Page 42 of The Devil’s Feather

Toward the end of the day, Princess Dela Cruz, my direct manager, pulled me into her office. I used to think I wanted an office instead of a cubicle until I saw Princess’s windowless cave. If not for the glass wall and door, it would be downright claustrophobic.

“Elaine, are you ok? You seem really out of it.” With all the clusters of family photos on her desk and cabinets, it was like her entire lineage weighed in along with her.

I liked Princess. We’d always gotten along, even if our ideas didn’t always align.

“Ugh, sorry. I’m all twitterpated over a man.”

Her freshly microbladed brows hiked up on her round, light brown face. “Is that some new STI?”

I snorted. “You haven’t seen Bambi? Never mind. I’m seeing someone new and I’m just very distracted. I’m sorry. I’ll try to get my head out of the clouds.”

Princess’s grin lit up her dark eyes. “Ooh, no, now you have to tell me all the tsismis! Who is the new man? Is he hot? Rich? Is he tall?”

“All of the above, actually.”

She clapped with glee. “Tell me everything.”

I opened my mouth to spill and closed it again. The gaming industry wasn’t that big. Rafael had even written scores for some of our biggest titles. Princess would absolutely know who my new obsession was. Should I tell her? Surely he wouldn’t keep me a secret, though. She twirled a hand at me in a “go on” motion.

Fuck it. “Do you know anything about Rafael Nazim?”

Her eyes popped wide. “Wait…no way. The guy who wrote the music for the Wicked Souls games? Tell me you’re not sleeping with the Rafael Nazim.”

“Um. Well…”

Princess squealed so loud the people passing in the hall stopped to peek in. The other part of that office I hated was the lack of true privacy.

“Keep it down! I don’t want everyone to know. At least not yet. It’s very new, and he’s very private.”

“Girl, not that private. I’ve heard some weird things about him. Are you being careful?”

Unease crept in around the edges, and defensiveness. “What kinds of things?”

“You saw Molly Lively today, right? Real pretty white girl, daughter of Extruda’s CEO, kinda bitchy? She dated Nazim several years ago, and I heard he beat the shit out of her. Put her in the hospital.”

Molly fucking Lively was the one Rafael threw against the wall? I sat on my hands to hide the sudden tremor. I’d known I was batting way out of my league, but holy shit. Fuck, did she know about me?

I forced myself to breathe. “It’s not what you think it is. There were extenuating circumstances. You know I wouldn’t make excuses for an abuser.”

Princess’s mouth pursed. “People say he gets real mad real fast. Plus, I think he’s secretly gay. I heard he did some big thing at Folsom Street Fair a while back. Kinda hard to miss, you know?”

My first impulse was to defend Rafael’s bisexuality, but I didn’t know how much to say. Or not to say. “As long as he’s only with me, I don’t care about all that. How do you know this stuff?”

She did a little self-satisfied shimmy. “People tell me things. Listen, Nazim is dangerous.” Princess folded her hands on her desk like a wise sage. “He used to come to some of the fancy exec suite parties back in the day. If somebody pissed him off or flirted with him the wrong way—and you know people are gonna flirt—he’d get real aggro, real fast. Had the police called a couple of times. They say he’s into some really dark stuff.

“Elaine, I know you’re starstruck right now. I would be too. But we both know musicians are crazy. Leave that man alone. And get your head back in the game, girl. We got end of the quarter coming up, and we need those reports ready.”

As I returned to my cubicle, eyes crawled over me. I turned just in time to catch perfectly beach-waved blonde hair disappearing around the corner. Did Molly overhear us? Princess hadn’t exactly been discreet with her volume, and the office wasn’t soundproof by any means.

I texted Rafael on my break.

Me: you have an interesting reputation

Rafael: You have been asking about me?

What should I even say? Hey, I saw your rich, gorgeous ex. Please validate my insecure ass?

Me: my manager called me in to nicely yell at me in bc i cant stop daydreaming and she knows who you are! she talked about how you hurt Molly Lively and how you were at folsom.