“Busted,” she says, scooting over on her side of the booth. “Hey, looking good at practice today.”
“Thanks,” says Lainey, as she slides into the booth next to Anna Grace. “My knee’s still feeling it. I don’t think I get to ditch the brace yet. How are you guys?”
Lainey’s Black, short, and petite, so she and tall, white, built-like-a-linebacker Anna Grace always look like someone designed two opposite humans. Her locs are pulled off her face, a couple of the ends bleached to copper and gold, and her nails are electric blue. They play roller derby together with the Blue Ridge Bruisers, which Anna Grace keeps trying to convince me to try out for. It might be the worst idea I’ve ever heard.
“I’m great,” Anna Grace says. “I’m trying to convince Kat she’s not gonna get fired.”
“Why would you get fired?”
“The startup I work for got bought by a much larger conglomerate,” I say, leaving out all the antagonized my evil ex parts.
“Ohhh,” she says, leaning on one hand. “Have they laid anyone off yet?”
“No,” supplies Anna Grace.
“Are they going to?”
“No,” Anna Grace says again.
“Is there a reason you’re worried?”
I shoot Anna Grace a glare for getting a whole third person involved in this, but I also like Lainey even if I don’t know her very well, so I can’t be too mad.
“I have a meeting tomorrow,” I say. “With higher-ups.”
I don’t mention the whole and then dinner with my ex thing. It’s too much information, and also, if I have to go into the whole story right now I might actually implode instead of just feeling like my chest cavity is filled with eels.
“That sucks,” she says, shaking her head. “Can we help?”
“I need to quit thinking about it.”
“Hmm.” Lainey goes quiet for a moment, then narrows her eyes and glances slyly at Anna Grace. “You want to hear a story?”
“What?” Anna Grace asks, suspiciously dipping more fries.
“You remember the time you had to get a tetanus shot because Nathaniel Sloan dared you to push over one of Judy Belmont’s beehives?” Lainey asks, grinning.
Anna Grace puts her face in her hands.
“She was so pissed,” Anna Grace mutters. “I was so dumb.”
“Tell me everything,” I say. “The more embarrassing details, the better.”
* * *
At 3:45on Thursday afternoon, there’s a knock on my open office door, and I jump a mile in the air.
“Sorry,” Silas says, walking in. “I wanted to come see how you were doing.”
“Great,” I deadpan. “Super great and super relaxed.”
Silas sighs, the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. He’s got both his hands in the pockets of his gray pants, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to the elbow. No tie. I guess he’s lawyering casually today, and he glances through my office door, rocking back on his heels.
“He in meetings?” he asks, still looking through the doorway.
“Yeah,” I say. My face is now in my hands, as I remember too late not to fuck up my eyeliner.
Silas reaches out and silently nudges the door until it’s one inch open, only Evan’s desk visible from outside, then comes around my desk. I spin in my chair until I’m facing him, and he leans his hips on my desk, feet crossed in front of him.