Callbacks and payoffs

“JACOB!”

The scream is frantic. Your eyes widen.

“JACOB! JACOB!”

It’s coming from somewhere off to your left, and getting closer. Your head swivels. There are so many people in the food court it’s impossible to see where the –

“JAAAAAAAAACOOOOOB!”

– screaming is coming from, but you’d know that voice anywhere.

A short woman bursts out of the crowd and throws herself at you so hard she nearly knocks you over, WHUMPH.

“Jacob!” she says, her voice shaky. “Oh my god, Jacob! I heard about the fire! I was so worried about you!”

It’s Kate Prasad, your best (and, until Penelope fell in love with you yesterday, only ) friend from work, who you last saw on Monday evening when she offered you a ride home after you missed the bus, and you declined because you knew it would have added well over an hour to her commute and you didn’t want to take advantage of her generosity.

She’s brilliant, she’s short, she’s always there for you no matter what, she’s clutching you like you’re a life preserver, and she has quite clearly been crying.

(Also, you’ve jacked off thinking about her more times than you have about anyone else you know personally, with the possible exception of Eleanor. Kate is so pretty, and she’s stacked, and she’s interesting, and funny, and fun to talk to, you have so much in common, she’s told you so much about her life, and she shares food with you, and she smells really nice, and she’s got really soft skin, she touches you a lot, but she declared herself your ‘work wife’, and that’s platonic, right?

… right?

…

… oh shit.)

“Hi?” you say, and you carefully wrap your arms around Kate and pat her back in what you hope is a comforting way. It’s the first time you’ve ever hugged her. She’s trembling, and buries her face in your chest. Her hair is soft and silky.

You’re very aware of the Multiplier sitting inactive on the dead phone in your pocket.

About a hundred feet away, you see Penelope. You wave at her; she waves back, and makes her way carefully through the crowd.

Your mind is racing in several directions at once.

1: Oh no, you made Kate sad! You should have messaged her earlier!

2: Is Kate a Top Prospect?!? Oh god, you hope she’s a Top Prospect! The idea of Kate being your girlfriend is… holy shit! Thinking about how Kate acts around you – her scores have gotta be really high, right?

3: Given what happened (or almost happened) with Callie, does it matter if Kate’s not a Top Prospect?

4: So much for your “okay, only six girlfriends” decision.

5: Oh god, Kate is going to be one of your girlfriends!

6: How could you be so stupid as to keep remembering the existence of the “Co-Workers” tab but not ever think to look in it!

7: You can’t just assume Kate is going to be one of your girlfriends! Even if she is a Top Prospect, that’s still just a probability! A very, very, very high probability, but still not definite!

8: Were you and Kate using different definitions of “work wife” this whole time?

And then, just as Penelope emerges from the crowd, one more thing occurs to you:

9: Does the Multiplier still work when the phone is dead? The intro screen said the Multiplier was always present, but does that just assume that your phone is charged up? This is a lot more urgent than it was on the bus, because you’re hugging Kate, and Penelope is coming over, and you really don’t want to hurt Penelope’s feelings, and if the anti-jealousy and kink-sharing attributes have shut off, then things could get very bad, very fast. Especially since Penelope knows you fucked Tammy and Molly.

The world seems to slow down…

…

…

…

… and then Penelope makes eye contact with you.

She’s shaking her head, but also half-smiling, and doesn’t seem at all upset by the fact that you’ve got your arms around another woman.

Penelope walks up to the table you had picked out, then looks at three people who already have lunch trays and indicates to them that they should take the table instead, which you suppose is fair.

She turns back to you as the other people ease into place. “Kate was a total wreck the past few hours,” she comments.

Kate glances at her briefly, then looks back at you. “I was out yesterday – food poisoning,” she explains. “And once it was ten fifteen this morning and you hadn’t shown up, I asked Marcie if she’d heard anything about you, and she said your apartment building burned down, and you hadn’t been in yesterday either, and I kept messaging you and messaging you, and you weren’t answering, and I sent you messages yesterday and you hadn’t answered any of those either, and oh my god I was so scared I’d never see you again…” and her voice goes up into a squeak. Tears are streaming down her cheeks, and she’s shivering.

“The building was already on fire by the time I got off the bus,” you tell her.

