Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
Waking up in Danuwoa’s bed was a sin. A delicious sin I wanted to repeat every morning. Who needed an alarm when I had Danuwoa kissing me awake with a trail of kisses along the back of my neck?
I turned over to give him better access and felt him abruptly pull away.
“What the fuck happened to your face?” he asked, horrified.
“What do you mean?” I was squinting my eyes in the morning light and tried to open them further and couldn’t. I patted my eyes with my fingers and felt the swollen skin. “Oh my god! My face! Is it bad?”
“It’s not great, but you’re still beautiful to me,” Danuwoa said.
What kind of response was that? That sounded like something a man married for over a decade said to his wife when she made the unfortunate choice to cut her hair and give herself the “Karen,” all short and angled with the flat-ironed bangs. Not what you told your new girlfriend after banging her brains out the night before and waking up to her face looking like molten lava.
That. Damn. Cat.
“Great.” I scooted out of bed, but my clothes were scattered on the floor, so I wrapped myself in the blanket.
“Ember.” He paused, waiting for me to look at him.
“Yeah?” I tried to hide my face. I wanted to assess the damage in the bathroom and figure out a game plan.
“Are you allergic to cats?”
“No,” I said with a laugh. “Why would you say that? I love cats. This is just hay fever.”
“Mm-hmm. It’s okay if you’re allergic to cats. I won’t like you any less.”
“Well, I’m not.” I got up, taking the covers with me to the bathroom. End of that discussion. I just needed to invest in some heavy-duty antihistamines that were nondrowsy, and everything would be fine with Danuwoa and me and that damn fucking cat.
My face was swollen, and my nose was leaking. What a great first impression to make sleeping at Danuwoa’s house. Maybe I should just cop to being allergic to the cat and ask for him to run out and get me something for this.
I started the shower, hoping it would clear my face and my mind, and I took a little longer than I intended to. The steam made my eyes feel better, and I was away from the cat, so I could breathe.
When I came out, Danuwoa had McDonald’s coffee and McMuffins on the bed waiting for me.
“You ran out to get me food?” Was this my love language?
“Yeah, and this.” He tossed a bottle of Zyrtec at me.
“Thank you!” I squealed while swallowing a pill dry. I was desperate.
Patches sat on the bed, looking smug and content to have ruined my face. This pill had better work before I had to go into the office.
“Would you want to go to the jewelry fair with me this weekend?” I asked him, taking the coffee from the cardboard carrier and sipping the drink.
“Are there some pretty gems you want to buy me?” He was unwrapping his sandwich.
“Ha ha, very funny. Joanna is showing her work, and it’s something to do.” I took another sip to stop talking.
“You sure your boyfriend…Ron, was it? You sure Ron wouldn’t mind?” He lifted his eyebrow.
Wow, he couldn’t let that go.
“I panicked! Phoebe was asking me about you, saying we looked close, so I tried to get her off our trail. Besides, shouldn’t you want it to look like we aren’t together so we can keep our jobs?”
“Ember, Technix is a tech startup. I don’t know anyone who has actually followed that company rule. I know people who hook up all the time.”
“Does upper management know about it?”
“No, but—”
“Exactly. I work directly for the CEO. I need to keep this job, and you need to keep yours.”
“Yeah, I really do,” he conceded. “I got this mortgage at the beginning of the year.” He took another bite of food. I could almost see the gears turning in his head while he thought all this over.
“This is why we can’t show affection at the office anymore. We were almost caught yesterday.”
He leaned back on the bed, folding his leg so that his sneaker-clad foot rested on top of his knee. “That kind of adds to the thrill of it, don’t you think?”
“Danuwoa,” I warned.
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to hide you or us. That makes me feel dirty.”
“We aren’t hiding, just protecting this and our jobs.”
“Howa.” He blew out a breath. Fine, his eyes said.
“All right, tonight at the bowling alley we are just friends, got it?”
“Oh, I definitely do. Wouldn’t want old-ass Ron to get jealous.”
“We don’t have to worry about that. The Little Big Horns don’t play on Wednesdays, and I have an idea. Make sure you bring an extra shirt tonight.”
—
I walked into Bobby Dean’s and was comforted by the familiar sound of bowling balls crashing into pins and the smell of cheap beer and floor wax. I missed this place. Not the being-paid-crap part, but I missed how this bowling alley felt like home and all my friends were there.
