The Experiment 2: The Journey

K Mofo

"You," RJ said, shoving his finger at Kayla, "...stay."

"What?" Kayla exclaimed indignantly, but she paused at the look on RJ's face. She glanced at Dei and bit her lip, already feeling worried for her friend. RJ was mad, alright.

"Come on, Dei. We're going home," RJ said firmly. He stepped ahead of her then started walking towards the exit, and Dei glanced back at Kayla before following him.

"Aren't you gonna say goodbye to your companions first?" Dei asked in a small voice, falling into a step beside him.

"I already told them I'm leaving, because apparently, my wife's here spying on me," he said in a clipped voice.

"You told them that?" she asked, aghast.

"No, Dei. Of course not," he curtly replied.

They got to the exit and RJ approached the valet attendant for his car. They waited there in complete silence, standing a couple of feet apart, until Dei couldn't take it anymore. She walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle.

"Babe, I'm sorry," she whispered.

He sighed and patted her arm twice. "Let's talk inside the car."

It finally arrived and RJ opened her door before circling the car to the driver side.

"We'll find a decent parking area and then we'll talk," he told her simply as he started driving away from the restaurant.

"I thought you said we're going home?"

"Do you think we can talk with Athena around? No. I need us to talk first."

Dei nodded, feeling nervous.

RJ finally found a parking lot not far from the restaurant and he heaved a deep sigh as he shifted the car on neutral and sat back.

"So, what's going on? When I left home this morning you were pretty convincing, the way you were acting like you didn't care about this dinner I was going to have with Geline and the execs," he said, turning to her.

"Well you really can't blame me!" Dei blurted, her nervousness pushing her into defensive mode. During the drive she realized that she had all the reasons to do what she just did. Well maybe the method was crazy and totally unacceptable, but still...

"Why Dei?" he asked, his cold eyes boring into hers. "Please explain why I deserved that kind of special attention."

"Well... you left your phone, right? And then it rang or beeped, or whatever, while I was waiting for Kayla. I found it and I saw this text message from Geline..."

She reached for her back pocket and pulled out RJ's phone, tapped on Geline's text on the message app, and held it up for him to see.

"If you were me and you get this kind of message from my co-worker whom you know is working so close with me, someone as attractive as your trainee, what would you feel? Didn't you flip out too over your assumptions about JC before?"

"Assumptions that turned out to be real --"

"Why is there even a need for her to be inside your office so early in the morning? Why was there a need for you to be so touchy with each other? Why does she text you like she's a freaking mistress waiting to get laid?" she cried out. "... Why are you smirking at me like that, you stupid jerk?"