Lag (The Boys of RDA Book 2) (10 page)

The ten or so cars in front of us seem to drop off as one after another slowly falls down past my line of sight.

“Please keep your helmets on at all times and obey the five mile an hour traffic guideline when making your way down the hill.” Our guide smiles and winks at Trey with his parting words and then walks behind our car to stand on the sidewalk.

“Thank God. I didn’t think he’d ever leave. Are you excited?” he asks.

The car in front of us moves ahead. “Yes, I’m so excited.” My hands clap together in anticipation. “Do you think little L.D. will make it?”

“Little L.D.?” Trey looks to me with an up turned eyebrow.

I try to play it off cool, but my face turns red at being outed in my car naming game. “Yeah, I named him Lemon Drop, but it was too long so we’re going with L.D.” I shrug and try to wear my best “no big deal” expression.

He laughs anyway. “Are all your names after food or is it a recent thing?”

Two more cars make the drop as we get closer and closer to the famous crooked street ahead and I think about the answer to his question. “I’ve never noticed. It’s a recent thing, I guess. Not many of us had cars in New York. I named the Escalade Licorice earlier, so it must be new.”

“Don’t ever tell Jake you named his car Licorice.” His head turns to mine with upturned lips on one side of his mouth and a devilish gleam in his eye that might sprout him horns. "Or maybe we should. I would love to see him riled up. Let’s get him to drive us somewhere tomorrow and mention it.”

“No!” I hit his arm, but laugh as his smile grows while he stares into the distance.

The traffic moves again and provides us with a better view of the street ahead. All conversation with Trey is forgotten as I watch the line of cars make their way down the steep road paved in red bricks.

The crooked nature of the road creates oxbows of extra sidewalk and yard space with every curve. The inside of each is planted with green bushes and other shrubs to fill in the voids. The blue Explorer in front of us pulls onto the street and begins to take the first turn. Trey moves L.D. into position, but we wait at the top for the cars in front of us to make it farther down the steep incline.

Once the blue Explorer crosses the halfway mark, Trey lets off the brake and we slowly slide into position. “Here we go.”

He takes the first turn a little faster than I would have but immediately has to brake to complete the next one. I laugh at his look of concentration before the car is jerked to a stop again. Before we make the third curve, he’s laughing with me at the ridiculousness of the situation. What I was expecting to be a rollercoaster of excitement is actually more like a slow crawl in a city park. It’s still steep and fun, but between all the cars in front of us and our own inability to maneuver at a fast pace, some of the excitement is lost. My hair doesn’t even blow in the breeze.

I turn to the side and watch the houses as we drive by them. Living on a street continuously full of tourist would be unimaginable. The ride is over before I’ve had time to take in all the sights, and we sit at the base of the hill still laughing. The same guy who passed the car over to us waits as Trey pulls to the side and we exit the car, removing our helmets as we do.

“Did you two have fun?” he asks.

“Yes, it was great,” I answer before Trey pulls me off in the direction behind us with my leather bag wrapped over his shoulder.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Trey turns in the opposite direction of L.D. and we start the walk back up Lombard Street. This time our slower pace gives me time to take in the details of the landscaped area and houses on each side of the roadway.

We walk back up past all eight curves of Lombard Street, on the pedestrian steps this time. Once we reach the top of the hill we drove down minutes ago, the need to fill the space starts to claw at me. I try to pretend we’re a normal couple, out for a cute stroll rather than what we are. And what are we? I can’t even answer the question myself.

My anxiety builds and I start to question what we’re doing here more and more. I’m about to throw out one of the hundred or so reasons I’ve thought of to make my exit when Trey picks up our conversation as if no time as passed. “Do you like pizza?”

“Of course.” Who doesn’t like pizza?

“There is a great place a block or so from my house. I’ll order and we can pick it up on the way to my place. What do you like for toppings?”

We’re walking to Trey’s house? The ability to see his personal space is all the motivation I need to keep this night going. “Anything. I'm not picky.”

Trey laughs at my answer as we stop at a street corner. “Yeah, you say that now. Girls always say they’re not picky when they don’t want to seem picky, but they don't mean it.”

Still waiting to cross the road, I flash him a look even my sister would be proud of. “Well I’m serious. As long as it isn’t anchovies we're fine.”

His eyes widen when he thinks he’s caught me. “See!” His finger playfully points at me while he smiles through his accusation.

“Were you planning to order anchovies?”

The crosswalk lights up and we both step off the curb. “No, anchovies are disgusting. What kind of person would eat them on a pizza?”

I scoff at his answer. “Then why would it matter?”

“It just does,” he answers with a slight high and mighty tone.

“But…”

As we continue to walk on Lombard Street, I stare at Trey and realize regardless of how much I want to argue with him, I have no comeback. Mainly because I can’t remember what we were even arguing about. Anchovies? Pizza toppings? Picky girls? The man has completely talked me in circles. By his smug little smile, he knows it too.

“So you’re okay with green peppers, mushrooms, and onions?” he asks while typing into his phone.

I nod, it’s actually what we ordered the most when I still lived at home. I went through a big vegetarian phase in high school. Those were the three non-meat ingredients we agreed on and they sort of stuck even after I admitted I missed steak.

Trey puts his phone in his back pocket and steps closer but doesn’t grab my hand. I’d make the first move myself, but my nerves won’t allow me. For lack of a better topic I try to keep the conversation going.

“So where do you live?” Hey, I said I
could
keep it going. I never promised stimulating conversation.

“I’m off Fillmore Street, a few blocks from our office. My house was one of the first purchases I made after we sold Dragons Reborn. That and the car.”