Joanna was squirting nacho cheese on chips for the early evening rush. I led Danuwoa and Phoebe to the register to rent shoes, and we got two lanes next to each other.
“This place is perfect! Three-dollar beer? How did you hear about this place, Dan?” Phoebe asked while we tied the laces of our bowling shoes.
“I took my sister here before.”
Phoebe nodded at him in understanding. He didn’t look at me and was sitting next to Phoebe on the other side of my lane. It was my rule, but I missed him being close to me.
“Everyone should be getting here in a few minutes,” she said, and got up to test her shoes.
“You have that extra shirt?” I asked Danuwoa.
“Yeah, you gonna wear it?” His voice was laced with promise, and I hated to disappoint him, but for my plan to work, I needed the shirt.
“Nope, I am gonna borrow it for a few hours.”
“Hey, hey, hey!” Kyle called out, walking toward us, the accounting bros on his heels.
“Where’s everyone else?” Ryan asked, slapping a high five with Danuwoa.
“On their way. You promised our first round, Kyle,” Phoebe said, standing with her hands on her hips.
Kyle had just plopped on the bench, spread out, and taken up as much room as he could. “I did, I did, point the way to the bar.” He got up and followed Phoebe.
Martin scooted next to me on the bench, changing his shoes. “You know, I’m pretty good at bowling.”
“Is that so?” I could feel Danuwoa’s eyes on me, but they didn’t feel jealous, they felt curious and amused at Martin’s attempt to flirt with me. “How about the first one to make a strike doesn’t have to pay for a single drink?”
“If you wanted to buy me a drink, all you had to do was ask,” he said with a wink. He sprang up and started groping the balls, measuring their finger holes and weights.
“Careful, Ember. Martin plays a lot of virtual bowling on his Switch,” Nick warned as he leaned back next to Danuwoa.
“Not virtual bowling!” I put my hands against my cheeks, feigning distress. “What’s a girl to do against virtual bowling?”
“Hell,” Martin muttered and rolled his eyes.
“Let’s get our names in.” Danuwoa went up to the scoring system and programmed Bucky in the first slot using the toggle.
“Who’s Bucky?” Nick asked.
“That’s me.” I fake giggled and gave Danuwoa my crazy WTF? eyes. “It’s a childhood nickname.”
He put in all our names and left Kyle in the last slot. If more people from Technix showed up, they could get another lane or just drink and mill about. We got the game going, and since I was first, I rolled and got a strike. Danuwoa hooted and hollered, still standing behind the automatic scorer. I gave a silly bow to Martin, as he was up next and owed me a drink. He rolled a gutter ball, and on his spare, he hit two pins.
“So much for virtual bowling,” I teased, laughing.
Martin waved me away and sat down on the bench.
“You can go get me that drink now,” I said, my voice dripping with honey.
“Oh! Shit’s embarrassing. Sorry, man.” Nick got up for his turn.
I sidled over to Danuwoa, who was standing with his arms crossed in front of him. He looked a little like he was sulking. “Having fun?” I bumped his shoulder.
“Careful, I thought we were keeping our distance,” he muttered.
“We can be friendly as friends.”
“Here we are!” Phoebe announced as she and Kyle both carried a pitcher of beer in each hand. Phoebe nudged me with her elbow to get the stack of plastic cups from under her arm. “Thanks!”
I started passing out cups while Phoebe filled them with beer.
“Cheers!” she yelled.
“Yeah! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!” Kyle and the bros chugged their beer, quickly refilling.
“Who’s up next?” Kyle asked, shaking his golden locks from his eyes.
“Phoebe.” Danuwoa pointed with his chin at the scoreboard.
“Okay!” Phoebe took a big sip of her beer and set the cup down on the side table. She picked the pink sparkly ball; it was my personal favorite to use and the lightest weight. She ran up to the line and chucked the ball in the air. It landed hard and bounced once before it rolled into the six and ten pins, knocking them down and leaving the remaining eight untouched. “Poo! Kyle, help me knock the others down,” she said, pouting.
Kyle picked up the black bowling ball with his right hand and strutted to the line, all while drinking his beer with his left. He threw the ball out on a spin, and it went wide and into the gutter.
“Kyle! You said you were good at bowling!”
“Better luck next time,” Danuwoa said. He left my side and picked up a green ball. He was purposeful in his movements, confident. When he brushed past Phoebe, he whispered in her ear, and she turned bright red.
