“Let me guess,” Lissa said dryly, “your boss was a guy?”
“Yup,” Ria confirmed, a plethora of bitterness in that single word.“And so was his boss.So of course when they had to downsize, because marketing firms were losing business to influencers, I was naturally the first to go.Even though I did all the work.”
Ooh, this was good.Now they were getting somewhere.
“So if you did all the work, what happened to your clients when you left?”Lissa asked, following Ria as she wandered down the tunnel.
“Hopefully, my manager executed all the campaigns correctly.At least, that’s what they told me would happen.”
Realization reared its ugly head at the same time a hideous moray eel popped into Lissa’s view.It stared at her for a second, accusation in its dark eyes, before swimming away to hide behind a large rock.Part of Lissa wanted to dive into the tank and go hide with it.Of course Ria had nothing to do with the marketing failure.They kicked her out and dropped Smooth Expressions because Lissa’s tiny studio wasn’t worth their time.Ria probably didn’t even know the campaign never went off!
Was it time to come clean?Ria was nothing but innocent, and continuing to manipulate her felt even more wrong than before.
“I hope so,” Lissa said, her brain rebooting back to the conversation.“Didn’t you tell me before you were working on something for a company in Seacliff?Maybe you could reach out and see if it was executed.If not, you could probably get them to hire you if the work is already done…”
Ria waved a hand dismissively as she paused to watch a loggerhead sea turtle float by.“It wouldn’t matter either way,” she said.“It was a Christmas-based project.I’m sure they’ve already moved on.”
Every bit of hope Lissa had been clinging to died.If the secret campaign she’d been hoping might save them only worked at Christmas, that was it.Game over.She was out of options, and the studio was doomed.
“Hey, are you okay?”Ria asked, waving a hand in front of Lissa’s face.“You look like a fish stole your soul and swam off with it.”
She wasn’t far off the mark, because when her studio was sold to Marge in less than two weeks, a part of her soul would go with it.
“I’m fine,” Lissa replied, faking a smile that undoubtedly would fool no one.“Probably just hungry.”
Ria analyzed her for a second before nodding.“Okay.I noticed a dining area back toward the front if you want to go grab lunch?I could eat.”
“Sure, let’s do that.”They came to the end of the tunnel, and Lissa followed Ria out of the building like a zombie.She wasn’t really hungry, and anything she ate would probably feel like lead in her stomach, but she was too stuck inside her own whirlwind of thoughts to change her excuse.
She’d been hoping Daria’s plan would be flawless.In fact, it felt like she was casting her own spell with all the steps Daria had made her memorize.
Daria’s Ritual of Love and Forgiveness
To make two people who are obviously in love stop being dumbasses and admit their true feelings, follow this ritual precisely.
Step 1: Tell the subject you just want to be friends.
Step 2: Take the subject somewhere seemingly unromantic.
Step 3: Casually bring up the subject’s past to learn what you need to know.
Step 4: Once the information is obtained, activate the secret romantic setting.
Step 5: Confess the truth about EVERYTHING.
Step 6: Beg for forgiveness, consider groveling.Pray she accepts your apology.
Step 7: Live happily ever after.
The only problem with Daria’s little ritual was it didn’t contain a contingency plan for when she got snagged on step three.There was no point in getting the plan out of Ria now, given that it couldn’t be executed.Which left Lissa sinking under the weight of a depressing reality that involved her being unemployed in two weeks.And that wasn’t even the end of it.Now that getting the secrets from Ria was off the table, Lissa was facing one hell of a conundrum.
Most people visualized an internal debate as having an angel and a devil on their shoulders, but for Lissa it was more like her heart, head, and vagina became squabbling toddlers fighting over a prized toy.Her head wanted a full confession, because no relationship could ever work with secrets involved.Her heart wanted a modified confession where she told Ria about knowing who she was but kept that pesky, underhanded manipulation on the backburner where it couldn’t ruin their future.And of course, her vagina wanted no confession.That bitch just wanted her to drag Ria into the nearest dark corner and fingerbang her up against the octopus tank.Those horny little cephalopods would probably appreciate the show.
Lissa had plenty of experience ignoring the demands of her naughty nether regions, so that voice was easy to shut out.The other two, though?They were the ones causing problems.If she wasn’t even going to be working at the studio in a couple weeks, then technically she could probably get away with not telling the whole truth.She could confess that she remembered seeing Ria on a video call when she popped into her boss’s office one time and used the spell thing as an excuse to get to know her.Not great that she started their relationship off with a lie but definitely forgivable.As opposed to telling the whole truth in that she only reached out to her about a spell so she could get the marketing secrets.That was…less forgivable.And Lissa really,really, wanted Ria to forgive her.
Twohourslater,Lissastill didn’t have a single inkling of how to handle her predicament.They’d gotten some food and drinks at the Jellymoon Cafe and spent a while just chatting.When they initially sat down, Lissa had struggled to hide her inner turmoil, but after a bit, she’d found herself thinking less and less about the studio and her manipulation.For the first time, she could simply enjoy Ria’s company without any ulterior motive.
They talked about their families and childhoods.Ria told her all about the pressure her mom put on her, but that they might have turned a corner.Lissa told Ria about how much she struggled growing up as a lesbian in a conservative state, and how she spent years after high school bouncing around from place to place and job to job, trying to find somewhere that felt like home.Her grandma recommended Seacliff shortly before her passing, and it broke Lissa’s heart she never got to see how happy Lissa felt there.
