Chapter 9
9
Social batteries aren’t a tangible thing, yet mine is running on fumes. We’ve been playing this stupid game for hours. My butt hurts from sitting on the floor because I do not own enough seating for all my guests. Peter shifts beside me like he’s also experiencing pain in his gluteus maximus.
He confirms my hypothesis by leaning toward me to whisper, “Can I get you a drink? I have to get up anyway. My ass is killing me.”
“Yes, thank you. Just water, please.” I watch with patent jealousy as he leaves the rowdy living room.
As the hostess, it would be very poor manners for me to escape to my bedroom for even twenty minutes to recharge my battery. Thus, I remain on the floor, my legs crisscross applesauce and my thighs cramping.
“So glad to see Mommy and Daddy finally made up.” Oscar laughs. “Make with the kissing now.”
I wrinkle my nose at him. “How much champagne have you had?”
He sighs then licks his empty cup. “Not enough for it to turn into Jaeger. ”
I wrinkle my nose further. I’ve had the displeasure of tasting J?germeister in undergraduate school at the single party I attended. Why anyone drinks the stuff is beyond me. It tastes like cough syrup.
Joel grins. It’s a devious thing spreading over his face. “I’ve been waiting until the right moment.”
He races toward the bedroom where everyone’s coats are piled on my bed since my apartment doesn’t have a coat closet. He returns holding a green bottle of Jaeger in each hand.
I didn’t even notice him bring them in. I was too busy with the socially appropriate greetings and gratitude for the gifts that everyone brought. I’m now the proud owner of a veggie pasta maker, a panini iron, a pizookie kit—whatever that is—and a bunch of other things that will likely collect dust in my unopened kitchen cabinets. I’ve never had time to master the art of cooking. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day.
“Do you have shot glasses?” Joel asks, standing over me with that same slightly scary grin.
“Uh, no.” I glance toward the kitchen where Peter’s already opening and closing cabinets at random, presumably to search for the requested items. “I don’t really do shots…by myself.”
Or ever.
“No problem.” Joel reclaims his seat at the head of the coffee table. “We’ll just take turns swigging straight from the bottle like back in the good ole days.”
“Here.” Peter hands me a glass of water when he sits beside me on the floor. Next, he holds up the opened bottle of wine that he brought. The only consumable, usable gift of the evening. “Might wanna have this handy, too.”
“Thanks.” I whisper, “Does this happen…often? With the cards and the shots?”
It doesn’t seem like an off-the-cuff idea. No one else looked surprised when Joel brought out the bottles .
“About once a month since we opened the R&D unit,” Peter admits.
“Another of your brilliant team bonding ideas?”
He cuts a quick glance to me, shaking his head subtly.
“No?”
“I try to stay out of it,” he whispers. “It gets really personal.”
Isn’t that a good thing for the purposes of team bonding? He doesn’t say it like it’s a good thing.
“How did this get started?” I glance around at our coworkers and their plus ones, but no one seems to notice that Peter and I are having a private conversation.
I’m slightly shocked that it’s happening without me even realizing it. And that no tears or fantasies of homicide are involved.
“Carly’s engagement party,” Peter answers.
“The one you didn’t attend?”
He nods, watching as Joel deals everyone a fresh hand of cards.
“You really hurt her feelings,” I inform him. “Did you know you were the only person from the Paramus branch who didn’t go?”
The muscle in his jaw ticks, but he remains otherwise still and quiet.
“Why didn’t you?”
He shrugs.
“Your happy hour team bonding idea was brilliant. I don’t understand why you’d undo everything you were working toward by not attending a single party,” I press.
It makes me nervous not to know something else about this man. Maybe he was busy that night. Maybe it was the first time he made a secret deal to sell Chester designs.
He shakes his head then stares at the carpet as he explains, “It was the week after I was brought on as director. I didn’t really know anyone yet, and I hadn’t initiated the weekly happy hour either.”
“As the new director, shouldn’t it have been a priority to attend? To get to know your new employees better?”
Why am I pursuing this so hard? He clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. I know he can be as painfully shy, awkward, and as party-averse as I am. This isn’t a big deal. Why am I making it a big deal?