I locked my spine. I had no reason to be jealous of Phoebe and Danuwoa. I was in Danuwoa’s bed last night, and he made it very clear where he stood with our relationship. But he had always been comfortable with Phoebe, and he had known her for far longer. Whatever this feeling was, I hated it.
Danuwoa quickened his steps, stopping at the line with a flourish of his back leg, bending and releasing the ball, his arm staying straight as if it were a compass directing the ball to aim straight and true.
It did. He got a strike.
I clapped. I was enthusiastic but not overly so. I clapped how one would for a coworker who just got a strike. But my smile and my eyes said, I know what your penis looks like.
His said, You know what my penis tastes like.
I gulped and bit my lip. Nope, I had nothing to worry about with Phoebe. It was just Danuwoa and me in that bowling alley now.
“Ember, where’s this boyfriend of yours?” Phoebe’s question yanked me from my lusty eye-fucking with Danuwoa.
“Yeah, where’s your boyfriend?” Danuwoa asked, smirking.
“He’ll be here soon.”
“Really?” Danuwoa’s smile was incredulous.
“Yep, let’s drink.” I reached for the beer pitcher.
“How’s it going over here?”
Right on time.
“Joanna! Everyone, meet my best friend, Joanna. Joanna, this is everyone.” We went through the introductions. Nick, Ryan, and Martin were smitten.
“Wanna drink?” Ryan asked.
“Nah, I’m working.”
“You work here ?” Ryan said “here” like it was gross.
“Yes, proudly.” She bit her lip. I pulled her aside, giving her Danuwoa’s shirt.
“Tito’s game?” I asked.
“Yeah, promised him twenty bucks and a pack of smokes, and he said he’d pretend to be your boyfriend.”
“He has to answer to Ron,” I whispered.
“You know, this is getting weird, Ember.”
“I know. I’ll fix it. I just need tonight to go well.”
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Tito carrying the wooden handle of the infamous plunger, the bottom rubber part wrapped in a black plastic trash bag.
Oh no.
“Joanna, you gotta get Tito changed quick and make sure no one here notices him.”
She turned to where I was looking. “Ugh, the nasty plunger. You owe me so big for this.”
“Put it on my tab.” I shooed her away. This plan had to work, and after tonight, I’d tell everyone we had a bad breakup and never have to mention my fake boyfriend, Ron, ever again. In theory, this was brilliant. In execution…it had a high probability of being shit.
“What’s good, babe !” Tito, doubling as my fake boyfriend, Ron, yelled over the crashing balls and accounting bros chanting for Kyle to chug his beer.
He had quickly put on Danuwoa’s shirt, and he was swimming in it.
“Hey there, babe .” I cringed at saying something like this to my brother’s best friend. “Come meet everyone.”
“This is Ron?” Phoebe beamed, shuffling over.
“Yes, Ron , these are my coworkers.”
“You look so young!” Phoebe laughed as she shook Tito’s offered hand.
“I am young—”
“At heart! He is young at heart. Isn’t that right, babe ?”
“Yeah, just a young rez kid at heart.”
“Oh, you’re Native American too?” she asked and looked at Danuwoa.
“Yeah, we all are. Me, Ember, her brother, Joanna.” He was listing us all casually like it was no big deal—and it wouldn’t be, if I hadn’t gotten myself in this lying mess. Luckily no one here knew I lied on my job application about that.
“Yup, I bet we all have Native roots here in Oklahoma,” I said quickly, trying to change the subject. My fake-ass laugh was starting to sound desperate.
Danuwoa stood there nursing his beer. His eyes were highly entertained, and I refused to meet them, or else I’d break.
Bowling shouldn’t be this stressful.
“We’re out of beer!” Kyle’s voice broke through our conversation.
“Oh, I’ll get some,” Phoebe called over her shoulder.
I pulled Tito a little away from our group. “Thank you for doing me this favor.”
“Twenty bucks and smokes, remember?”
“Yeah, you’ll get it. Do not mention any personal information. Just keep this super light and casual, okay?”
“I can be a great pretend boyfriend. I know how you’re always single. I feel bad for you.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I tried to wiggle away, and he held me tighter. “We are a happy couple, remember?” he whispered in my ear, and it made me want to gag.
“Get off, I’m not a charity case—this is just so people leave me alone at work.”
“Everything good over here?” Danuwoa asked, towering half a foot over Tito.
“We’re great, man, just boyfriend-girlfriend stuff.” Tito smiled at me like he was my knight in shining armor.
