He stopped dead in his tracks. “You’re mad at me.” It wasn’t a question. He approached slowly, his hands in his pockets. “What did I do?”
She scoffed. “Nothing. You sat there and did absolutely nothing.” She started to stalk away again.
“Then what’s the problem?” He raised his hands in the air with his question.
“Thatisthe problem!” She stopped and turned back around to face him, her feet spread wide. This time she wasn’t going to gape blindly when presented with the truth like she had with Chad. “You said you weren’t ashamed of me, but damn it, Jake, you have a funny way of showing it.”
“I’m not ashamed of you. I thought we agreed we didn’t want to be open about this at work.”
“I’m fine with notflauntingit. Keeping things professional,” she clarified. “I didn’t realize you’d sit there and let him disrespect me like that! That’s not the Jake I know.”
He spread his hands. “What would you have me say?”
“Anything!” She threw her hands up in the air, and shook her head. “Look, this just feels wrong. I’m fine with you doing your job. Keeping this quiet until you’re sure you can trust me. But it’s been a month, so that’s not what that was about.” She was on fire now, pointing back to the studio. “That was about you being embarrassed to know me. Period. And I can’t be with someone like that.” Her voice wavered as tears threatened to spill over. She turned around and stomped away, eager to get back to her cubicle before her wobbling legs gave out.
Jake gripped his hair, the gel making it stick straight out when he removed his hands. Embarrassed to know her? Hardly. Olivia was kind, caring, and smart as hell. Any guy would be thrilled to know her.
Well, Tony wouldn’t be. But Tony wasn’t worthy to polish her shoe. Jake sure as hell didn’t know how he’d gotten so lucky as to convince her to go out with him.
Why the hell did he care what Tony thought anyway? Shouldn’t they be past the adolescent crap separating nerds and jocks? Being with Olivia had felt so comfortable, like he could be his whole self, without being put into a box. She accepted more of him than the football team had in college. The guys had made fun of nerds and he couldn’t be seen as weak. It had been second nature for so long, it didn’t even sound weird to ask her to help him hide that part of himself.
He spent years hiding his love for anime in college, until the semester everything went to hell. He closed his eyes, remembering the cruel things they’d posted to his social media accounts, coming back to his dorm to find “weeb” spray-painted on the door… he’d cut off his online accounts just to get some of it to stop. His senior year he existed in a vacuum; too cool for the other nerds, and too nerdy for his teammates.
She was wrong. He wasn’t ashamed of her. He was ashamed ofhimself. Now she had been hurt, and he hadn’t fixed it, because instead of being her Moonlight Knight, he was the villain. He pushed a hand into his aching chest and turned to go back to his own cubicle, only to run right into Tony leaning against the wall.
“Damn, nerd pussy must be really something to keep her around for a whole month.” Great, he’d heard the whole thing.
“Shut your fucking mouth, Tony. Not everyone goes through girls like Kleenex,” Jake spat. He’d had it. Shoving back through the double doors, he headed back to cut through the studio. But Tony followed him.
“Even after my warning, you went and hooked up with someone from work? Are you nuts? You’re asking for a harassment claim.”
He was practically begging Jake to take his frustrations out on him. Right? Clenching his fists, Jake turned and swung at his co-anchor, sloppily. He didn’t want trouble, he just wanted him to shut up. It worked. Tony ducked his wild swing, and was shocked into silence. His usual South American coloring paled.
“First off, what I do on my own time is none of your business. Secondly,youwere the one harassingher.Notme. So the only one risking a harassment claim isyou, moron.” He jabbed his finger into Tony’s chest to make his point. “Now leave. Me. Alone.” Turning around, Jake saw that everyone was still in the studio, each of them eyeing him with trepidation. Fucking great. He was so going to hear about this from his boss later.
But that was a problem for Future Jake. Right now, he had an apology to figure out.
Olivia rolled her twenty-sided die again and again, just to keep her hand busy. Nadia had aDungeons and Dragonscampaign she’d been working on for ages. She watched the little red piece of molded plastic roll, over and over. Five. Sixteen. One.
She’d rolled a one when it came to choosing guys, that was for sure. Was that a stat in this game? It ought to be. Maybe Nadia could modify the character sheets.
They were rolling base statistics for their characters. Olivia had hers written down, but she still didn’t know what class she wanted to play. Nadia was playing a barbarian, and she was trying to convince Amelia to play a sorcerer. Rosie had of course taken on the healing role as a cleric. Jade had chosen a rogue.
Jake had been calling and texting all week. He’d left her alone the rest of Monday, but Tuesday he’d started asking to see her.Please call me,he’d texted. He left voicemails which she’d attempted to ignore, but always caved.I miss you, I’m sorry.They were all the same. But her trust was shattered. She couldn’t shrug off the evidence that he was so embarrassed by her. He wasn’t the person she thought he was. Olivia wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to date him anymore. Was it just the sex? Or had he sweet-talked her into it by coming clean about why he was at the convention? She couldn’t believe she’d found herself in this position yet again.
Tuxedo Mask had said he’d always be there for her, and while part of her knew it was just cosplay, acting as their characters, another part of her had allowed herself to believe it was real. In the time they’d spent together, it’d felt like he’d come to mean it. But apparently he only meant it when they weren’t in public. And that’s what hurt so much.
“Earth to Olivia!” A hand waved in front of her face, and she snapped out of her daze.
“What?”
“We were talking about classes for our characters?” Nadia leaned back, then looked her over again. “What happened? You’re off in outer space tonight.”
“I …” Olivia sighed. Her unfinished character sheet lay on the table, and she didn’t have the energy to pretend any longer. “Jake. Jake happened.” She sighed and looked between Jade and Nadia. “You were right.”
“Let’s finish these another night,” Nadia said, never taking her eyes from Olivia. The other girls put their papers and dice away in assent. Then Nadia was pulling her by the hand from the dining room chair onto her couch, and her four best friends in the whole world were piling in around her, hugging her on either side.
“What did Jake do?” Rosie asked gently.
