Bad Bridesmaid (33 page)

They might not have realised it, but a lot of the guys working there were accidentally cool. They were rocking the geek-chic look – you know the one, braces, thick-framed glasses, bow ties – I’m fairly certain that if they walked into a branch of Topman, they would blend right in, not that any of them would ever go near Topman.

Most of them wouldn’t talk to me at first but some were friendly. They didn’t make me feel stupid for not understanding HTML or JavaScript (which, sadly, has nothing to do with coffee) and they could have easily put me in a corner sharpening pencils (I made a joke about this at the time, they don’t have pencils) but they didn’t. Instead they gave me things to write about like iPods and music download services and, unsurprisingly, I managed to write about my favourite thing: bands. To make a very long story very short, at the end of my time there ET was so impressed, and so happy that almost all of the office had at least spoken to a member of the opposite sex, that he offered me a job, starting as soon as I’d finished my degree. I didn’t think he meant it, but as soon as I graduated I gave him a call on the off-chance and, just like he said he would, he set me up with my own little department. Two rooms of their huge office were assigned to my project – a main office for my team and a little private office for me. The ByteBanter guys would build and maintain an online magazine for me, but I was in charge of everything else.

If the ByteBanter office was futuristic, the rooms they gave me to use were practically prehistoric. The decor reminded me of a film noir detective office – old wooden desks, proper filing cabinets, frosted glass on the doors and even a coat stand. Anything that wasn’t actually made of wood was a similar colour.

I managed to poach Jake – my favourite member of the ByteBanter team – to come and do the day-to-day techy stuff for me and recruited my best friend from uni, Emily, to help me with the writing and there you have it, that’s how I became editor of
Starstruck
, an online magazine.

CARINA™

ISBN: 978 1 472 09646 3

Bad Bridesmaid

Copyright © 2014 Portia MacIntosh

Published in Great Britain (2014)

by Carina, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

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