Heads peep over cubicles.
I lower my voice. “I didn’t sleep with anyone. This is worse.”
I explain about the glitter, and after I finish, Margie stares at me a bunch. I can’t tell if she’s questioning our long friendship or if she’s delighted. Goddamn poker-faced actor.
“Say something!”
“I’ll help you brainstorm. He’s going to hit back. You hit back harder.” Someone calls her name. “My scene. Got to go.”
She stands, and I roll my chair toward her, wrapping my arms around her middle. “This is why we’re friends.”
She snorts. “This is why we’re going to end up in prison.”
12
Jack sparkles like a Vegas showgirl. His face, his forearms, his hands, even the clothes he changed into after work, are coated in way more metallic glitter than I anticipated would make it to six thirty in the evening. His dark hair is positively diamond-dusted. And that hair is rumpled, as if he’s been self-consciously running his fingers through it all day. He looks irked. He looks like a fancy chandelier. He looks…
Kind of fucking hot. I lick my lips and pretend to peruse the three tools laid out on the floor. What the shit was that errant thought? I push it away and debate whether or not to play “Golden” by Harry Styles on repeat for him tonight. The look in his eye suggests that I should maybe save that one for another time.
He rolls up his shirtsleeves and rips down a torso-size strip of what looks like rigid wire mesh. “I had court today.” His tone is deceptively mild.
“Cool.”
“No. Not cool when you’re advocating for someone to stay out of prison and you look like you’re about to whisper, ‘This is the skin of a killer, Bella.’”
Excuse me, what now?He knowsTwilight?
“Oh. You’re not…the world’s most dangerous predator.” I feel bad. Did I cross a line? I think I crossed a line. “Whyareyou covered in glitter?” I try.
His steely gaze cuts me off.
I will bluster through this. “You aren’t blameless, you know. More broken toes and birdseed in my future?”
“You don’t want to know what’s in your future.”
“Oooh, so scary, M. Night Shyamalan.”
My door buzzer’s high-pitched whine scares the shit out of me, but it heralds Margie and Avery’s arrival, a welcome buffer. I wait for them at the top of the stairs.
I hear Margie giving Avery advice regarding his troublesome colleague before they round the landing and come into view.
“Sexual tension,” she says.
“God no,” Avery mumbles.
“We both know you don’t do casual, so you—”
“Not true. There was Tabitha.”
Margie purses lips as red as her tight crimson pants and continues her climb. “Oh my God, Avery Vaughn. A one-night stand you ended up dating for two-and-a-half years is not casual. You don’t do casual, so you need to get yourself into a relationship. It’ll remove the pressure of your office crush.”
“Rivalry. Not crush.”
“Sure. Hey, Pen. He retaliate yet?”
“No,” I whisper. “He’s doing the whole psychological warfare thing right now, making me anticipate it. Why are you dressed like you’re gonna sell crêpes along the Seine later?” I take in her black-and-white-striped top, jaunty black cap, and the very-appropriate-for-construction six-inch heels. Avery has, of course, showered after work, but his pullover is wrinkled, and he looks uncharacteristically disheveled.
“Why are you wearing a push-up bra to work on a wall?”