I have no idea where Fillmore Street is considering I barely know where I live. “It’s in Knob Hill, right?” I remember Aspen telling me that's where Trey lived, and I try to play it off like I have knowledge of the city.

Trey’s head turns to me and his brows furrow. “Um, no. The opposite direction to Cow Hollow.”

My face heats, but I hope he’ll think it’s from the cooler evening air not my embarrassment. “Aspen said…” I trail off.

Trey snorts. “I told Aspen I lived in Knob Hill once,” he does this silent chuckle thing, “it’s kind of a long story, but I can see how it might be a memorable fact. Anyway, no, my place is a few blocks from the office. I walk some days.”

I still have no idea where Fillmore Street is, but I don’t question it more. “Where did you and Finn work before you sold Dragons Reborn?”

Trey’s gait slows for a moment while he looks to the sky. His smile and slight head shake suggest he’s lost in memories of their early days. When his pace picks back up, he starts talking. “Originally there were four of us. Finn, Ryland, Grant, and me. Our freshman year we all ended up roommates in the quad.”

He says the term with a deep voice but explains before I probe him. “The dorms all had a quad room on each floor. It was the room at the end of the hallway, which used up all the extra space. Since it was bigger, they put more of us in them. Living with three other guys was not always the easiest thing.

“Ryland ended up walking on the soccer team sophomore year, so he had to live in team housing, but the rest of us stayed together. Finn was always messing around with his computer. While most of us were studying, he’d design these simple games. Our favorite was a picture of the most hated professor on campus. The object was to throw things at him. You’d get points for direct hits. It was silly and stupid, but we all loved that one.

“One night, after a few beers, Ry suggested Finn make a soccer game. It would use most of the same code but wouldn’t get anyone sued if we let other people play it. The four of us talked it out and Finn started coding the game that night. He finished the next morning still hungover."

He runs his hands through his hair and slows our pace again before he picks up. Trey in full story mode is a sight. He looks younger and more laid back as he relays the start of their profitable company. I don’t want to interrupt him to ask questions and ruin the spell.

“That’s how smart Finn is. He coded our first real game while drunk. The concept was simple. Players had to use their fingers to swipe at the screen and make a goal. It was so basic, but once we stuck it online it went crazy. We sold it our junior year and that summer I finally convinced him to focus on making more games.

“I had dollar signs in my eyes. The soccer game sold for twenty-four thousand dollars, but I thought we were rich. I had no idea how much it cost to keep a gaming business afloat.” He laughs at himself and turns to me.

“How did you go from soccer to Dragons Reborn?”

“It never would have happened without Grant. As you know, he has a bit of family money.” Trey pinches his fingers together in front of him. “He invested in us and his money was the start-up cash we needed to keep the lights on.

“It was a crazy time for all of us. It took over a year of solid coding, but Finn finished Dragons Reborn next. We had half a million downloads in the first month and were caught unprepared for how quickly it would take off. We were always on the defense. Buying more server space as we overloaded the old one, working on one bug just to discover five more."

Trey stops when we reach a brick building with a bright red door, the word “Pizza” written in neon lights above it. He opens the door allowing me to enter first. One step inside the building and the smell of cheese has my nose searching for the ovens where the dairy goodness is cooking. My stomach growls in excitement.

The restaurant is small with less than ten tables for people to eat inside, half-filled at this moment. We approach the main counter, a tiled affair separating the eating area from the prep and ovens in the back. As we wait for the pizza to cook, we take seats at the farthest corner next to the large glass window to watch people as they walk by the store front.

“There must have been some good times in the beginning, right?” I ask to learn more about the young and ambitious Trey.

He laughs in thought again. “There were tons of great times. Grant stayed at Stanford to finish his senior year. Ryland had already been recruited for a semi-pro team, so he left before finishing college as well. Finn and I were living in this tiny two-bedroom crap rental. We survived on soda and pizza for every meal. It was in a horrible part of the city, but we craved that coveted San Francisco address. It was the only place in Silicon Valley we could afford.

“As our memberships grew, we were forced to hire more coders. We’d have five or six guys sitting in our tiny living room all working together. It was my job to feed everyone and keep them motivated since I was little to no help with the code."

“I’m sure your neighbors loved that.”

“They weren’t too bad. Eventually we needed more servers, so we ended up renting office space in Oakland and putting them in there with the AC turned way up.” He laughs as if he’s told some huge joke, but between the two of us, he’s the only one that understands it. “It wasn’t safe at all. Now all of our machines are stored in a climate controlled area in the basement of our building.”

“Good!” Trey’s last name is called from behind the main counter as a white and red pizza box is slid on the counter awaiting us. Trey pays and we step back out on the sidewalk before the conversation picks up again.

“So when did you decide to go from six guys in a crap apartment to what you have now?”

“It took a while. As Dragons Reborn grew bigger and bigger, we realized we couldn’t continue to handle it so I started to shop it out. There wasn’t time to worry about the legal parts of a company at the time. I had to get rid of the game before it buried us. Most of our early coders make up the main employees in the company now. A few left to keep working on the game for the new company.”

Trey stops in front of a large blue building on the corner. Windows, three stories high, line the space with big white doors leading inside. “The Raven Digital Arts building.”

I look up to try and take it all in with the setting sun. “Wow. Much nicer than your first place, I assume.”

We start to walk again while Trey holds the pizza in front of him with my bag still swaying on his shoulder.

“Does Finn ever plan to take the company public?” I ask. Trey’s head shoots to mine and he narrows his eyes at my question. I'm reminded of his allegations from last week when he thought I was after his account. “I only mean Finn could’ve kept all the money. Of course you could have sued, but you’d have spent years in court,” I try to clarify.