Ellie shrugged. “Figured either it’ll be great and make you feel better, or disgusting and give you something else to think about.”
My lips twitched again, more voluntarily this time. “This is why they pay you the slightly better than poverty wages.”
“Avoid the subject all you want,” Ellie said, sitting back and crossing her arms. “But I’m under direct orders to make sureyou’re okay, so right now they’re paying me the slightly better than poverty wages to do that. I’ve got all day.”
“You reallyshouldconsider joining the CIA, you know. You’d be an asset to national security.”
Ellie snorted. “Only if all the bad guys are as earnest and easy to read as you.”
I sighed, sitting back, clutching my latte close to my chest. Itdidsmell good, like a glass of strawberry milk in a summer meadow.
“Theo,” I pronounced. The word felt strange in my mouth, like something I wanted to spit out. I hated feeling like that.
“Theo,” Ellie repeated.
“I fucked up,” I said, looking down at my hands. “It… I just thought… I thought Theo hadfinallyseen me, or finally… decided to give me a chance, or whatever, and I was wrong, and I might have ruined everything forever. He’s my best friend, El. I can’t lose him.”
Tears stung at my eyes as I looked up again.
Ellie leaned forward, taking one of my hands away from the cup and curling her fingers around it.
“Start from the beginning,” she said.
26
THEO
I was on my third?Fifth? Read-through of the same paragraph when a knock at my office door startled me so badly that the remaining mouthful of coffee in the mug by my elbow sloshed out of it.
I swore and jumped up for a tissue as it narrowly missed my keyboard but hit a stack of papers I hadn’t even begun to work through and had a sneaking suspicion were due by end-of-day. Assuming today was Wednesday. I wasn’t entirely sure.
“Come in,” I called, dabbing at the coffee spill.
The door squealed open and clicked closed before I remembered I ought to look up and see who it was.
My heart leapt into my throat as I saw.
“Audrey?” I asked.
It was definitely Audrey. I wasn’t sure why I was asking.
I hadn’t slept very well for a few days, and coffee could only do so much. Even in the quantities I was currently consuming it.
“Theo,” she said in response, hesitation in her voice.
That was fair. I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror an hour or so ago. I would have been hesitant to approach me right now, too, between the bloodshot eyes and the way my hair was sticking up at all angles from a combination of tugging on it and taking involuntary power naps at my desk.
At the desk, I couldn’t wake up and miss…
“I…” I began, then trailed off. “Uh,” I tried again. “Hello. What are you—did we have an appointment?”
Audrey tilted her head, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes at me. “No, I was just in the neighborhood and I thought I’d drop my portfolio off in person.”
She held up a plain black USB stick.
“Are you okay?” she continued.
I opened my mouth to lie, ayesteetering on the tip of my tongue.
