บท 69: Chapter 69: Flappy Bird launch.
(A/N: Nice)
[Haley POV]
"What's wrong with you?!" Alex asked in confusion as I entered the room.
"Hmm? What's wrong with me?" I asked as I touched my face to understand what she was talking about.
"You look…relaxed…like you just got back from a spa or something." Alex said before she lost interest and continued reading her book.
I swallowed my saliva in fear of how sharp my sister was before I went under my blanket and pretended to go to sleep to avoid answering the question.
'Alex is so scary.' I thought. Edward managed to do what none of the other boys I dated before did, that was….granted permission to go 'down there.'
"But I cannot do that again!" I whined as I kicked up the blanket without getting my legs out of it. The feeling of 'what if' and 'if I could' kept haunting me. Why did I ever decide to stay as friends with him?
"Shut up!" Alex scolded me as I was too noisy while she was trying to study. I became docile and laid down quietly in bed before I said to her, "What do you think about his song for you?"
"It's good." Alex replied curtly as she was disinterested in having the conversation with me. I scoffed and said, "A song about… 'Friends.' HA! You're in the friend zone Alex!"
"Your song is about a girl who got dumped after a one night stand. I wouldn't be proud of it if I were you." Alex said sarcastically.
"NO! It's ABOUT FORBIDDEN LO… I mean ummm being true to oneself ?? Yeah, being true to oneself !" I defended my song while throwing a bear doll at Alex. "JERK!"
[Haley's commentary]
"I nearly told Alex what happened, just minutes after being alone with her. What's wrong with me?? And Why did I want to tell her everything ??"
{commentary ends]
"Ow! SKANK!" Alex cursed as the bear hit her head.
"HMPH! I'm not talking to you!" I said as I angrily pulled the blanket to cover my face.
Alex turned off her desk lamp and went to bed 15 minutes later, making the entire room dark. She lost all mood to study after our short fight.
Underneath my blanket, I was having a truly intense struggle about my actions today.
"Why did I say he's not like other guys?! THAT MEANT I DID A LOT OF GUYS! UGHH! He noticed, didn't he? ARHH!"
Although my words were on purpose to make him lose interest in me, the way he reacted caused me to admire him more. I guess he knew that I was only pretending to be a slutty girl, and was still a virgin at the time. The skills were from mock practice! (cucumber lol)
'Haley Dunphy is the most popular girl in school! I got a reputation to keep!'
But now, I wasn't sure that being a popular girl was the path I wanted to take anymore. It was easy being dumb and pretty, but I always felt lonely – Like no one really understood me in this world.
Ed spoke up for me. He helped me get closer to my mother. He sang a song for me, and threw away his prejudice towards my grandmother just for us.
"It's not fair! He's too young. Why am I attracted to him?" I muttered. Abby's words about giving me the green light for dating him in the future after she left, kept ringing in my mind. Blood rushed to my face as I thought about what we had done tonight.
I stared at my phone, and saw that it was almost 1 am.
"He's sleeping now…right? Or…Is he like me– restless and unable to sleep, as he keeps thinking about what we did before- Argh Whatever!"
I reluctantly went to take a shower and clean up all of his traces from my body before I finally fell asleep that night. As if God wanted to torture me, I dreamt about the both of us going 'all the way' as I gave him my first time… I may pretend to be "slutty" but I wouldn't go so far as to actually be with someone that I wasn't sure was worth the experience.
[Jenna POV]
(A/N: She seems mentally unstable, which was on purpose. I will tell you why this bit was important during the decathlon arc)
-Evening, before the party had ended-
"Are you sure you're not coming with us?" Elsa asked before she and Jacob left Edward's house.
"Yeah. I'm going to stay for a while. Don't worry, my mom will send someone to come pick me up."
As I waved goodbye to Jacob and Elsa, I went to Edward's kitchen and started avoiding him to make sure he didn't know I'd stayed behind. He did ask Alex about me a few times, but even Alex didn't realize that I was still there, and they came to the conclusion that I had left with Jacob and Elsa to go to the cinema.
From there, I lurked around his house until everything was over.
"Oh…He's singing a song…for Alex?" I muttered in jealousy as I enjoyed watching him sing from the gap of the closet door I peeked through. He created a phenomenal song as usual, but my heart felt uncomfortable as I saw him laughing around with the family.
"He never showed me that kind of smile…ever…"
A sincere smile that showed he truly enjoyed the company of the family. A smile where he was comfortable to be himself around them.
"All I ever have is a teasing smile, or a kind smile, but never a sincere one."
The family had left now. It's just the two of us inside the house. My heart beats quickly as I follow him around without him realising it– not noticing how creepy my actions were. I just wanted to understand him better.
"He's….taking a shower!"