I’m not acting logically. I inhale then exhale a cleansing breath and vow to drop it. No reason to continue this conversation. He’ll explain the reasons for behaving as he did in the past. I’ll continue my investigation. We will coexist as coworkers, and that needs to be the end of it.
“I was still reeling from the way you left me so easily,” he finally murmurs. “Didn’t think it was a good idea to attend a party where one of my new employees would be celebrating her happy, committed relationship. I’m not very good at faking it, and I didn’t want everyone to see how jealous and unhappy I was.”
His explanation shocks me. Of all the potential reasons I assumed, this wasn’t one of them.
We were together for as many years as we previously spent dancing around each other. Surely, he wasn’t planning an engagement.
Thankfully—or regrettably, depending on the perspective—I don’t get a chance to ask any further questions for clarification.
Isaac chooses this moment to dart into the living room after hours of hiding from all the people.
He makes a beeline toward me, which is also shocking. He’s not the comfort seeking sort of pet.
His behavior makes more sense when he climbs into Peter’s lap .
“Hey, buddy,” Peter coos to the little orange furball. “You remember me.”
“A cat,” Carly says with overly loud, drunken joy. “You didn’t tell me you have a cat, Elise! He’s so cute!”
“What’s his name?” Finley asks in between making pspspspsps noises to attract Isaac’s attention.
“Sir Isaac Newton,” I answer.
My anti-social cat seems to have turned over a new leaf. He purrs and rubs his body along Peter’s flat stomach. He even lets Peter scratch beneath his chin. I would be bitten for such an infraction of personal boundaries.
“Slut,” I accuse under my breath.
Much to everyone else’s amusement, Isaac stretches his front paws up Peter’s chest. My cat kneads Peter’s defined pecs, his claws catching in the pink fabric of his fitted shirt.
Peter doesn’t seem to mind obviously being used as a scratching post. He leans down with a smile on his face, and Isaac—gasp!—nuzzles Peter’s chin, rubbing his head against his end of day facial hair.
My cat is marking his territory! Claiming a new owner!
Traitors! Traitors everywhere!
As everyone oohs and aahs and makes comments about how Peter would be such a great father, that pussies love him, and that this is a surprisingly gentle side of the exacting asshole, Peter himself pops his eyebrows and murmurs to my ex-pet, “You want the thing, don’t you?”
I swear, my evil cat nods.
He allows Peter to pick him up—I could never—then plops him down on his shoulder so that his hind legs hang over Peter’s back and his front paws dangle in front of a perfectly proportioned pectoral muscle on Peter’s chest.
The excited chatter dies down as everyone stares at the sight with wide eyes .
“How…” Carly blinks. “How are you doing that?”
“Pretty impressive, huh?” Peter grins at our coworkers. “It’s my super-secret party trick.”
Maeve stares at him with lusty eyes. “I always thought your broad shoulders were for a secret side hustle as a male stripper.”
It doesn’t escape my notice that I’m not the only one whose face crinkles with disgust at her assumption. Peter might have the build to be a male stripper, but he definitely doesn’t have the personality for it.
“Uh, no,” he finally says. “My shoulders are reserved for a cat perch.”
That’s a lie, but I’ll never admit it out loud. Peter’s shoulders are also a fantastic anchor for not flying away into the stratosphere during utter, physical bliss.
“Seriously.” Oscar’s gaze bounces between me and Peter. “How did you teach her cat to do that? My cat barely tolerates me petting him.”
“Sir Isaac Newton has always loved Peter more than me,” I admit even though I also didn’t know about this super-secret party trick until now.
“Isaac was sick this one time. The vet thought it was stress or something totally random,” Peter explains. “He kept puking up everything he ate. Eli had to proctor exams, so I camped out at her place to keep an eye on Isaac. I made a puke bucket man purse, draped Isaac over the same shoulder, and the rest is history. I think he actually learned to like it. The pressure of my shoulder must have made his stomach feel a little better. He didn’t puke nearly as much on his perch as he did when he roamed free.”
