“It’s the only way.”
“—because Sommers invited me to his retirement party.”
“Where?”
Silence. “At the country club where we play,” Hark admitted begrudgingly.
More gagging sounds. Eli rubbed his eyes, wondering if an intervention was in order.
“Listen, pricks,” Hark grunted. “We’re going to his party, where we’ll attempt to talk him into forcing Florence’s hand.”
“He’s still just one person,” Minami objected. “Would he even make a difference?”
“He has the ear of other board members. And he’s about to have lots of spare time.” A pause, in which Eli could imagine him shrugging. “I’m not saying it’s foolproof, but he was an early investor, too. He might have a stake in this.”
“Sure. Once again, nothing to lose,” Minami agreed. “Though Sul and I are leaving for Atlanta tomorrow morning. Health check on Vault. Their Q1 numbers just finalized.”
“Eli can be my date.”
“Fantastic.” Eli sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I do love country clubs and shots in the dark.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven. Wear something nice.”
Eli hung up and bent to scratch the sweet spot on the top of Tiny’s head, starting the long and tedious process of coaxing his dog back home. A night spent schmoozing some rich old man who thought plugging holes was a dignified activity was not in his Friday top twenty, but at least it’d take his mind off Rue for a while.
10
WE SETTLE THIS. ONCE AND FOR ALL.
RUE
My idea of a fun Friday night tended to include skating, or
Tisha, or sleeping, and while I wasn’t delighted to be accompanying Florence to an event that was unlikely to have any of those, the party came with one saving grace: the attire was formal, and I always welcomed a chance to dress up.
Large social gatherings full of people I wasn’t familiar with were gas giants yielding infinite supplies of nightmare fuel, but at least I got to dig into my closet and show off my cat-eye routine—trained by the incessant pipetting, my lines were straighter than a bubble level. As in awe as I was of Tish’s habit of showing up to the lab with Met Gala–like sophistication, I didn’t have it in me to make that kind of effort on a daily basis, and never before 11:00 a.m. When I met up with men from the apps, I rarely bothered with makeup or nice outfits, aware the clothes would come off soon enough, and that nobody wanted my face goop smeared on their skin. It meant that most of my fancy dresses were beloved but unworn, and they’d only get a chance to come out for Tisha’s wedding—because she was the kind of person who’d require three engagement parties and a handful of rehearsal dinners, but couldn’t be bothered to tell her maid of honor what to wear.
And for parties like tonight’s.
“You look beautiful,” Florence told me when I slid in the back of the Lyft, fingering the shimmery fabric of my green cocktail dress—which had pockets.
“So do you. It feels like there should be some chromatic reason for gingers to look bad in pink, but that’s not true at all.”
She laughed. “This is why you’re a better date than my ex.”
“Because I tell you that you defy color theory?”
“That, and you’re hopefully not sleeping with my accountant.”
When I first met Florence, she’d been married to a guy named Brock who worked some bank-related job, had been her childhood sweetheart, and, according to Tisha, was “a total silver fox thirst trap.” Privately, I’d always considered him a giant bag of dicks unworthy of scraping grime off the grout lines in a public restroom. I’d hated his brash, car-salesman humor, how he’d presumed to tell Florence how to run Kline, and the way he looked at my chest and Tisha’s legs whenever Florence would have us over, like we were pieces of meat, little more than chicken wings delivered to his doorstep for his pleasure. I’d been relieved when they’d divorced, because Florence deserved better than him.
Then again, I was always a little too protective when it came to my friends, maybe because I had so few of them. Like in eleventh grade, when Cory Hasselblad had cheated on Tisha because she wouldn’t sleep with him and I’d sprayed a bottle of Heinz ketchup through the grates of his locker. Or in college, when I’d filled two Hefty bags with my roommate’s ex’s belongings after she’d caught him stealing money from her. My very few friends were the best people I knew, and I was ready to cut a bitch. Or, on one memorable occasion, a tire.
“Are you interested in doing that again?” I asked Florence. The AC in the car struggled against the summer heat. The sun would set soon, providing no respite, and yet downtown Austin had been buzzing for hours. I had no idea where we were headed, just that it’d be swanky.
“What? Sleeping with my accountant?”
“Dating. Maybe get married again?”
She laughed. “After all I went through to get rid of Brock? No, thanks. If I get lonely, I’ll adopt a cat, like Tisha. Is that who she’s with tonight?”
“I believe she’s with Diego, the tech bro. But Bruce might be tagging along.”
“I’m sure things will get wild.” She gave me a sideways look. “What about you? Are you going to start dating again?”
A flash of Eli Killgore flooded my brain, and I swiped it away with the vehemence it deserved. “Technically . . .”
“Technically, it wouldn’t be again, because you’ve never actually dated ?”
“Correct.” I shrugged as the car slowed down. Not only was interacting with others a challenge for me, but the feeling was mutual.
Why are you always so quiet?
If you smiled more, people would think you like them, and then they’d actually want to spend time with you.
I wish I was as cold as you. I love that you just don’t care about stuff.
I’d been an odd child, then an odd teenager. Then I’d become, maybe as a result, maybe unavoidably, an odd adult. Tisha had been easy—Want to jump rope with me? she asked in first grade, and the rest smoothly unfolded—but as grateful as I was for my best friend, she was also a constant reminder of what I could never be. Tisha was smart, outgoing, quirky, imperfect in a way that was universally considered fun. I was weird. Cringe. Too awkward or too withdrawn. Off-putting. There had been whispers, snickering, and a conspicuous lack of invites by the same crowds that adored my best friend. Tisha had never chosen others over me, and she never hesitated to tell those who were openly rude to me to piss off. But we both knew the truth: people were inexplicably, neverendingly difficult for me. So while Tisha had boyfriends, friends, high grades, a promising future, I was busy with figure skating and faint hopes of getting the hell out of Texas, soon.
But then I had gotten out. And while being with humans hadn’t been any easier in college, I’d realized that there was one type of social interaction I could rock. I may struggle to keep the conversation flowing, or fail at exuding the kind of warmth that made others want to be in my orbit, but some people did approach me. Men, for the most part, with something very specific in mind, something I discovered I found highly enjoyable myself. I didn’t mind if they wanted to use my body, not if I got to use theirs back.
Only fair, I thought.