Chapter 10
TEN
Alex
“What the fuck are you eating?”
The question startles me out of my stupor.
I’ve been sitting at my desk at the office for the last few hours, staring at nothing, my brain unable to stop thinking about Mona.
I kept on going over our dinner two nights ago, trying to figure out what I could’ve done better to convince her that I am worth another shot.
“Chocolate cake,” I reply to Kyle. I don’t like the way he eyes the foam container the piece of cake is in, so I pull it closer to me.
It is the dessert Mona ordered to go before leaving me standing outside, in the middle of the sidewalk, with the bag full of leftovers in my hand.
“Since when you eat chocolate cake in the middle of the day like that?”
I shrug and take another bite. I have to say that even though it sat on my counter at home for two days, it’s still damn good.
“I want some, too,” Kyle continues bugging me.
“Buy your own,” I tell him with a mouth full of chocolate.
“Where did you get that? Around here? I’ll get some for me and Zara to share.”
The reminder that even the clown of our friend group has a significant other he can share chocolate cake with makes me angry. That’s basically how I feel every day. I go to bed angry, I wake up angry. I think about Mona, and I get angry, not at her, but at the situation we are in.
“It’s from a place out in Manhattan,” I finally snap at Kyle when I see that he’s not giving up.
His eyebrows raise in surprise. “Manhattan? Everything out there is expensive as hell.”
I think back at the charge on my credit card and nod in agreement. “That it is.”
They actually asked for my method of payment before they even confirmed the reservation.
I about had a heart attack when I asked to see the prices.
At first, they didn’t want to share, but once I talked to the manager and explained to him that they were using the software I developed, therefore, I was not the bum my questions made them believe that I was, he forwarded me a list with all the items on the menu and how much they cost.
As soon as Mona asked for the most expensive steak they had, my left eye started twitching a little. But I knew she was doing it out of spite because I had never spent money like that on her.
“So was it a business meeting or something?” Kyle insists with his questions. “I’m assuming they paid,” he continues when I don’t answer fast enough.
I’m not sure if sharing with him what transpired at the restaurant would be beneficial to me.
But then again, I don’t have anyone else who could give me a different perspective.
Ever since I decided to get Mona back, I have been questioning all my life decisions.
Getting someone else’s opinion might help, even if that someone else is Kyle.
“It was a date with Mona.” I drop the fork in the cake container that’s now close to being empty.
“You went on a date with Mona?” His voice goes up an octave, the same way that he does whenever he’s a bit too excited about something.
I’m not even sure how to respond to his question. I was on a date with her while she thought she was waiting for her date, Julian Lewis.
“Sort of.” I rub my hands up and down my face. “I contacted her on the Holidates app.”
Kyle pulls a chair out and drops in it. He makes himself comfortable, like he’s not planning on leaving anytime soon.
“I’ve been waiting for you to report in about that. I thought you were just going to send her a message, though. I didn’t think she’d want to go out with you again.”
Okay, maybe Kyle has better instincts than I thought. When he asked about why I had the Holidates site up on my computer, I told him that was the only way I could get a hold of Mona. I never shared that my plan was to pretend being someone else, then ask her to meet that way.
“I gave her a fake name on there,” I admit.
Kyle pulls himself back, confusion clear on his face. “What, like she wouldn’t recognize your face in the picture you put on your profile?”
That’s a fair question. I did try to put a picture of something random on there, but I got a pop up saying they had a new rule that it had to be a headshot of the person signing up.
“I photoshopped an old picture of myself. I got the hair to be a lot darker, and I did a few things to the face.”
I initially tried to find a random picture off the internet. But then I figured it would be too risky. What if she happened to have seen it somewhere by chance? I wanted this to look as real as possible, and manipulating an old picture of myself felt like a better idea at the time.
By the look on Kyle’s face right now, it probably was not my best idea.
“So you put a picture of yourself on there, but with a fake name?” he asks for clarification. “It’s got no logic.”
“After I made the changes, it resembled me, but didn’t look quite like me.”
“Yeah, but still,” Kyle huffs and rolls his eyes at me. “Why would she want to go out with a guy who looks like the ex she hates?”
Instant anger explodes in my chest, but I try to temper it down.
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” I speak through my tense jaw. “She came to meet me there.”
Kyle stares at me in awe. “What name did you give?’
I clear my throat self-consciously. “Julian Lewis.”
It is my turn to roll my eyes when Kyle busts out laughing. But then, just as abruptly, he stops.
“Wait, isn’t Julian your middle name?”
I have to say that he connected the dots way faster that I’d have expected him to. He would know my middle name from some of the business paperwork we both had to sign at one point or another.
“It is.”
“Where did Lewis come from?” is his next question.
I am saved from having to answer when my phone lights up with a notification.
When I glance down, I see that it’s from the Holidates app.
Frowning, I pick up the phone, and, as soon as the screen unlocks, I rush to tap on the app, then on the inbox.
My eyes widen in surprise when I realize there’s a message from Mona in there.
Hi Julian,
I haven’t heard back from you since the other night when you were a no show at the restaurant. I understand that things happen, but a courtesy email after would’ve gone a long way.
A grin spreads across my lips as I pick up at the tone of her email. She is pissed.
I don’t have time to play games. I need a date for this Christmas party, and I’d rather have one in place before we get too close to the holidays.
Everyone will be needing one then. If you are no longer interested in meeting, that’s fine.
I have a few other feelers out, so no big deal.
If I don’t hear back from you by tomorrow morning at the latest, I am moving on.
Mona
The smile disappears from my face as I read the message back a couple more times.
“What the fuck!”
“What’s going on?” Kyle is halfway up from his seat, stretching to see my phone.
