“I don’t understand why you care so much about what other people think,” he said, thoughtfully drawing out every word. “It shouldn’t matter.”
I shot forward. “I feel a lot of pressure at work. If I’m too tough on the team when they mess up, they call me a bossy bitch. When I go easy on them, they take advantage of me. Working late means I have no life, even though guys here do the same thing and no one makes fun of them. Can’t people just treat me the same as everyone else? Well, the answer seems to be no.”
Taking a sip of wine, I continued. “In my old job, I was way more confident . . . and valued . . . and appreciated. They knew I worked hard and I proved myself over time. Here, I feel second-guessed all the time.”
Nolan sighed on my behalf. “You’re great at your job and the company needs you. I think you should demand a raise. Your game has such visibility, and whether you like it or not, so do you. I bet they’d do it.”
It hadn’t even crossed my mind to ask for a raise. It was true: the studio needed me. I was a hard worker and the only female producer at the company since Maggie left. “I like your idea. I’m going to Sheryl Sandberg the shit out of this and ask for a raise.”
He grinned and rolled up the label of his second beer into a thin tube and put it on the table. He shifted in his seat and our knees touched briefly, sending a jolt of tingling warmth through my body. I hoped it would happen again.
When our waiter came by, I handed her the gift card and my credit card tucked underneath it in case we went over the limit.
My phone buzzed and I glanced at the screen with eyes bleary from drunkenness.
Calendar reminder. Call with China. Thirty minutes.
I looked up to find Nolan trying to get a hot sauce stain off his shirt cuff with spit and water, his thick, wavy hair falling forward. He looked up, his eyes crinkling but his mouth frowning a little.
I joked, “Don’t worry, you have hundreds of shirts just like that to replace this one.” Ones that fit his body perfectly.
He waggled his eyebrows. “Ohhhh, so you notice what I wear?” Lowering his head, he peered at me through his dark eyelashes. “You know, I actually bought more of them because you said you liked the one I was wearing that time.”
Oh my god.
The phone bleeped again. I put it away and looked at him. “I have to run.”
Our eyes met. He leaned in more, his warm breath reaching my face. “If you need to go, I get it. Maybe we can do a rain check.” Weren’t rain checks for half- or fully canceled plans? We had finished our meal and drinks. Was he asking me out?
My heartbeat pulsed hard against my ribs. I wanted him to clarify without having to ask.
But . . . I still had so much work to do. And I had to do it drunk. “I . . . I have to go hop on a call now, I’m sorry.” The waiter brought the final bill and we headed out the door. My apartment was closeish to the restaurant, he lived the opposite direction in Capitol Hill, so we ordered separate Liftr cars.
“Did you drive to work?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m leaving my car there, I’ll just walk or take a Liftr tomorrow morning. How about you?”
“I take the bus sometimes, but lately since I work so late I’ve been renting one of those ebikes to get some exercise.”
Outside, we were no match for the relentless rain and the freezing temperatures. Because of some facade construction and inconvenient scaffolding, Nolan and I crammed together side by side under a small portion of the restaurant’s awning. He briefly opened his golf umbrella, but with the rampant wind, the precipitation seemed to be attacking from down below rather than from the sky.
As more and more people left the restaurant, Nolan and I found ourselves shuffling our positions as people did in crowded elevators. While the rain fell harder, I took a few steps back under the awning to get more coverage, coming flush against Nolan. His chest pressed against my back, and I leaned into him, shivering, convincing myself it was to stay dry and to get relief from the cold, blustering winds.
His breath was warm behind my ear, near the nape of my neck. My skin prickled as he gently stroked both of my arms, shoulders down to fingertips. His body pushed against mine, his heart beat in quick tempo, same as mine.
I lifted my chin up, tilting my head enough so I could look into Nolan’s eyes. With a wry smile, he steadily returned my gaze. My entire body felt airy and weightless, just by being so close to him. Losing my inhibition, I licked my lips, ready to make a move.
A blaring honk jolted me with adrenaline as a black Nissan Sentra with a Liftr sticker pulled up right in front of us. “Melody?” the driver asked through the rolled-down window. My phone buzzed soon after. My call with China was starting in fifteen minutes. Asher texted at the same time: Don’t be late.
