Chapter 7 #3
I guide him through a crowd of people I know are staring at us. They started staring the moment we walked into the ballroom. I wasn’t aware of Silas’s popularity until we showed up here. There’s whispering, pointing, and talking behind hands. Apparently, I’m an absolute dumbass.
“Does this work?” I ask.
“Whatever you want,” he says just as a server approaches with glasses of champagne. Silas picks up a flute for each of us and hands me one.
I hold the glass up to him and say, “Thank you for coming here tonight.”
“No need to thank me. It’s part of the deal,” he says before clinking his glass against mine and taking a long sip of champagne.
“About that,” I say as I pick up a napkin from the table and pull a pen out of my clutch. Always come prepared. That’s what I say. “I think we need to make some ground rules.”
His brow rises. “Is that really necessary?”
“It would make me feel better because right now, I feel like I’m using you.”
“Jesus Christ, Ollie, I told you—”
“I know,” I say. “But please just humor me.”
“Fine.” He nods at the napkin. “You’re going to take notes?”
“No, I’m drawing up a contract.”
“On a napkin? Wow, really official.”
“Hey.” I tap the napkin and say, “We will live and die by this napkin. Got it?”
“Sure,” he answers while taking another sip of his champagne.
As I write, I talk out loud. “This hereby napkin will formally and legally bind Ollie Owens and Silas Taters to the following agenda below.”
“Agenda . . . fancy.”
I lean in and whisper, “I took one class in law as a prerequisite.”
“It’s like you’ve practically passed the Bar.” Silas grins.
“Right?” I smile and go back to the napkin. “Silas Taters, hereby known from here on out as Puck, will deliver the following to Ollie Owens, hereby known from here on out as Lipstick.”
“Are the nicknames necessary?”
“It’s called having a sense of humor.” I poke him with my pen. “Try having one.”
“Be funny, and I will.”
My eyes widen, and he smirks while sipping his champagne.
“Oh sir, you better watch yourself.” He laughs some more while I focus back on the napkin. I clear my throat and continue, “Puck allows Lipstick full access to his home gym. Puck agrees to answer any question about hockey, even if it seems like a dumb question.”
“Can’t wait for that,” he says.
“Puck agrees to attend any event/outing/date requested by Lipstick as long as his hockey season schedule allows.”
“It’s going to become quite sparse when the season starts.”
“I understand that.” I hand him the pen.
“Please initial next to each line.” He initials, then I take the pen from him and do the same.
“Okay. Lipstick will deliver the following to Puck. Attend any and all events requested by Puck. Lipstick will dress as slutty—within reason—as Puck wants to make Sarah last name unknown, from here on out known as Witchbag”—Silas snorts—“jealous.” I glance up at him. “What else do you want?”
“Nothing,” he replies. “That’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” I say. “There has to be something else I can do for you.”
“Everything is already done for me.”
“What about something like social media? Do you need help with that? Or a website? I know how to make one. Or I can help you with any lifestyle things like . . . how to, uh . . . fold a fitted sheet.”
“I’m good.”
“Ugh, come on, can’t you think of something? I mean, I’d offer sexual favors at this point.” He raises one brow in question. “But as we established, this is a business transaction, not a whorehouse.”
“Maybe you should write that on the napkin.”
I tap my nose with the pen and point at him.
“You’re right.” I leave a space for him to put in another request, then underneath that, I write about not being a whorehouse.
I hand him the pen. “Initial, please.” He initials and hands me back the pen.
“Okay, so now that we have no sex written in stone, we need one more thing for you.”
“I want nothing.”
“Urgh, you’re infuriating,” I say as the room around us erupts in laughter. We both glance to the right where Roberts has walked into the room. “Shit, my boss. Make it quick.”
“I told you, I don’t need—”
“Lipstick owes Puck one favor not related to events. Lipstick must comply. There,” I say, dotting the sentence with a period. “Now sign here.”
I give him the pen, and as he signs, he says, “You realize I will never cash in on that favor.”
“Your problem, not mine.” I sign the napkin as well and then seal it with a kiss.
“Is that your version of notarizing the document?”
“Yup.” I place the napkin in my purse just as I feel the crowd part behind me, and Roberts steps in.
Tacking on a smile, champagne flute in hand, I turn toward the right, where Roberts waits. “Mr. Roberts, so nice to see you,” I say, feeling awkward since I saw him just this morning. “I’d like to introduce you to my boyfriend, Silas Taters. Silas, this is my boss, Mr. Alan Roberts.”