I took a small jump, giddily dancing around before silently walking toward the bathroom. I opened up the door and peeked at him from outside – but I was almost caught by him, therefore I could only see his body for a few seconds.
However, that was enough for me to replay the memory while adding my imagination to it.
'It's big! AHH~!' I thought in excitement before running away to the closet. As I was stalking him, suddenly the doorbell rang.
"That's the girl…Haley…why is she here?" I thought as I saw her sitting next to Ed on the couch. I couldn't hear what they were talking about, but their conversation was heated. Suddenly, their conversation turned physical and they were doing adult things in the living room.
"NO! He's MINE!" I muttered in dissatisfaction as I watched the whole thing. I got turned on watching them, and my hand unconsciously slid into my panties as I watched. However, they didn't have sex with each other, and I found out that they agreed to end their entanglement today.
'So they are broken up? I'm confused.'
My breath became heavy as I dazedly entered Edward's room while he was sleeping. I gazed at his face and muttered, "Liar. You told me you liked smart girls."
"You told me you liked milfs."
"But then you do that with Haley, so What am I supposed to do now?"
"She's like me, you know? So why couldn't it be me?"
Without me realizing it, tears fell out of my eyes as I asked the sleeping Ed my questions. I slowly got into bed with him, and I cuddled with him. I touched his 'weapon', but the moment I did that, I remembered how angry he was when Madelyn slighted him before.
'Actions…have consequences…If he knew I was here…then I guess he would get a restraining order against me…'
I finally realized that I had been creeping around him for too long, and I left soon after– but not till I got a sample of what he tasted like– kissing his lips before disappearing. My driver had already waited 6 hours outside the house so I just silently got into the car.
I left Edward's neighborhood around 2.30 am and went straight home. My tears kept falling down during the whole ride before I went and locked myself in my room so as to not let anyone know about it.
[Edward POV]
In the small, teenage boy room.
"Why is my face wet?" I thought as I woke up from my 4 hours sleep. I reached for my phone to turn off the alarm before I stared at the ceiling, trying to check if there was any leak from the roof or water damage, but I didn't find any.
"Weird."
I washed my face and opened up my laptop after drinking a cup of coffee before I started the usual grind.
"I missed this." I muttered as I finished up the Flappy Bird game. In my previous life, not sleeping at night to work on bugs and fullstack coding was a normal occurrence. Although I didn't wish to return to that kind of life, I have to admit I missed the experience.
I had managed to launch an animated trailer for the game thanks to Pepper's connection, but I had only posted it on Youtube a few days back. Although it hadn't reached 1 million views yet, the feedback around the trailer was very good, and people were excited.
Also a few days ago, I noticed that I had a fan club page on Facebook that had just been created 3 days ago and had already reached 31,000 followers. The agency reached out to the fan club and found out it was created by Lily– the same girl who gave me the "Fairytail" keyword during my last concert.
She was flabbergasted when the agency contacted her, and our company soon reached an agreement with her to cooperate in running the page thus making it my official fan club.
"Let's see. I need to put the terms and agreement in." I muttered as I inserted the terms that Harvey had drafted after I shared her possible reactions from the users who downloaded the game. The terms and agreement would help me to avoid possible lawsuits against those who were utterly broken by the game.
"The reason Flappy Bird became viral was because of the game's difficulty. It would be stupid for me to lower my difficulty here in the world. But…seriously, it will be launched 3 years earlier. Will it still be a viral game?"
Even though I had some concerns about the game release date, I still continue to code while waiting for the game launch. An official notice was posted on my fan club page about a game I created, and how I made the songs inside the game too.
"Although it's just a quirky soundtrack."
At 6 am, suddenly someone knocked on my bedroom door three times. Dad opened the door and greeted me while standing in front of my bedroom without walking in, "Hey. I saw the light was up. You're catching the sunrise?"
I turned slightly to the left to meet his eyes as he opened the door. I rolled my eyes when I heard his greeting and said sarcastically, "You'll never find me waking up early to catch the sunrise."
Dad smiled and asked, "Are you finishing the game? Is there still much work to be done?"
"Just sanding off the rough edges. I'll finish soon." I answered dismissively as my fingers continued to type on the keyboard. I had to split my focus with parallel thinking to do so, otherwise it would be impossible for anyone to code without looking at the screen.
"Okay. Do you want me to bring you breakfast?" Dad offered.
"That'll be great. Thank you. I want hash browns and coffee."
"Wait- Do you want me to go out and buy it?" He was flabbergasted as we usually didn't go out to buy breakfast. Not since I unlocked my previous life memory a month ago.
"Of course. The fridge is empty. I served all the food at the beta testing yesterday. There's only the 'Ropa Vieja' left. Do you want to have that for breakfast?"
Dad gulped his saliva and said, "I'll go out and get it for you. Do you want anything else?"
