Really, the only reason she was close to shitting herself was that she’d be speaking on the panel alongside Inez fucking Holly. You know: one of fewer than thirty black female professors in the United Kingdom, the woman who made feminist literary theory her bitch, Dani’s eternal Beyoncé-level idol, et cetera, et cetera. The one woman she would rather die—literally, she would rather actually die—than embarrass herself in front of.
Not that Dani tended to embarrass herself at work. Her profession was straightforward and easily controlled and required qualities she naturally possessed, such as laser-like focus and an enthusiasm for close reading and analysis, instead of qualities she didn’t, such as the ability to process and express irrelevant rubbish like her own emotions. So, no, embarrassment at work wasn’t likely. But still. Stranger things had happened.
She pressed a hand to her chest and touched the moonstone hanging beneath her dress, letting calm sweep through her in waves. Then she exhaled, typed out a painstaking reply, and snapped the laptop shut.
“Everything is under control,” she told herself. “This is your work. This is your thing. This is the kind of pressure you can handle.”
She was still repeating that mantra a few minutes later, when she sailed out of the lab and came face-to-face with her ex–friend with benefits.
Well, shit.
“Dani,” Jo blurted, stopping just short of what would have been a mortifying collision.
“Jo,” Dani managed, inclining her head, hoping she looked incredibly cool and generally unaffected by this awkward situation. A quick inventory of her own body revealed she had a death grip on the trio of crystal pendants hanging beneath her dress, which rather suggested the opposite. She let go.
She still felt them, though, skin-warm against her chest: moonstone for destiny, garnet for success, rose quartz for determination.
Rose quartz was supposed to help with romance, too, but Dani had decided a long time ago that hers was broken.
“How are you?” Jo asked stiffly, patting her dark, silky bob with one hand.
Dani blinked, caught by surprise. “How am I? Are you really asking me that?”
Jo’s tight smile disappeared. “It’s called being polite.”
“Polite? The last time we spoke you told me I was emotionally stunted and ruled by fear.” Both of which were patently ridiculous accusations and, more to the point, quite rude. “Honestly, it’s indecent of you to expect conversation after bruising my heart.” Well, that might be overstating the matter. “After exacerbating my spleen,” Dani corrected.
Jo stared. “Your spleen?”
“Yes. It’s a lesser emotional center.”
“No, it’s not. It’s an immuno—Oh, for heaven’s sake, never mind.” Jo’s bob looked a bit less smooth now, her cheeks flushed, her scowl ferocious. “Stop acting all wounded and brooding,” she whispered sharply, as if they might be overheard by the bloody walls. “According to you, we weren’t even in a relationship.”
“According to both of us,” Dani snapped. “We agreed from the start. You’re the one who changed your mind.” Who started demanding dates and affection and commitment, things Dani had learned not to bother with because she always got them wrong. Not that she cared. Her system was more efficient, anyway.
If she’d tried to give Jo what she’d asked for, Dani’s efficiency would’ve been the first complaint. Are you seriously scheduling me in? What, am I just another job to you?
She knew the drill. And avoided said drill like the plague, or the dentist, or both.
“Look,” Dani began, meeting Jo’s steel-gray eyes and trying to find the easy friendship that used to warm them. The friendship that never should’ve disappeared. “You know I don’t do that sort of thing—and trust me, you don’t want me to try. It’d be a waste of everyone’s time.”
Jo’s frustrated expression flickered, then faded, replaced by something that looked disturbingly like pity. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
Dani swallowed. “Can’t we just be all right again? I . . .” I miss being your friend, she wanted to say. Except that would be mortifying.
But Jo waited until Dani’s pause grew into a chasm. And then she shook her head slowly. “No. I don’t think we can.”
Well. Well. “Fine.” And that was that.
Dani gathered her dignity and swept down the hallway with as much dramatic disdain as she could muster. Which, she fancied, was rather a lot. Since Jo had been headed toward the stairs, escaping her presence took Dani to the lifts, where she frantically pressed the button and refused to look back. She pinned her eyes to the slightly dented chrome doors as she waited, Jo’s words circling in her mind like a children’s merry-go-round. Perhaps the motion was why they made Dani feel slightly nauseous.
The battered old lift arrived with a groan, and she slipped gratefully inside, releasing a heavy exhalation as the doors closed. What a bloody mess. At this rate, she might have to top off her cupcake with some Skittles, just to soothe her nerves.
“Actually,” she muttered, flicking a wry glance up at the ceiling, “you know what would really soothe my nerves? Sex. So, you know. Not to rush you, darling, but chop-chop. Still waiting on that hint.”
The fluorescent lights cut out and an ear-rending shriek filled the lift.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Dani shouted, slapping her hands over her ears. “Fine! I don’t see how any reasonable higher power could expect me to go this long without oral sex, but if it means so much to you, I’ll be patient.”
Apparently, those weren’t the magic words, because darkness still reigned, the siren continued to scream, and Dani remained eager for a snack without any obvious path toward a nice packet of sweets. All in all, a terrible state of affairs.
“All right,” she murmured to
