Daria waved a hand in front of Lissa, tearing her attention away from the messy jumble of spices.“And by ‘look on my face,’ do you mean the one that says ‘I don’t even know who you are right now?’That look?Because I don’t.This isn’t like you, Lissa.You don’t do underhanded shit like this.”
“I know,” Lissa said, abandoning her search and slumping against the counter.“I felt awful about it afterwards.It’s why I haven’t called her.I told her I’d keep in touch because I thought if we hung out again she might open up and tell me more, but now I’m rethinking it.”
Daria hopped off the counter and clamped her hands onto Lissa’s shoulders, a huge grin spreading across her face.“It’s because you like her.”
“What?”Lissa ducked to escape Daria’s grasp and shook her head.“She’s cute, I’ll admit that, but there’s nothing more to it.
Only because you’ve lost your game lately, her vagina chimed in.And I’m the one paying the price.
No, I think you made the right call,her heart argued.It wouldn’t be right to lead her on after you lied.
“I call bullshit.You do like her.That’s why you feel bad,” Daria pressed.“You didn’t expect to actually be into her, but you are.I might have spied on you guys a bit, and you don’t share your coffee with just anyone.”
“That’s because you usually steal it,” Lissa muttered, shoring up her grip on the mug in her hands.
“You’re deflecting.Another clue you actually like her.”
“And you’re annoying,” Lissa huffed out, heading back into the living room to grab her keys.“She may have been attractive, but she’s also the reason that I’m awake at the ass crack of dawn to get a few hours of blowing in before I have to spend the rest of my day staring at spreadsheets.”
Daria narrowed her eyes.“And she told you it was her fault?”
“Not exactly,” Lissa replied, digging under the pile of pillows on her couch for her keys, which always seemed to grow legs and scamper off.“She said she ‘took a break.’I’m not sure what that means or when exactly she left, but she was on the campaign, Daria.Even if she wasn’t the lead, she was likely involved in the decision to terminate our contract days before it was supposed to go live.See these burns?”Lissa dropped the pillow she was holding in her non-coffee-clutching hand and held up her right forearm to display two twisted and puckered burn scars.“I got these from spending sixteen hours a day in the studio blowing those damn ornaments like they told me I needed to, only for them to bail at the last second.In five years, I never got a single burn, but their campaign ran me so ragged I practically fell asleep with a pipe in my mouth at times!”
Daria snorted.“Been there.”
Lissa let out an exasperated sigh and collapsed onto the couch, abandoning her travel mug on the coffee table.“Is everything always a joke with you?She ruined my life, Daria.She took my happy life, blowing glass in a perfect little town, and turned it into a nonstop stress-a-thon.”
“You don’t actually know she had anything to do with it,” Daria pointed out, perching on the arm of the sofa.
“Maybe not,” Lissa conceded.“But that’s all I see when I look at her.The promise that Mercer Marketing was going to be our saving grace, and instead they became the axe that chopped our feet out from under us and solidified our demise.”
“That’s dark, and completely irrational to take out Mercer’s bullshit on one assistant employee.I’m telling you, Lissa, she probably had nothing to do with it.Forget about Mercer.You should be focusing on how soon you can go pearl diving in her panties instead.You just know with that pencil skirt she was wearing she’ll be an animal in the sack.”Daria winked, then made a swipe for the coffee again.
Nudging it out of her reach, Lissa tossed her a glare.“If, and I mean if, I see her again, I won’t be able to stop myself from trying to get the marketing secrets out of her.If there’s even a chance she knows a way we could save the studio, I won’t be able to let it go.I can’t ask her out on a date like she’s a regular girl I just met.”
“So then don’t fight it,” Daria said, sliding off the arm of the sofa to sink into the cushion beside Lissa.“If you need to tell yourself that you’re only spending time with her to find out what she knows, then so be it.Personally, I think there’s a lot more there, but you tell yourself whatever lies you need to.I’ve seen the movies, I know how these things work out.”
“This isn’t a movie, Daria.”
“Says you,” she replied, leaning her head against the back of the couch and closing her eyes, a wistful look on her face.“We used to live our lives like it was a movie—all fun all the time.I miss that, Lissa.”
So do I, Lissa thought, but she couldn’t simply abandon her responsibilities to go body surfing in the middle of the day like she used to.Back then no one relied on her.Now, everyone at the studio was counting on her to save their jobs.
“Ooh!”Daria cried, her head shooting up.“Why don’t you invite Ria to the Pride Parade in Portland this weekend?It’s the perfect thing for you to shake off this funk.You always have a blast at Pride.”
Lissa opened her mouth to object, then paused.She’d been so busy she’d completely forgotten about Pride weekend, something she never would have done before the added studio stress.“Yeah, okay,” she eventually agreed, figuring one day wouldn’t make or break things.“Though I don’t even know where my rainbow fishnets and nipple pasties are these days.”
Daria waved a hand and hopped off the couch.“You can have mine.You know I love any excuse to go buy a wild new outfit.”
“That’s true.All right, I’m in.This could be fun,” Lissa admitted, shifting to face Daria and feeling her keys stab into her thigh from the crack between the cushions.
Her best friend flashed her a wicked grin.“And if you guys end up hooking up in some dark corner of a nightclub afterward, then you’ll just have to thank me.”
“I’m not hooking up with her, Daria,” Lissa replied, standing up and tucking the keys in her pocket.“Believe what you will, but all I want is to squeeze the campaign secrets out of her.”
“Oh, you’ll be squeezing something.”Daria made a honka-honka motion with her hands.
Lissa groaned.“You’re such a child.”
