The Dice#17

Two months went by, and Dunni did not hear from Tade much to her disappointment. He had sent flowers and a thank you card to her office the following Monday after lunch at his place.
Dunni dug into her bag frantically searching for her phone that was ringing somewhere from the depth of her bag. In frustration, she emptied the contents of her bag on the table just as the ringing phone stopped ringing.
There you are she spoke to her phone and grimaced at her lack of social interaction that she was now talking to her phone. She needed to do better, start going out and meeting people rather than spending her weekends behind her drawing board and back to the office again. Moses was still away in China, and Tade had totally ghosted her.
The call had not ended, it was the battery to her phone that died—another rummaging on the table in search of her charger. Dunni was organised in everything but the contents of her bag. Receipts from months before used and new tissues with ideas and drawings barely readable were part of the items on the table. A cosmetic bag with items enough to fit a suitcase yet never used was all part of the contents spread on her table.
She had attempted housekeeping many times, but it only took a couple of days, and all the discarded items were back. Her designer bags were to die for on the outside, but the inside was a no go area.
Ola walked in, with his eyebrow twitched to the side in question.
“Looking for something?”
“Don’t go there.” She warned him with the scariest of looks that she could muster.
Ola guffawed. “Here, you can have mine.”
“Are you stalking me now?” She took the charger from him gratefully, swirling her seat around to plug the charger into the socket behind her.
“Thank you, that’s what I missed while you were away.”
“Moses was trying to reach you. He was the one on the phone.”
“Now it makes sense you walking in with a charger.”
The guys knew her like they knew themselves, and that was one of the joys of working together. They had a synergy that worked and could even tell what the other was thinking.
This had worked for several deals and negotiation they had to make. So, when Dunni had to handle the company in Ola and Moses absence, she was filled with pride at the fantastic job, despite her lack of faith in her abilities.
“How is Mr Flowers doing?”
“Fishing for the information you won’t get?” Dunni replied, masking the pain of rejection that haunted her. She has been regularly checking her phone from any message from Tade but none. It was not like they planned any after her visit, but she just assumed texts and calls will follow just as it had been before their lunch date. Not that it was a date anyway.
She wondered if she was so out of the dating game that she missed the signs. It was all there, or so she thought that Tade was into her, but she must have been wrong.
Its hurts. Dunni wondered if she was desperate? If there was just a parent-teacher relationship. Why had he sent the flowers to her office?
Thankfully he’d been smart to sign the card with his initials, TB and that she was grateful.
Rubbing her temple with her fingers in a cyclical motion, which she did whenever her migraine started.
“I am eager to unmask the mystery guy. You know he has to pay respect to us and gain our approval before…”
Dunni did not let him finish when she replied too sharply than she intended.
“So you can scare him away like you all did to the guys on campus.”
“We did not scare anyone away. I guess the guys coming did not have good intentions and did not want to get into trouble for nothing.”
“My point, they did not have to think of you guys to come to me,” Dunni argued.
“You never complained before why now?” Ola asked bewildered at Dunni’s outburst.
“I am doing some soul searching. I think guys stayed away because they were afraid of you guys while it was cool on campus. It’s not cool anymore.”
“Hey! You don’t need to get worked up. We did nothing to scare anyone then and obviously we are not doing any of that now. But since when did you start bothering. I got the impression you were happy with your life the way it was.”
Toni kept mum. She had shared too much.
“Does this have to do with the mystery, Mr Flowers?”
“That’s not open for discussion.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, boss.” Dunni did that whenever she wanted to get rid of Moses or Ola or get them off her case. They both hated that term. They were all partners, and no one was a boss.