I shoved my phone into my coat pocket and stepped out from under the awning. I turned to face Nolan, and with his gaze fixed on mine, he asked, “Hug?,” then opened his arms. Hesitantly, I stepped into him, feeling his lean, muscular chest press against me once again, this time from the front. Head to toe, my body flooded with little tingles. But of course, this blissful moment couldn’t go on forever. A brief wave of panic hit hard when I thought to myself, What if someone from work saw us together? What would they think? We were just two friends having a casual dinner at P.F. Chang’s, where we mostly talked about work. If anyone asked, the heat flushing to my face was from all the drinking. It was no big deal.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I murmured as I pulled away from him and got into my car.
He waved as my Nissan Sentra drove off.
AT HOME, I set up my laptop in bed and began adding my work orders into the project queue for the remote developers. It wasn’t an easy task for someone who had three glasses of wine. I checked to see if the China and Poland teams were online and the chat status showed Asher was still active. Damn. He worked through my entire dinner.
My phone buzzed with a message from Nolan. Got home safe. You?
Me too ☺
Tonight was fun.
I didn’t know how to reply to that. He could have asked to do it again sometime, but he didn’t. So I ignored it for the moment and logged in to my work email to see if any of our overseas tasks had been completed on time.
Forty-four new messages. All of them had the same subject line.
Email number one was short.
Subject: Re: “Hey feminazis! Get off my lawn!”
To: Melody Joo <[email protected]>
From: Hungggger <[email protected]>
Hey China Doll
<dickpic.jpg >
The remaining forty-three emails were just as short, equally disturbing, and one was riddled with spelling typos:
Subject: Re: “Hey feminazis! Get off my lawn!”
To: Melody Joo <[email protected]>
From: Christof Nugent <[email protected]>
Go fetch me some coffee, you supid bitch. You feminists have lied so much and none can believe any words you say these days. The campus rape epidemic, the gender wage gap, all lies. Lies lies lies. Fuck you.
What the fuck was happening? I searched online for “Hey feminazis! Get off my lawn!” and found an article that had been posted at 8 P.M. EST by BetaGank, an online gaming magazine and message board for “serious gamers to come together to bash weak scrubs and noobs.” That was actually their tag line, not me making a harsh generalization. It was essentially Gossip Girl for hard-core gamer dudes. The article named me as a producer at Seventeen Studios and leaked some basic information about me. My greasy appetizers and wine made their way backward through my digestive tract as I read the article.
HEY FEMINAZIS! GET OFF MY LAWN!
By Anonymous
Our inside source at Seventeen Studios has confirmed that a new title, currently named Ultimate Apocalypse, will be released in six months, just in time for the holidays. Seasons Greedys!
It is unclear if this is a console game or a mobile one, but given the launch date we are betting it’s mobile. Our source “UltimateDDay” has also confirmed that the game will target FEMALE gamers who want to play shooter games. Apparently feministas now need to have their own special snowflake games catering to their feminine whims. Maybe they’ll have in-game clothes to buy and mascara in hidden treasure boxes. Head of production and game creator Melody Joo (pictured here) is a total newcomer to gaming, so we’ll see if this game actually launches on time, and if it will suck. We’re betting no, and yes. Click here to contact Melody.
I skimmed all my new emails. Thanks to an anonymous informant at Seventeen Studios, freaks and creeps flooded my inbox with lewd comments (including not-suitable-for-work images) and sexist diatribes. Who were they? Where was all this anger coming from? And why go after ME?
I texted Asher to let him know I couldn’t make the call.
Not knowing what to do next, I texted the one person who had to be awake.
How would you reply to people if they sent you, hypothetically speaking, dick pictures?
Nolan called me immediately. “Wait, what? Someone is sending you dick pics? Why?”
“Don’t worry. Never mind. I figured it out.” He stayed on the line with me while I downloaded an app that added googly eyes to any picture. With a few clicks and swipes, Hungggger’s dick photo had metamorphosed into a googly-eyed penis masterpiece. I emailed it back to Hungggger with the comment, “China Doll has a sexxxy pic for you.” I attached a return receipt and went to the next email to respond.