She shudders. “Oh thank god, oh thank god, oh thank god… …I mean –”

“No, I understand,” you assure her.

“Fifteen minutes ago I went to ask her what was wrong, and she said she was worried about you, so I told her I was going to see you and invited her to come along,” Penelope says.

“I thought we were going to a hospital,” Kate admits. “And… no, I don’t know why that would have involved stopping at a food court first.” She wipes her nose.

“I’m so glad to see you,” you tell her sincerely.

“Did something happen to your phone?” she asks.

“Well, it went dead, but that was only when I was on the bus here,” you say. “Could I –”

“Uh, first,” Penelope interrupts.

Kate blinks. “Oh, I should probably go wash my face, I guess.”

Penelope shakes her head. “No. Well, yes, but no. See that guy over there?”

She points in the direction of an impatient-looking man in his late 50s. Kate squints at him.

“… yes?”

“You were in such a hurry to see Jacob, you shoved that guy and made him drop his lunch. I gave him $20 and promised him you’d apologize.”

“OH!”

“Go apologize, then go wash your face, then get some lunch, and meet up with me and Jacob,” Penelope instructs. “We’ll be… well, maybe not right here, but… around here somewhere.”

Kate nods once, her head jerking like a bird. “Got it,” she says, then hurries off to make amends.

The two of you watch her go. Penelope leans over and whispers in your ear.

“I’d have kissed you, but I don’t wanna risk hurting her feelings,” she says.

“That’s very sweet of you,” you tell her. She smiles happily, then bites her lip. “Also,” she says, “I feel a little bad for thinking this way, but it’s a good thing she went to apologize before she washed her face, because it’ll be more convincing.”

You shrug. “I mean… you’re probably right.”

The two of you watch as Kate talks to the guy. There’s way too much noise for you to have any hope of hearing what she says, but she’s gesturing a lot, and the guy’s expression softens. Kate points at you; the guy looks in your direction, and you wave. The guy says something; Kate looks embarrassed, but nods. Then they shake hands and go their separate ways – the guy, towards… whatever restaurant, and Kate, towards the food court bathrooms.

Penelope takes your hand in hers and squeezes it gently. “See you in a bit?” she asks; you nod, and then you and she go your separate ways as well.

The next question is, what do you want to eat? Thai food is nice, but you had that yesterday – plus, you’re not sure what you’d do if Sanouk is working again today. You look around the food court and… hm.

Does this food court always have so many vendors where all the staff are women, and you just never noticed? Or is this a statistical fluke?

Or are you fucking with me again?, you think at the Multiplier.

Well, regardless, you do need to get lunch, and it looks like there’s only men working at George Makes Souvlaki, so that’s where you go. You end up in line behind a cute Asian woman who’s wearing a suit and talking on her phone. She’s got nice tits and a decent ass, but from what you can overhear, she doesn’t seem like the sort of person who you’d like to spend any time with at all, much less have a relationship with. Another woman gets in line behind you; she’s cute too – mixed-race, with freckles, and a ponytail, and solid the way Sweeney was. She’s wearing glasses, and baggy overalls with a store logo you don’t recognize, and a name tag that says her name is Jillian.

And a wedding ring.

You turn away from Jillian before (you hope) she notices you checking her out, and look around the food court until you spot Kate.

She’s looking around trying to spot you!

You wave at her; she beams, and waves back.

“Hey, it’s your turn,” Jillian says, and you almost say “oh, thanks,” but manage to keep your mouth shut so the Multiplier won’t start tracking her; instead, you just kind of grunt and give her a thumb’s-up, and then move to the counter.

---

Ten minutes later, Kate joins you and Penelope at a table that’s on the opposite side of the food court from where you had lunch yesterday, but right next to a wall socket. Kate’s got chowder in a bread bowl from Papa Neptune’s, and Penelope has Southern barbecue from Food Meridian. You have souvlaki with chopped grapes.

“The past couple of days have been really, really crazy,” you explain to Kate as Penelope gives you a charger and cable. “I honestly meant to message you, but things kept sidetracking me.” You plug your phone in. “But I don’t understand how I didn’t see any of your messages! I swear I would’ve answered!”

Kate nods. “I believe you,” she assures you.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with your phone?” Penelope suggests to Kate, at the exact same moment you ask “Could I maybe look at your phone?”