Silas sets his champagne down, snags his arm around my waist, and then holds his hand out for Roberts. “It’s a pleasure,” he says. “Ollie has said nothing but great things about her internship with you.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Roberts says with a huge smile. A smile so large, it almost seems like he’s fangirling. “Please, come over to my sitting space. I’d love to get to know you better.”
Ooo, sitting space. He makes it sound so luxurious.
“Of course,” Silas says as he slips his hand into mine and guides me through the crowd, sometimes pausing to shake a hand or two.
It’s probably one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had.
I went into this thing with Silas completely blind, not knowing a damn thing about him and hockey or his presence in this city.
Yet here I am, pretending to be his girlfriend as grown-ass men and women fawn over him as he walks through a crowded room.
No wonder he tries to hide his face when he comes to my dorm. He doesn’t want to be mauled.
When we arrive at Roberts’s sitting area—a small section of the ballroom blocked off by fern trees and bushes and decorated in rich black velvet couches—Silas helps me down to one of the couches.
Roberts takes a seat across from us, and a beautiful woman in what I can only assume is her fifties takes a seat next to him.
“This is my wife, Gloria. Gloria, this is Silas Taters, as you know, and his girlfriend, Ollie Owens. Ollie works for me as an intern.”
“Lovely,” Gloria says while folding her hands on her lap. I wonder if she knows about Roberts’s affair. If she’s compliant about it because she doesn’t want to start over or lose the luxury of being with someone like Roberts. “How long have you two been dating?”
“Just a few weeks,” I answer, my nerves spiking immediately because we didn’t really talk about that. As I opened my mouth to answer, I just prayed that Silas didn’t answer at the same time. That could have been disastrous. “Still newish. We just actually told our friends we were dating.”
“Ah, I see,” Gloria says in a disbelieving tone and pursed cheeks.
I’m going to tell you right now, I don’t like her vibe.
I don’t like the way she’s studying us.
I don’t like her clipped tone.
And I don’t like how she’s sitting there with a gleam in her eyes like she’s ready to catch us in a lie.
How can she be so jaded, so disbelieving within seconds of meeting us?
I know when someone is challenging me, and I believe that’s what she’s doing.
How can she see right through me, through us? Does she not believe the validity of our fake relationship? Did she speak to Candace?
Will she go home tonight, and while she’s brushing her teeth and Roberts is combing his mustache with mustache oil, is she going to tell him that we’re frauds and that he should fire me?
Will I have a job tomorrow?
Will Roberts meet me at my cubicle with a box and a sardonic laugh as he watches me pack my pathetic desk up, noticing the one pack of light blue Post-it Notes I stole from Candace a month ago because Ross dared me?
I slip my hand into Silas’s, scared for my freaking life.
It’s bad enough Roberts is going to fire me, but there’s no way I can allow him to see those Post-it Notes. He’ll know the sort of deviant I actually am.
“How did you two meet?” Gloria asks, snapping me out of my thoughts and forcing me to face-plant back into this conversation. But now, instead of surging with waving confidence, I’m teetering on the brink of nerves.
How did we meet?
Great question.
Sweat forms on my upper lip as I attempt to remember the story Silas and I agreed upon, but for the life of me, my mind goes blank.
Black.
It’s all faded.
“The doctor’s office,” I nearly shout. The moment the words leave my mouth, Silas stiffens next to me.
I don’t blame him because I’m pretty sure we’re about to go on a wild ride.
“Yup, the doctor’s office. Weird, I know, but I was there for a routine checkup, and Silas was there because he got a rock stuck up his nose.
” Silas shifts next to me, and I can only imagine what’s going through his head.
“Now, some might think that’s a sure-fire way to get a first-class ticket to the emergency room, but not Silas.
He’s a real saint and believed his GP could assist him with his needs.
I remember seeing him in the waiting room, wondering how a grown man got a rock stuck up his nose.
Come to find out, it wasn’t from morbid curiosity or a nose fetish on his end.
He just happened to sniff at the wrong time while a car drove by, lodging a rock right up the nostril. What are the chances, right?”
“Very . . . odd,” Gloria says while Roberts studies me carefully. God, he can probably see right through me as well. He’s mentally dialing HR, telling them to pull my file because a firing will occur.