“I’m not having a crisis,” I protested, crossing my arms.
“Sure, sure,” she agreed readily, “so what are we talking about, then?”
“Whether or not I should… I dunno,” I shrugged, suddenly feeling a bit weird. “Warn him I’m going to be there?”
Becka frowned. “Why the fuck would youwarnhim?”
I toed the faded laminate flooring. The idea had seemed pretty reasonable in my head. Considerate even, but saying the words aloud had made them take on a different meaning.
“Babes,” Becka’s tone was firm, and I looked up to see that hard expression on her face, the one I did my best to avoid having aimed at me. “He broke up with you. If seeing you in a professional capacity is all it takes to make him a little uncomfortable, then I say let him feel that way. He’s a big boy, he can either deal with it or…” she shrugged.
“Fuck him?” I suggested.
“Well, I mean, you could,” Becka said, her expression changing immediately from righteous indignation to thoughtful contemplation.
“Becka!” I gasped, even as I tried not to laugh.
My shoulders felt like they were relaxing for the first time all day.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding” She waved a hand through the air. “But yes, fuck him in the sense that he can deal with his discomfort. You do not need to apologise for being there.”
“I wasn’t going to apologise,” I grumbled.
“Good! Because you earned your place at this table, so sit down and eat up!”
I snorted. “Speaking of tables, how’s work?”
“Okay first of all, that was a terrible segue, but secondly,” she sighed deeply, briefly closing her eyes before saying, “honestly, it sucks. I really believe they think that operating with half the team we had pre-pandemic and expecting the same workload to get done is doable. It isn’t!” She leaned back in her chair, and I saw the strain on her face.
“I don’t know what they expect.” Her jaw tightened before barking out a laugh that had no resemblance to humour. “Actually, I do. They expect us to suck it up, because they keep reminding us that we still have jobs, when so many people lost theirs. I swear to God, Ky, I could run a better business with my eyes closed and my ass out.”
I gave her the courtesy of a couple beats of sympathetic silence before-
“Okay, but why is your arse out in that scenario?”
“Kaiya!” She exploded, but couldn’t disguise the twitch at the corner of her lips. “It’s an expression!”
“Are you sure? Because I’ve never heard it before.”
“Everyone says it. Anyway, that wasn’t the point!”
“Was the point about your arse?”
“I’m hanging up, I hope your boyfriend trips over you-”
“Ex,” I corrected automatically .
“I hope he trips over you twice then,” she snapped through a half smile.
“I’m sorry,” I laughed, “don’t hang up.”
Becka’s hand hovered over the phone screen before pausing and backing up.
“I need to go anyway,” she admitted. “I want to finish writing up my resume.”
“You should just do it, y’know?” I pushed off the wall and went over to my small fridge to pull out the ingredients for dinner.
Becka eyed me suspiciously. “Do what?”
