The Experiment © [Completed]

Chapter 87 - Little White Lies

Dei requested for an early out right after their lunch break that afternoon so she could start collecting and preparing the documents required from her by one of the companies she had applied to.

The email she had gotten earlier was from Hearst Magazine, which was the company that she had sent an application to for the Marketing Manager position in their digital media department. They advised her about the documents needed and also told her that an appointment had been scheduled for her online interview at 2 PM EST.

She was thankful that the appointment was set up at around that time because RJ would surely be asleep by then. All she needed now was to figure out how she could sneak out of his room and do the interview at 2 AM without interruption. He definitely could not know about it until she's absolutely sure that she had been accepted. She didn't want him getting his hopes up for nothing.

She arrived home from picking her documents up at a little past 7 o'clock and naturally, RJ was already there. He was seated at the living room watching TV, and he turned to her when she opened the door. She didn't expect to get home that late but traffic had been insane.

"I thought you said you'd be home early?" he asked.

"I was out finding stuff for our wedding," she lied, sitting next to him and wrapping her arms around his waist.

"Who were you with," he asked, placing his arm around her shoulders. "Have you eaten?"

"Nobody, and no I haven't yet... you?"

"I was waiting for you," he replied. "Didn't you get my texts?"

"Oh," Dei fished out for her phone inside her bag. She was feeling dizzy inside the cab earlier so she didn't bother checking her phone even after she had been dropped off in front of their building a few minutes ago.

Sure enough, there were 3 unread messages from him asking her how and where she was. There was one missed call too. She bit her lip and looked at him. "I'm sorry, I didn't check my phone at all during the cab ride since I was feeling dizzy," she admitted.

Rj heaved a deep sigh. "Next time just please let me know where you are so I'm not worried," he said almost grumpily and turned his eyes back on the TV.

"I'm sorry," she said again, nudging his cheek with her head. "Don't be mad."

"I'm not mad," RJ answered, his eyes fixed on the set.

"Fine, don't be annoyed," she said, pressing her lips on his neck, "or grumpy, or sulky, or sullen, sour, bad tempered..." She said each word as she trailed soft kisses along his neck and jaw and up to his ear.

"Do you need the thesaurus?" he asked, smiling despite himself and Dei grinned against his neck.

"Nope, I'm good," she whispered on his ear.

RJ sighed and faced her, propping his elbow on the backrest and resting his head on his hand. He reached over and tucked her hair behind her ear. "I wasn't mad. Just worried, and yea, maybe a little grumpy," he said, "you would be too if I end up not being where you expected me to be and don't hear from me for hours."

"I know, I'm sorry. I promise to update you next time," she said.

He sighed again. "Let's eat? My stomach's been grumbling since an hour ago."

They had dinner at the restaurant on the ground floor, not wanting to spend time cooking anymore. They got back to their suite at around 10 but RJ wasn't feeling sleepy at all. By 15 minutes to midnight, Dei was already feeling agitated and desperate.

"Don't you want to sleep yet?" she asked him as she walked over to where he was seated on the couch. He was watching a movie on cable - the seventh installment of a film about car drifting.

"I'll just finish this, babe, almost done," he said distractedly.

Dei exhaled sharply and leaned on the back of the sofa behind him. "I'll wait for you in your room," she whispered on his ear, making sure to be as breathy as possible and she noticed him catch his breath a little. "If you're not there in two minutes I'm locking the door and you can either sleep in my room or on the couch." She smiled at him cheekily as she walked to RJ's room and made her night dress fall at her feet on the floor before stepping inside.

RJ walked in almost right behind her in less than a minute.

"I can watch that movie some other time," he told her as he stared at her standing by the bed.

"I thought so," she replied and she smiled as RJ took long strides toward her and then almost tackled her to the bed.

He finally slept at around 1:30, exhausted as hell, and Dei heaved a sigh of relief. She grabbed his laptop and quietly walked to her room and locked the door. She gussied up, making herself look as presentable as possible and waited for her interviewer.

The interview turned out to be with a panel with three people in it, and the whole thing lasted for not more than 15 minutes.

Dei was usually good at interviews and she felt that she had answered their questions flawlessly, but the interviewers' expressions did not give anything away. They were all poker faced and stiff as a rod. By the end of the session, she was told that she would get a notice by the end of the day - meaning around 5 or 6 AM - if she had been accepted or not.

She went back to their room and snuggled close to RJ until she fell asleep.

+++++

RJ woke up early that day and headed straight into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. He tried waking Dei up too, but she just burrowed herself deeper into the blankets. She looked so tired and sleepy so he let her sleep for a few more minutes.

He was pouring coffee into their mugs when he suddenly heard her screaming, and he almost dropped the carafe on the granite countertop.

"Baaaaabe!" she shrieked from his room.

RJ ran to her and stood by the door looking worried. "What? What is it?"

Dei looked up at him with a huge smile. "We're going back to New York!" she announced, holding up her phone.