Kate snerks. “Sure,” she says, and hands it over. You type in Ramanujan’s birthdate, backwards. Penelope looks a little taken aback that you know the passcode for Kate’s phone, but doesn’t say anything.

You flip to the multi-chat app, and open the tab for the most recently used platform. It’s full of increasingly panicky messages begging you to please be okay, mixed with apologies for being pushy and clingy, and explanations that she’s worried because you’re very important to her, plus several ‘deleted message’ blanks.

You scroll upward, reading the earlier messages… there’s Kate saying she heard about the fire and asking if you’re okay… Kate noticing that you’re late for work… Kate bragging about her scores in this morning’s puzzles (which you completely forgot to do, both today and yesterday – so much for your streak!)… Kate hoping you’re feeling okay after not having gotten the promotion on Monday… Kate saying she missed you when she had to stay home on Tuesday… Kate complaining that being sick is boring and asking if you want to talk about silly fun stuff… Kate telling you that she ate something bad and she won’t be in, and asking if you could prepare some data for her from one of your shared project files so she’ll have it on Wednesday…

… and then you find the last message you sent her, from Sunday, where you had conceded the point about the movie she’d described as “so bad it’s not even funny”. But the message isn’t from “Jacob C” or “Jacob” or “Jacob_Carter” – it’s from “I think, therefore I am a horse”.

“Oh shit,” you say. “I’m only logged into this chat from the desktop in my apartment.”

Kate blinks. “What? Lemme see?”

You pass her back the phone. She examines the chat, then sighs. “Your phone charged enough to power back on?”

“Checking,” you say, and… yep, 5% is enough for the screen to light up with the brand logo. You nod. Kate types a message on her phone’s screen, and then there’s a bloop from your phone. You open your chat app:

You smile at her – she’s smiling a little too, and blushing a little (… and, now that you think of it, doesn’t she always blush a little when you and she are smiling at each other?) – and send her a reply.

Kate’s smile gets a little wider, and her blush gets a little deeper. You both show the messages to Penelope, who awws.

Then she raises an index finger. “Wait, why didn’t you just call him?”

You and Kate both blink several times, then stumble over each other’s words in a mess that basically resolves to “do I have your number?” and “did I ever give you my number?”

Penelope watches, clearly bemused, as you and Kate establish that 1) the two of you exchanged phone numbers when you first began working together, over three years ago, and 2) although you talk to each other as coworkers dozens of times a day, and typically message each other outside of work several times a week, neither of you has ever thought of calling the other. Now you’re both blushing, but it actually feels really nice.

You put your phone down and let it charge, because although you could probably look at the Multiplier now, you want to talk with Kate and Penelope.

Over the next thirty minutes, the three of you have a wonderful time together. You all pick at each other’s plates, and Kate touches you a lot.

And a few times, you notice Penelope discreetly checking Kate out.

You give them a recap of what happened yesterday… minus all the crazy wild sex and romance, of course. Not because you don’t want to hurt their feelings – you’re very confident that Penelope would love to hear about it, and even though the anti-jealousy only kicks in once a woman’s Affection passes 50 and you haven’t checked Kate’s scores yet, you don’t see any plausible interpretation for her behavior that’s not “her Affection and Love scores are super high already” – but because you’re in public.

And, more importantly, these are both brilliant women, and if you told them about all the crazy wild sex and romance, you are 100% confident that they would realize something is up, and you haven’t figured out how to tell them about the Multiplier yet. Which you fully plan to do. Eventually.

“That’s really interesting,” Penelope says once you’re finished telling them about how you rescued Banana, and also about rescuing the paperwork in Maggie’s office.

“What is?” you ask.

“That’s not the way you told those stories yesterday.”

“Uh? I swear, this is what –”

“No, no, I believe you,” she assures you. “I trust you completely. But… you used different words, you added some details and left others out – like, yesterday you didn’t mention anything about Graham being a biker. And today you didn’t mention…” and she taps the top of her head.

“Hm?” Kate says, her spoon in her mouth.

You sigh. “When I was crawling around on the floor with my eyes closed, my head bumped into Belinda’s butt.”

