Who: Mark and Emalee (and NPC Mark's Dad) What: Caught! When: Monday Morning Where: Emalee's House
Mark had managed to keep the fact that he was dating Emalee a secret from his family for a surprisingly long time. It wasn't that he thought they'd disapprove. Well, no, he did think they'd disapprove. She was his father's boss, and, technically speaking, his boss too since she owned the casino he worked for. He couldn't see either of his parents thinking that was a good idea, but especially not his dad.
Unfortunately he'd left his phone at Em's house the night before. No, not just in her house. In her bedroom. And his dad had been the one to find it. There should have been some good story that would cover for that, but he couldn't think of one and Neal was too busy laughing at him to be any help. The grifter chose some really inconvenient times to be unhelpful.
Emalee chose some pretty inconvenient times herself. She was shamelessly hiding, leaving Mark to face whatever this awkward situation was going to be. When he got to the mansion, his dad was in stern and professional mode. Mark felt like he was about thirteen years old, instead of an actual fully functional adult. He sat when and where he was told to sit and did a lot of nodding and smiling.
"Yes, sir."
Yes, he knew this was a bad idea. Yes, he knew the she had been a friend of the family for a long time. Yes, he knew that she was a very influential person now and a lot of people would take a keen interest in her personal life.
"Yeah, Dad, I know."
Eventually his dad would have to run out of things that Mark already knew that he could tell him he should know. Apparently he had several more though. Yes, he knew that she was probably very vulnerable right now. Yes, he knew that if this went badly it would reflect badly on not only him but his whole family. Yes, he knew that taking advantage of her was an evil-minded sort of thing to do and he was a better person then that.
"Whoa. No. Dad. I'm not taking advantage of her." At that point he had to interrupt or he was going to completely lose it. "It's not like that. I know we didn't ever really get along before, but that was never really us. That was, I don't know, what you and her dad wanted us to be. This is different. I really like her."
The good news was his dad believed him. The bad news was that it lead to a whole new awkward conversation and a lot more smiling and nodding and not a little bit of embarrassment. When Mr. Yoo had finally exhausted his repertoire of things Mark should know he couldn't escape fast enough, upstairs to finally find his damn phone that had gotten him into this to begin with.