Everyone gapes at Peter.
Me, too.
I also gape at Peter .
“How well did you two know each other at MIT?” Maeve asks, her squinted gaze volleying between us.
“What does the black card say?” Peter asks instead of answering her question. He flips through his stack of ten white cards with complete concentration.
“How did I lose my virginity?” Oscar reads from the coffee table, easily distracted from the potentially disastrous line of questioning.
Peter hangs his head before raising it to glower at our coworkers. “Not to be a mood killer, but this topic cannot be discussed during work hours.”
“He’s right.” Carly agrees quickly. “If we want to continue our monthly game nights as friends, then we have to remember professional boundaries at the office.”
Surprisingly, there are few grumbles of dissent. Everyone seems to easily accept the rules.
Peter passes a white card forward to Joel, who puts it on the table for him. Joel reads aloud instead of waiting as per the rules, “Rubbing it.”
They all fold over with laughter.
I don’t get it.
Oscar wipes his face as he wheezes, “We knew it! We just knew you’re such an asshole because you’ve never been laid!”
Peter rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m a thirty-two-year-old virgin. Laugh it up, boneheads.”
They follow his instructions very well, in spite of his blatant lie. Peter is most definitely not a virgin.
Maeve gapes at him in horror. “Really?”
“No,” Peter says, his tone deadpan. “Not really.”
Joel makes a grabbing motion toward me.
Right. It’s my turn. Quickly, I gather my cards then flip through them one by one .
“How did you lose your virginity?” Finley reminds me of the black card that I must answer with a white one.
I hand Joel an option that is the most accurate answer. Sort of.
Joel reads aloud. Still not following the rules. “A manic nerd.”
No one laughs, but a few of the guys nod in apparent agreement.
My shoulders slump. I’m not funny even when I’m not making up the jokes on my own.
“Everyone here probably lost their virginity to a manic nerd. Because we’re high-level engineers,” Peter whispers to me as play resumes among everyone else. “The object of the game isn’t to tell the truth, or as close to the truth as you can get. The point is to make people laugh with something unexpected.”
“How was rubbing it unexpected?” I whisper back.
Peter’s answer received many laughs. My answer received none.
“Because rubbing it implies that I lost my virginity by masturbating instead of through sex with another person.”
Ahhh. Rubbing it. I get it. I physically shake off the mental images of Peter’s big hand wrapped around his also large penis.
“Why is that an unexpected answer?” I press. “I also lost my so-called virginity from masturbation. Don’t most people explore their own bodies before leveling up to other bodies?”
Peter blinks at me then returns his attention to the gameplay.
I’m unsatisfied by this response. I poke Joel in his shoulder as he is directly in front of me.
“How old were you when you lost your virginity, and how did it happen?” I ask him.
A wide grin spreads across his mouth. My question has pleased him for some unknown reason .
“Shots!”
I startle when he yells the word.
“You all know the rules,” he says at large. “We have a noob among us, so Carly. If you please.” He gestures toward her with an arm flourish that resembles the motion of a game show host.
Carly nods then explains, “Every time we play cards, someone always asks us to reveal our true answers instead of the funny ones. We never know when it will happen, or who will do the honors. It’s totally random. We only get one round for truth during the regular game, then no more. Everyone pours a shot before we answer. After everyone has answered, we all go around and guess whether they’re telling the truth or not. If the person manages to fool us, then we do a shot. If we guess their answer to be a truth or lie easily, then they do the shot. By the time we make the rounds, we’re all pretty hammered.”
This is…an extremely complex, dependent set of variables. I’m rather impressed by the elegance of the set up.
“And you’ve been playing your own additional set of rules for how long?”
“Since my engagement party,” Carly answers, directing a pointed glare at Peter.
I whisper out of the side of my mouth, “Very personal?”
“Very,” Peter answers on an equal whisper.
“Okay.” Joel twists to face me. “You asked the question, Elise, so you answer first. When did you lose your virginity, and how?”
“How old was I when I lost my virginity, and how did it happen?” I correct him.
He smiles at me. “Sure. Yeah. That. Now answer.”