Penelope grins as Kate takes another spoonful of chowder. “That’s not how you said it yesterday,” she singsongs.

You roll your eyes, and wait for Kate to swallow her food before you admit:

“I said my head went into her ass.”

Kate laughs so loud that some people at nearby tables turn and look.

“Sorry!” she tells them. “He’s funny!” The people at the other tables shrug and accept that.

Then she mimes grabbing something above her head with both hands and pulling it down to shoulder height. “Shlorp!” she whispers. Penelope giggles.

You stare. “Holy shit,” you say. “That is, swear to god, the exact same joke Molly made!”

Kate blinks. “Your niece Molly?”

You nod.

“How’d she get into this?”

“Oh, uh, I’m staying with her and Tammy for now,” you say, and then, because you don’t see a way to talk about Tammy and Molly without either admitting that you fucked your sister and your niece and came in them both, or leaving very obvious holes in the story, you change the subject.

“So you’re ready for this afternoon?” you ask Penelope, and you can tell from her expression that she understands why you just did that.

She nods. “I figure we’ll stop at a home supply store first, get you some storage bins, some bags, stuff like that. Sound good?” You nod too.

“Home supply store?” Kate says, nibbling on some of Penelope’s barbecue.

“We’re going to my apartment –” and you catch yourself, and sigh – “to my old apartment, to empty out anything that’s still salvageable,” you explain. “Bring it to Tammy’s.”

“Oh!” Kate says. “I wish I could come with you! But I’m giving a presentation at four!”

Penelope nods. “I’d let you off if I could,” she says to Kate, then turns to you. “But there’s people from other departments involved.” She turns back to Kate. “Are you ready for it?”

“...no,” Kate admits with a grimace. “I missed Tuesday completely, and Jacob didn’t get my message to prep the data for the visualization, and I spent an hour this morning helping Vladislav with the upgrade, and then right after that is when I started worrying about Jacob so I was useless.”

“I’m sorry!” you say.

Penelope takes your hand. “It’s not your fault, Jacob,” she says gently. “You didn’t know.” Then she looks down at your joined hands and hastily lets go, and the pattern-matching part of your brain connects this to her earlier comment about not wanting to hurt Kate’s feelings.

“It’s my fault,” Kate says. “If I’d checked which chat I was using –”

“No one’s fault,” Penelope emphasizes. “Kate, will you be ready for the presentation?”

Kate takes a deep breath and looks thoughtful. “Yes,” she eventually says. “Might have to use monochrome for some of it, and if Vladislav needs any more help he’ll have to wait, but… yes.”

“If he complains, tell him I said you had to be ready for the presentation,” Penelope advises.

You and Kate both grin at that.

“Do you have time to finish your lunch, actually?” you ask.

Kate checks her phone. “I can stay with you two for another sixteen minutes,” she announces, pleased, and sets an alarm for fifteen minutes from now. Then she blinks and looks confused. “Sorry, I just put the pieces together in my head,” she says. “Penelope… I thought you were scared of Jacob?”

Penelope sighs. She reaches for one of the last bits of souvlaki on your plate, then pauses; you motion to her to go ahead, and she picks it up. “Long story short: total misunderstanding on my part, I was very stupid, he did nothing wrong.” She pops the piece of souvlaki into her mouth.

“You weren’t stupid,” you protest.

“Plus,” she says with her mouth full – she pauses, and swallows – “it turns out he’s really nice.”

Kate sighs happily. “Yeah, he is,” she says, and takes one of your half-grapes.

“So how’d things go this morning?” Penelope says, and folds her hands together. “Tammy and Molly are good?”

She keeps looking down at her fingers. You follow her gaze; her right index finger is subtly wiggling in the circle formed by her left index finger and thumb, and you realize she’s asking: did you fuck them this morning?

“Oh, yes,” you say, and discreetly relax-then-straighten your right index finger several times; Penelope’s watching your hands, and she grins. “They’re both great.”

“Molly’s nineteen now, yeah?” Kate says as she starts on the bread bowl.

“Beginning of October,” you reply.

“Tammy’s still at Fashionissima, right?”

“Floor manager, yeah.”

“Oh!” Penelope says. “I’ve been wanting to go there for a while! Think she’d give me a discount?”

You shrug. “Worth asking.”