“Let’s just bowl, okay?” I slithered out of Tito’s hold and looked into Danuwoa’s eyes, pleading for him to drop this.
“Nice shirt,” he said to Tito.
I wanted to die. I created this mess, and hindsight was always twenty-twenty. If I could go back in time, I would have chosen much differently.
“You got something to say to me?” Tito got in Danuwoa’s face.
“Okay, let’s drop this. Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I whispered into Tito’s ear.
“I’m watching you, Kronk,” Tito said as he pointed his fingers to his eyes and then to Danuwoa’s.
Once he disappeared into the crowded bowling alley, I let out a breath. What. A. Night.
“Did he just call me the henchman from The Emperor’s New Groove ?”
“Did he? I need a drink.” I tried to go around Danuwoa to the beer pitcher. It was sitting on the small table, and it was empty. Damn.
“What’s going on? Who was that guy, and why did you give him my shirt?”
“He’s a family friend who works here. It’s not a big deal.”
“You know, Ember, I’m starting to feel like maybe it is. Why not tell people you are single or, better yet, that we’re together?”
“Shh!” I looked around, but Phoebe and Kyle were still at the bar, and the accounting bros were swiping right and left on Tinder together, our bowling game completely forgotten. “We talked about this,” I pleaded.
“This is starting to get really fucking weird. I don’t like it.” He stomped to the seats and sat down.
“We’re back!” Phoebe called. Kyle was looking a little worse for wear. I think we were all drinking too much of this cheap beer.
“Yo, Ember, take care of these receipts for me.” Kyle handed me a soggy wet wad of paper. Gross.
“Kyle, I don’t think this counts as a work expense.”
He ignored me.
The night needed to end. Danuwoa refused to look at me, and this was so not how I wanted tonight to go.
Things finally wound down. Outside in the parking lot, as everyone was saying their goodbyes, I approached Kyle.
“Hey, I don’t think I can expense this stuff. This wasn’t work-related.”
Kyle looked up and around, then took me by the arm away from everyone else. “What?”
“You gave me all the receipts from tonight. It goes against company policy. This wasn’t a preapproved work function,” I explained.
“Did I ask you for your opinion?” he snapped. He had sobered right up.
“Well…no.”
“I told you to expense the receipts, so expense them. That’s all you have to do.”
“But—”
“No buts. Do you think my uncle will take kindly to the news that his new assistant was fucking the IT guy while at a work event?”
The air left my lungs as if Kyle’s words were a punch to my gut. I was no prude, but the way he said that made me feel cheap and vulgar.
“We only kissed!” That he knew of.
“And who do you think he is going to believe? Family or the help?”
Did he just threaten me?
“I…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I looked down at the ground, truly afraid. “I’m sorry.” In my experience with angry men, a demure apology usually cooled them off. The cheap beer was curdling in my stomach, and I wanted to be anywhere but here. All the lies, getting Tito’s help, offending Danuwoa. It was all pointless, because I was trapped being Kyle’s bitch, and to protect Danuwoa, I’d do anything.
“Good. I don’t want to hear about it again.” Kyle walked away.
Ubers were called, and our small happy hour crew dispersed. It was just Danuwoa and me left in the parking lot. He walked me to my car silently.
“What was that?”
“I’m sorry, Tito is my brother’s friend, and I didn’t think it through.”
“No, what was that just now with Kyle?”
I leaned against the driver’s side door. “Nothing, he was just asking me about a project at work.”
“Really? Asking about work while drunk in the parking lot?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He looked pissed.” Danuwoa crossed his arms, staring me down.
He didn’t know the half of it.
“Nope, everything’s good. Are we good?” I smiled into his dark eyes.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I really like you, Ember. But I think maybe you need to get your priorities straight.” He started to walk away.
“What do you mean?” My voice stopped him, and he turned to look at me. I continued, “My priority is keeping my job and dating you.”
“We can just tell HR we’re together. There doesn’t have to be all this secrecy.”
I replayed what Kyle said only a few minutes ago. Do you think my uncle will take kindly to the news that his new assistant was fucking the IT guy while at a work event? It was too late. Kyle already knew about us and was making big threats. I couldn’t risk it. Maybe once Natalie was back from maternity leave, then we could come clean, but it was too much of a gamble right now.
“Can I think about it?” I tried to compromise.
He let out a sigh and looked so disappointed in me. I went home alone.