I was telling you about. One of the best software engineers you will ever meet.”

“Former software engineer,” Gavin automatically corrected him, though his mind was more on what he’d just seen on his computer than his current job title. “Get up,” he said to the guy on the screen. “Let me see how this works again?”

The one that had been introduced as Michael stood, and he and Gavin went back and forth on the screen. After a solid ten minutes, Gavin had worked up a sweat. It felt as if he’d been on an actual basketball court, engaged in a heavy game of one-on-one.

“Hey, Dalton, we’ve got a party to go to,” Michael said. “We’re still meeting in a few weeks, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you guys later. Have fun,” Dalton said. “Don’t get drunk.”

The guys both laughed, and then the small pop-up screen that held their video feed went black. Dalton turned to him, and said, “Impressive, right?”

Gavin nodded as he reached for his beer. “I’ve got to give it to you,” he said. “This takes it to the next level. Incorporating live game play against another live opponent right into the program? You can have two best friends across the country keep up their weekly basketball game.”

“Not just basketball. Tennis, ping pong, golf. Even bowling. We haven’t figured out a way to do football, but they’re working on it.”

“The problem is your interface,” Gavin said. “It’s way too rudimentary to compete with what’s on the market right now.”

“Why do you think I came to you?” Dalton asked.

Gavin shook his head. “I don’t know, man. That’s going to require a lot of work.”

“I’m not asking you to do it for free, Gavin.”

“I wouldn’t,” Gavin said. “But it’s not as if I need your money. It’s the time. We’re gearing up for what will likely be our busiest time of the year at Decadente. This is the absolute worst time for me to take on something like this.”

Dalton let out a sigh, and Gavin had a feeling he knew what the issue was. “You want to debut it at the IT Expo, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Dalton said. “You already know what this could mean if it makes a big splash there.”

“Bank,” Gavin said. “Lots and lots of bank.”

He sipped his beer as he stared at the computer screen, seeing the lines of coding in his head. He knew exactly how he would write the program to make the virtual players more lifelike and to add more colors and sharper images. He would design it so that people could choose what type of basketball setting they would like: a school gymnasium, an NBA regulation court, an inner-city playground. A person could pick the environment they were most comfortable playing in, and it would be as if they were there.

He couldn’t take this on. He was a chocolatier now. He
loved
being a chocolatier, was beyond content with the way things were.

“Give me some time to work with it,” Gavin heard himself say.

“Really?” Dalton asked.

No
, that little voice told him. He was no longer a computer guy. He dealt in chocolates now. But Gavin nodded. “You’re meeting with the guys soon, right? Let me play around with it, see what I can do.”

Dalton pumped his fist. “I knew you’d come through, man.”

“I’m not saying I’m in one hundred percent,” Gavin warned him. “I just said I’ll take a look.”

Dalton held his hands up. “That’s all I’m asking. Just give it a little of that Foster magic.”

Gavin grimaced. There was that “magic” word again. Erica called the kitchen where he made his chocolates the “magic” room. He’d become a regular Merlin.

***

Erica kept her eyes on the clock as she went over the final details with Steven Aristophonicholi for the Valentine’s Day experience she was creating for him and his girlfriend. He was the kind of client Erica adored. He gave her specific instructions on what he wanted, which took all of the guesswork out of the job and almost guaranteed a satisfied customer in the end. He also gave her a money-is-no-object budget. Oh, how she loved to hear those words.

“I’ll have a preliminary itinerary ready by the end of the day, and once I have your approval, I’ll set all of this up,” she said. “You’ve taken great care in selecting the events for the night, but I want to know whether you’re okay with a little surprise being slipped in?”

Earlier, in Your Wildest Dreams’ infancy stages, Erica would always incorporate a little something extra for the couple, but she’d learned that powerful men didn’t always like surprises, no matter how much their mates—or even they themselves—enjoyed them. After a couple of clients complained about being left in the dark, Erica started asking whether they were opposed to something special being thrown in. It took a little of the spontaneity away, but it was better than having unhappy clients.

She ended the meeting with Mr. Aristophonicholi just a few minutes before her scheduled meeting with Hilton Banks of The Hawthorn Group. Erica had a few minutes to freshen up her makeup before she was back at her computer. The request to join the virtual conference call popped up on her screen at precisely 12:30 p.m. Erica answered the call and was surprised to see three people at a table, two men and one woman.

“We wanted to go over the preliminaries and let you know exactly what we had in mind,” the woman, who had been introduced as Sheena Henderson, started.

She went through what Erica could tell was a much repeated spiel about the different companies The Hawthorn Group had helped to launch. She then discussed how their consulting firm would develop a franchise concept, marketing and sales strategies, and an in-depth feasibility study for Your Wildest Dreams.

“This is what we envision for your company,” the woman, whom Erica learned was one of the firm’s financial advisors, continued. A virtual sketch of a storefront with a whimsical logo done in turquoise, fuchsia, and zebra print popped up on the screen.

“The way we see it, someone can walk into a location of Your Wildest Dreams and order a package for any occasion: birthday, anniversary, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, graduation.”

An uncomfortable weight settled in Erica’s stomach. “When you say packages, it almost sounds as if there will be a menu that someone can just point to and say, I want the “Over the Hill” Fortieth Birthday Package.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Sheena Henderson said with a huge smile.

Erica’s brain instantly railed. That was the exact
opposite
of what she did at Your Wildest Dreams. Her company’s unique feature was that she tailored whatever fantasy she was creating specifically to her client’s wishes. She would have called it “Anyone’s Wildest Dreams” if she wanted to produce cookie cutter experiences.

But before she had a chance to say anything, the woman continued, going through a list of cities throughout the United States they had already pinpointed as viable markets. When Sheena Henderson mentioned Boise, Idaho, Erica nearly barked a hysterical laugh.

But the laughter dried up when Hilton Banks started to talk money. If it was concluded at the end of the feasibility study that Your Wildest Dreams would prove to be a viable franchise, Erica would be paid more money than she’d ever dreamed possible.

She wouldn’t have to worry about scraping up enough money to cover her mortgage at the end of the month. She could transfer the three-hundred dollars to her mother’s account without having the shakes before she hit the submit button. Best of all, she could pay off her mother’s hospital bill and finally start to rebuild her nest egg.

“The most important thing for you to take away from this meeting is what this could mean for you financially, Ms. Cole,” Hilton Banks continued. “By selling your concept to The Hawthorn Group you give up all financial risks. It now falls into our hands. All you have to look forward to is reaping the financial rewards.”

Yes, Erica thought. But at what costs?

***

Erica caught sight of Decadente’s gold door handles and hesitated. She’d avoided Gavin for the past three days, dreading the thought of facing him after running away like a skittish kitten the other night. She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever. She’d caught herself on the verge of calling or texting him at least a half-dozen times over the past couple of days.

To top it all off, she was having chocolate withdrawals. She’d become accustomed to Decadente’s high end selection—a regular Hershey’s bar just didn’t cut it anymore.

Erica forced her feet forward. She’d just walked in front of the glass storefront when she spotted Gavin behind the counter. Her steps faltered. She’d been expecting to see Tonya manning the front of the store.