"Oh, shit!" Tavon said with a laugh. "You're cheating on your fiancé with your boss, aren't you? Classic."
"No." My voice sounded way more defensive than I intended it to.
"Yes you are! Your face is bright red. How the hell did you pull that one off? He's like the most eligible bachelor in the city."
"Wait, I thought you said he was engaged?" Sierra said.
"This just keeps getting better and better!" Tavon said before I could reply. "You're engaged, he's engaged, and you're both cheating and sleeping with each other. That's pretty fucked up."
"You're such an idiot. Clearly he's her fiancé," Zach said. He was staring at me intently. "James the telemarketer, I'm guessing?"
"Yes. Zach wins."
"Oh my God, what?!" Sierra squealed again. Her voice was starting to hurt my ears. "You're engaged to James Hunter? Are you serious? You're so lucky."
Tavon snickered. "So Sierra was kind of right. You slept your way into this job."
"Dude," Zach said. "You shouldn't be messing with her now. If I remember correctly, you made some pretty shitty hypotheses about her fiancé before you knew who he was."
"Penny," Tavon said. "We're cool right? Obviously James Hunter isn't whipped or desperate or controlling. I didn't mean it."
I laughed. "He actually is controlling. It's fine. I'm not going to tell him you said that."
"Wait, I think I remember reading about this," Sierra said. "James Hunter took a break from corporate America after selling Blive Tech International." She snapped her fingers. "He was a professor at some school for a year or something. And he got fired for sleeping with a few of his students."
"He resigned. And it was just one student."What is wrong with people?
"You?"
"I'm going to go get some coffee. Anybody want anything?" When no one said anything, I got up and walked toward the break room. They didn't need any other specifics. Everything they wanted to know was online. I'd hide out here for a few minutes until they were done looking. I grabbed a mug, poured myself a cup, and walked over to the sugar. When I turned around, Zach was standing there with his arms folded in front of his chest.
"So the bruise?" He touched his cheek. "Was that him?"
Oh God."No." I tried to walked past him, but he blocked my path.
"If you don't want to talk to me about it, you should talk to someone you..."
"No, I actually mean no. It wasn't him."
"Who was it then?"
"Why don't you believe me?"
"Well, for one, you're avoiding the question."
"I'm not. I'm just..."
"So tell me then. If it's not him, it shouldn't matter."
"Fine, you got me. I'm actually in a Fight Club."
Zach laughed.
"Really. And I can't talk about it. The first rule about Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club. I don't want to be kicked out."
He laughed again. "You're too scrawny."
"You wanna bet?"