"Nah. I'm good. Pepper is coming here at 8, so buy some for him too."
"Okay.For the record I… still think that I should take the day off today."
He felt bad as he couldn't be here for the launch. Although I was the one who decided he should go do the trip for a few movie studio execs, he couldn't help but have a guilty conscience about it.
"It's all right. You need to do your job properly if you want the business to grow. I'm already searching for another ship captain, and we're now leveraging the ship to buy another boat. We're taking over all the business at the port anyway."
"Hmm…A few businesses tried to create their own websites, but all of them suck. They desperately tried to convince me to introduce them to the web developer, but…" Dad snorted as he remembered the other business owner's reaction. "...all of them were frozen when they heard my son made the company's website."
I laughed and said, "They didn't even know that?-"
Before I could continue, a lightbulb was turned on inside my head.
"Wait…I think…I can do it…Absorb them all- No Dad this isn't the time! I need to focus on my work here!"
Dad was puzzled and he said defensively, "I didn't even say anything."
"Go get my breakfast. Quick. I'm really hungry."
"Okay. I'll make sure to bring a big portion for you."
I nodded at my dad before he closed the door and went out to the restaurant.
…
[3rd Person POV]
Ted drove 15 minutes toward another part of town where he arrived at a restaurant Edward had recommended to him.
"Hash Browns, muffins, coffee, and bagels to go please." Ted ordered with the waitress after sitting down on an empty chair.
Maxine, the kind southern woman replied teasingly, "A big breakfast love? I thought you were dieting based on your son's order?"
"It's for him. He's working hard right now, so I'm bringing it over to him." Ted replied as he felt comfortable around Maxine already as this was his 7th visit.
He usually stopped by after work, as he wanted to get lunch together with the ship's crew at the restaurant. All this was thanks to Maxine who always treated them kindly, every single time they visited so they all frequented the place.
"Wait. he's already working?" A feminine voice interjected to Ted and Maxine's conversation. Ted turned his head around the restaurant to scan for the source of the voice before he found a pair of mother and daughter were sitting behind him.
"Oh hi Abby. And… Desiree."
Both of them decided to go out for breakfast, and didn't expect to see Ted there.
Abby had turned her waist fully to face Ted and she asked again, "He's working this early in the morning?"
Maxine was baffled when she realized it and added, "On A SATURDAY!?" Then, she hit Ted's shoulder.
"OWW! I didn't force him to work, but yeah, he did wake up early. Maybe around 4 am."
"4 AM!?" Maxine exclaimed in bewilderment and hit Ted's shoulder again.
"Stop that!" Ted said while rubbing the sore spot on his shoulder.
"He's supposed to sleep in and wake up late in the afternoon. Like ordinary boys would. I'm not giving you coffee." Maxine said before she walked to the kitchen.
"...the coffee's for me though." Ted muttered but Maxine had already walked away.
Desire looked at Ted's uniformed attire while biting her lower lip. She especially enjoyed seeing his big arms, and kept staring at Ted without him noticing it.
Abby had fallen deep in thought about Edward, so she said, "Mr…Newgate. You're going to work right? I can give Edward his breakfast if you want."
Ted thought for a few seconds before saying, "I don't want to trouble you-"
"It's not troubling at all! I'll be glad to do it!" Abby said.
"I thought we were going to the mall?" Desire mumbled in disappointment while looking dejected.
"We can go in the afternoon. I want to see him launching his game." Abby said to try and comfort her mother.
"He said it's not worth seeing. He would just upload the game to the store…and that's it." Ted said, not to prevent Abby from going over there, but it was what Edward had said to comfort him for missing the launch event.
"Then I'll just go to give him breakfast." Abby said decisively. Desiree sighed and turned to Ted.
"How about this? After you finish, come pick me up at the Marina. I want to see the port as I have never gone there before." Desiree said. "I'll hitch a ride with Captain Ted- if that's alright with you?"
Ted gulped his saliva as he saw Desiree batting her eyes at him. "O-Okay. We can do that."
"Excellent." Desiree said as she moved her seat to sit at Ted's table. She lightly touched Ted's arm as she talked with him about how his son saved her before, and kept being flirty with him.
However, Abby still didn't realize what her mother was doing as she was too absorbed with the whole Ed situation.
"What should I say when I enter his house? Breakfast is here? What if he thinks I am the food? Will he eat me? Ehehe~" She mumbled gleefully as she waited for the order to arrive. Maxine returned with the food soon after, and Abby grabbed the packaged food from Maxine before she could put it down on the table.
"I'll meet you there!" Abby said as she waved goodbye to her mother.
"No rush~!" Desiree replied as she dragged her words before running her hands up and down Ted's biceps again. "Oh. You're so hard. You must work out a lot." She said as she 'accidentally' squeezed Ted's arm.