“Incidentally,” Kate says, and reaches for the last piece of barbecue – she pauses, and Penelope motions her to go ahead. You and Penelope wait for Kate to finish. “Incidentally,” she says again, after swallowing, “speaking of Tammy and Molly… you’re not staying with them long-term, are you?”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “Probably not, but… I mean, this is all such a mess.”

“Have you started looking for a new apartment yet?” Penelope asks.

“Actually, yeah, just this morning I went out to see a place in Gillistown.”

“Gillistown is a nice area,” Kate says.

“Was the apartment nice?” Penelope asks.

“I suppose,” you say. “Bigger than my old place, but almost the same rent, and with appliances.”

“That does sound nice,” Kate says.

You grimace. “Problem is, the landlady. Landlord? Whichever.”

“What about her?”

“Ultra-ultra-simplified… she had a panic attack. Literally started crying and ran away.”

“Oh my god!” Penelope says. “Is she okay?!”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “I figured it wasn’t a good idea to go knocking on her door just then.”

Kate’s brow furrows. “Spontaneously?” she says.

“What?”

“She spontaneously had a panic attack?”

Ideally you wouldn’t have talked about what happened with Sweeney and Callie until… well, you don’t know when, you suppose you were going to tell Tammy and Molly about it, at least, but… you weren’t going to bring this up while you’re having lunch with Kate and Penelope! And then the conversation just led in this direction all by itself!

For a second, you wonder if there’s any way out of this other than the truth, but you really don’t want to lie to Penelope and Kate.

Okay, fine.

(Besides, part of your brain suggests, maybe they’ll like hearing about it?)

You look around, then lean toward the center of the table and motion them close. They lean in too. You lower your voice, because there are other people in the food court.

“The thing that triggered the panic attack… the woman from across the hall came out and, uh… propositioned us. For a threesome.”

They stare at you.

“Again,” Kate says, “this happened spontaneously?”

Penelope snorts. “‘Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Nancy the Neighbor, let’s all fuck?’”

“Her name was – actually, yeah, let’s say ‘Nancy’, and…”

“Sue the Super?” Kate suggests.

You shrug. “Good enough,” you say, and then you wait just long enough for them to start asking for more details before you launch into your explanation of the events in Sweeney’s building.

It’s tricky, because you don’t want to mention the Multiplier, or the stuff about who Callie has been having sex with, but Penelope did say she trusts you completely (!), and, well, Kate hasn’t said that but you wouldn’t be surprised if she does too (!!!).

---

“Holy shit,” Penelope says once the story is finished.

“You didn’t fuck Nancy?” Kate whispers. She’s blushing really hard, and breathing a little funny, and it feels really weird for her be asking you so bluntly.

You shake your head. “Just hugged her.”

Kate holds up her hand in a “wait a moment” gesture, and drinks a glass of water. Once she’s breathing normally, she motions you and Penelope even closer. The two of you lean in until your heads are almost touching hers. You can feel Kate's breath on your skin.

“Did you get an erection when you hugged her?” Kate asks, so softly you can barely hear her.

You have had so many fantasies that involve Kate being interested in your dick. None of them involved being in a food court with Penelope watching. But… they’re both going to be your girlfriends, right? In fact, you’re going to fuck them together, right?

(Holy shit. Are you?!?)

“Yes,” you admit.

They both grin, and then the three of you straighten up in your chairs.

“Then… why didn’t you?” Kate asks, at normal volume.

You blink. “Well, uh, for one thing, I didn’t want to be late for Penelope!” you say, which is true.

Penelope’s jaw drops. “Oh my god,” she whispers. “Wow.”

Kate looks very pleased by that, but then the alarm goes off on her phone.

“Ah shit,” she grumbles. “Gotta get back to the office. Jacob, call me tonight?”

“I will,” you promise.

Kate gets up, and then – somewhat to your surprise – hugs Penelope .

“Treat Jacob right,” she tells Penelope, who’s clearly a little startled, but hugs her back. “Be really really good to him. Do the best you can. He deserves it. Got it?”

Penelope nods. “Got it.”

“Good,” Kate says. Then she kisses you on the cheek (!).

“Bye, Jacob,” she says cheerfully. “Good luck with your stuff, and have a great time with Penelope!”

And then she walks off.