“She has other feelers out!” My voice booms when I tell him. “Who the fuck else is she seeing?”
He stands up from the chair across my desk and walks around to see what my deal is. He shrugs a couple of times as he reads Mona’s message, then gives me my phone back.
“Well, I’m thinking this means she got messages from other guys, not just you, or Julian, or whatever the hell you call yourself on there.”
That is something I never took into consideration before. But I guess it makes sense since her profile is public.
“I need to hack into her account,” I say out loud.
“Dude,” Kyle chuckles nervously. “You can’t do that.”
I shake my head at him. “Why the fuck not? Not like I’m gonna do anything wild in there. Just turn messages from others off, so she can get messaged only from me.”
“That’s still illegal,” Kyle insists. “And if she finds out, isn’t she going to want to press charges? She hates you, remember?”
I huff at that. “She didn’t hate me enough not to eat a very expensive dinner I paid for.”
Kyle stares at me for a few seconds. He takes his time turning things over in his head, and I can only pray that he will come up with a good solution for me. I can’t believe I am counting on Kyle out of all people to save my relationship with Mona.
Except for the fact that there is no relationship with Mona anymore. I managed to fuck it all up, and as far as putting it all back together goes, it’s not looking good at all.
“How about you tell me exactly how this dinner date went,” he suggests.
I take a deep breath in before letting it all out, not ready to share anything with him, while at the same time needing him to be my sounding board.
“I made the reservation under the fake name,” I start. “Then, I got there and sat at her table. While I was talking to her…”
“So she did talk to you?” Kyle sounds skeptical. “She didn’t punch you in the face? Or kick you in the balls? Storm out of there?”
“No.”
“Hmmm…” He stares at me pensively. “Go on.”
“I scheduled for a call to be made to the restaurant and tell Mona that Julian Lewis couldn’t make it.”
He is now staring at me in disbelief. “So she just decided to stay anyway and have dinner with you?”
I open and close my mouth a few times, trying to make sense of everything in my own head before I transfer the information into Kyle’s.
“Well, she did ask the waiter for the most expensive steak on the menu, knowing that I’d pay for it…”
Kyle’s laughter can be heard from two blocks over, I am sure of it. “That sounds more like her!”
“She couldn’t even finish it! I took the leftovers home.”
And now he stops talking. “You took her leftovers home?”
“The dessert, too.” I point toward the container with whatever is left over from the chocolate cake I was eating when he first walked in here earlier.
“She ordered dessert, and you took it home with you?”
“She told me I was still blocked,” I yell back.
Kyle shakes his head at me in disappointment. “Dude, you’re an idiot. For real, though.”
I am taken aback, mostly because it is me who usually calls Kyle an idiot. He is never the voice of reason, and I don’t understand how he can be now.
“Your plan is to get her back by withholding the food she wanted?”
Now that I think of it, I have no idea why I didn’t give her the bag of food before she took off on me. At least the chocolate cake, which I know is her favorite.
“She wasn’t even hungry,” I protest.
As far as excuses go, this is a lame one.
But it is true, nonetheless. I know her well enough to recognize when she was truly hungry.
The steak they brought to her the other night was almost bigger than the plate.
She ate half of it, and she barely touched the sides.
She looked sick by the time she pushed everything away, not to mention the insane burp she let out in the middle of the restaurant.
It took real concentration for me not to crack up about it right then and there.
The patrons looked at each other in horror while the staff tried to act like they didn’t hear anything.
I had to slip the waiter a fifty on top of the gratuity on the bill just so that he would quietly hand me the bag with the leftover food once I walked Mona to the bathroom.
“What’s so funny?” Kyle notices the sudden amusement on my face.
I shrug. “She was cute, that’s all.”
“You’re weirder than we thought,” Kyle declares, and something catches my attention.
“Who’s we?”
He opens his arms wide. “We, the people!”
I am about to throw something at his head when he chuckles and puts a hand up.
“Easy there, Julian.” He grins from ear to ear. “It’s us, the people who consider you a friend, although, lately, it hasn’t been quite clear if you consider all of us your friends.”
I lean back in my chair, rocking back and forth, while glancing away. I do worry that I may have burned my bridges with some of them. Earning their trust back will most likely be just as difficult as winning Mona back.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Kyle continues. “We talk, but it’s because we worry about whatever you got going on in your head.”
I rock back and forth in my chair. “In my head?”
Kyle gives me a look that’s full of disappointment. “You’ve been acting crazy, dude. And now that you’ve explained about your parents, I guess I sort of get why you’re a headcase. But I don’t really, you know?”
I stare at him and don’t say anything. I don’t really know how to respond to what he just said. None of them lived with my father growing up. They were not programmed from a very young age not to distrust any and all women. It’s easy for them to judge me.
“What’s changed, man?” Kyle tries again. “You were always suspicious of everyone being after money, but it’s different now. You’ve been taking it to a whole new level. Your behavior toward Zara…”
“I’ve already apologized to your girlfriend,” I remind him for what feels like the millionth time.
“Yeah, you did, and good luck with her forgiving you anytime soon,” he deadpans. “How are we going to hang out all together if our women hate you?”
My eyes about fall out of my head. “They all hate me?”
“Well…” Kyle shrugs and looks away. “They’ve all become friends, you know? And they’re protective of Zara. The way you behaved at Ray’s wedding put the girls on high alert.”
I sigh but remain quiet. I don’t know what to say. It’s all falling apart around me, and it all started with the last time I broke up with Mona. I’ve been losing my mind ever since, and my father’s voice became louder in my head. The more I’ve been trying to silence it, the worse it’s become.