"*Ehem* I do…quite a bit." Ted replied with a flushing face as he still hadn't taken the hint despite Desiree's advances toward him.
Abby texted Haley before she drove to Ed's house in excitement, not knowing how her text message would make Haley react. But she was lucky as there was no way for Haley to wake up in the early morning on a Saturday.
Haley was still sleeping, with her hair unkempt and her mouth half opened. A strand of hair was stuck on her face because of the drool coming out of her mouth. Her phone chimed a few times, but she didn't even flinch at the sound.
"Mom. I'm going to Edwards house to pick up my bike!" Luke ran toward the front doors without wearing his pants from his excitement.
"Luke! Pants first!" Claire yelled at him from the kitchen. Luke finally realized he was in his tighty whities as he looked at his legs. He ran up to his room, passing by Alex who was going downstairs while reading the novel, "The Scarlet Letter."
"Honey. Can you please go with Luke to get his bike back? He finished all of his chores today." Claire requested with a kind voice as Alex rarely gave her trouble when asked to do something.
"No problem. I'll make sure he won't get his bikes back. That way, he will clean up the toilet after using them." Alex said casually and before Claire could react, she was already outside the door.
"This might be a mistake." Claire muttered in concern. Then she shrugged and exclaimed dismissively, "Oh well," before going to the kitchen to make breakfast for the kids. Phil had an open house to attend today, and left the house around 6 am, so he couldn't come with Luke in his quest to finally reclaim what was his.
…
[Edward POV]
"Bagel." I ordered.
A pale white hand picked up the bagel and fed me while I was focusing on finishing the game.
"Coffee." I ordered.
Abby picked up the cup of coffee she got from my kitchen and said in dissatisfaction while feeding me the coffee, "This wasn't what I expected when I came here today."
"What Did you expect?" I smirked teasingly as I glanced at her. She avoided my eyes and answered with a stutter, "A-Anyway. Are you finished?"
"Soon. I'm compiling." I said as I took a break from my laptop. I stretched my arms to the air as I let out a grunt. I massaged my right shoulder after that.
"Are you okay?" Abby asked in concern.
"I'm just tired." I replied.
"I'll help you massage it." Abby said before she stood behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. Right then, Alex and Luke barged into my room.
"Hey, you didn't lock the door. That's dangerous." Alex said casually as I turned toward her with a surprised expression.
"I want my bike. I did the chores. I want it." Luke demanded as he held his right arm towards me.
"Speak politely." I said with a devilish grin.
Luke whimpered before he changed his attitude, "May…May I have my bike back…please..sir?"
"You don't have to call me sir. Sure you can get your bike back. You did well. Of course, you could have gotten it earlier if you had just listened to me in the first place, but this is good too." I said as I threw him the key to his bike lock.
"This is for the new bike. Come by next week and we will get started on pimping out your old bike."
"Yes!!" Luke shouted in excitement as his misery was over. I do hope he learnt something from this lesson and will apply it in his daily life after this.
I turned to Alex who had a smile on her face as she was infected by her brother's excitement. Although she always teased him , she was genuinely happy for him too when he achieved anything.
Alex noticed I was staring at her and hid her smile immediately.
"No. I'm just happy I don't have to report to you anymore. It's exhausting to have to supervise him."
"Sure. Let's go with that excuse." I said teasingly , making Alex avoid my eyes in embarrassment.
"Hello children!" Suddenly Pepper appeared from behind Luke and Alex, startling everyone there.
"That's a bit of an overreaction. I told you I was coming. I thought that's why you didn't lock the door." Pepper said as he barged into the room. He looked at Abby who was frozen in spot while still holding my shoulder and said, "You guys have broken up… right?"
"R-Right-"
"Hey. Continue massaging. Alex, follow Luke to fetch the bike. Don't let him touch anything else in the garage."
"Sure." Alex replied.
"I don't need a babysitter!" Luke said in annoyance.
Pepper waited downstairs for me to finish with my game. I uploaded the game exactly at 9 am and was finally finished with my first project in this world. I released 2 versions of the game, one with an ads option, one without. The one without cost 99¢ a month while the other one was free.
"Now. We wait." I muttered before Abby suddenly hugged me in excitement. "Congrats Eddy. I'm sure the game will do well! It's very fun!"
"Sure. Sure. But stop rubbing your body on me. I haven't had a bath yet." I said while patting Abby's back. She released me and blood rushed to her face as she was embarrassed.
Directly after Abby released me, which took only a few seconds, I saw the data on the screen.
" Already 100 downloads? Damn."
The downloads numbers kept increasing and it reached 10,000 in just an hour, but I was no longer monitoring them as I had to follow Pepper to the recording studio.
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