“I was fourteen, and I fingered myself,” I say.
Peter chokes on his drink beside me.
The rest of the people in the room study me carefully, clearly debating whether I have told the truth or a lie.
I am itching to point out that this round depends entirely on personal definitions of the patriarchal concept of virginity, but I do not get the chance before Finley shouts, “Lie!”
The majority of people present also assume I am lying.
“Now what?” I ask after the weight of their silent stares becomes unbearable.
Peter murmurs, “Now you admit whether you told the truth or lied. Since most people think you lied, if you told the truth, then they’ll do a shot. If you lied, and they guessed correctly, then you do the shot.”
“Oh. I am telling the truth.”
“Damn it!” Joel yelps before drinking from the open bottle of Jaeger. They pass it around, everyone taking turns drinking from the same bottle. It’s offered to Peter at length. He declines with a shake of his head then lifts the open bottle of wine that he gifted me to his lips.
“Party pooper!” Joel yells at him, but he’s laughing.
“Hey.” Peter shrugs. “Someone has to stay sober while the rest of you get smashed. I’ll make sure everyone either has a safe ride home or somewhere to crash for the night.”
I appreciate his concern. This is more proof that he’s always looking out for their best interests.
By the time I am drunk—damn these rules and my lack of accurate guessing!—I have learned some new, intimate details about my coworkers.
Carly lost her virginity when she was 17 to a man. She did not enjoy the experience.
Finley was also 17. It happened in the backseat of his car with his high school girlfriend.
Several data points emerge from the various answers. The majority of people—meaning a male, heterosexual perspective—had their first intimate experience with another person at the age of 18.
Peter is the last to go .
He shakes his head and licks his lips. “I was twenty-five. Missionary.”
“Bullshit,” Kevin yelps. “Position doesn’t count!”
“Why not?” Peter challenges. “The question is how old was I when I lost my virginity, and how did it happen? Position counts.”
Everyone huddles together, discussing the validity of Peter’s response.
I lean toward him, falling against his solid, warm shoulder. Even using wine as a replacement for the disgusting Jaeger, I’m drunk. I do not want to have to drink anymore. “Is that the truth or a lie?”
I expect it to be the latter. There’s no way Peter was a virgin the first time we engaged in intimate relations. He was far too skilled at pleasuring me. Further, his age is a definite outlier on the upper end of the spectrum.
He leans down toward me, his warm breath brushing against my forehead. “It’s the truth.”
I swivel my head from my comfy spot against his shoulder to meet his gaze. He’s staring at me with a softness in his eyes that makes my heart flutter. I’m drowning in wine. I’m drowning in memories of all our shared pleasure. I’m drowning in his soft eyes.
He must see me struggling to breathe because he licks his lips before insisting, “You were my first. You are my only.”
Peter straightens when Carly says, “No. That won’t do. No one else listed a position. We divulged personal information about our feelings and relationship to the other person. You’re required to follow suit.”
Peter chuckles, but it doesn’t sound happy at all. “Okay, then. Twenty-five, and with a woman I was head-over-heels in love with.”
In spite of the fuzzy warmth that spreads over my body like a tangible blanket, I furrow my brow at his answer. How can that be true? He used me for money. He lied to me. He knew how to bring me to orgasm the very first time!
All of our coworkers also assume the same thing.
After everyone has taken their turns, Peter points at them. “Drink.”
“What?” Joel yelps. “Bullshit! I demand an addendum to the unofficial rules. From here forth, no more two-part questions to the random truth question. We have no way of knowing which part of your answer is actually true!”
Peter laughs. “Dude. You are wasted.”
“That’s not the point!” Joel slices his hand down perpendicular to his other open palm. “There is no way in a frozen hell that you were twenty-five when you had sex for the first time, and that you also had it with someone you were that deeply in love with. One of those answers is a fucking lie.”
“Guess you’ll never know.” Peter shakes his head.
I scoff—at least I think I do—but I can’t force myself away from the warmth and comfort of Peter’s body.
As the rest of my team breaks out into an argument about adjusting the rules to their version of the game, I fall asleep on Peter’s shoulder.