Lisanne lifted the shades to sit on her head. “Hold up. Did you have a thing with him?”
“Oh my God,no.” Nadine made a warding sign over the bread.
Lisanne didn’t shift her gaze. “Nothing happened?”
Nadine clamped her lips shut before she forced out an answer. “Nothing. We had some misunderstandings, and we were always going for the same things. That’s it.”
“Liar.” Lisanne was gleeful. “Stop lying, liar.”
The drinks had put Nadine into that liminal zone where oversharing seemed like more of a bonding exercise than a first step to humiliation. “It was nothing,” she insisted. “I might have had a small crush at first. Then there was this one time…”
“I knew it.”
“I thought there could have been a moment, but nothing happened, you know?”
Lisanne nodded. “Did you want something to?”
“Not after I sobered up. I just…I don’t know. The feeling passed.”
He’d caught her when she tripped at a party. That was it, but they’d never been physically close before, and Nadine had become abruptly conscious that Wes was a man. She’d always categorized him, along with the other men in her program, as simply aco. Co-students. Potentialcoworkers and futurecolleagues. Men she refused to consider as people she could be attracted to because she wanted her personal life completely separate from her work.
Which was why, on that winter night, she was shocked to find herself looking at Wes’s mouth and wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Then someone had shoved their way down the hall, yelling, “Beer pong in the kitchen,” and pushing her closer to Wes.
His arms had come up to wrap protectively around her, and ridiculously, in that student house that reeked of weed and was one rager away from being condemned, she’d thought,This is what safe feels like.
Obviously that was the cheap wine talking, because then, like now, Wes Chen was anything but safe. He was double-plus unsafe, the guy who applied for all the same scholarships and would be going for the same limited number of jobs. But for those few seconds, Wes’s breath ruffling her hair and his heart thumping against hers, she wanted to press in closer.
Then it was over.
“What if the moment comes up again?” Lisanne asked.
“It won’t.” Nadine took some of the grilled bread. “He was always my nemesis.”
“Me on the other hand, I wouldn’t hesitate if Ying made the smallest move.” Lisanne held up her fingers so close they were almost touchingto demonstrate the precious little Ying would have to do to send her into a tizzy.
“You don’t know if Ying likes women,” Nadine said.
“She had a rainbow pin on her bag once.”
“I have a rainbow pin. You gave it to me.”
“Yeah, but I’m getting a vibe.” Lisanne sighed. “It would help if she talked about anything besides work. She’s so smart.”
Nadine was grateful Ying had replaced the more unwelcome topics of Wes and Lisanne’s fantastic career-making assignment. Since she was also lacking the emotional capacity to work through why she found those so volatile, she kept talking. “What about the date you went on the other day?”
Lisanne made a face. “I had to pretend I hadn’t done a deep dive on the poor guy before we met and fake surprise when he told me about doing a charity bike ride. I’d already seen the post on his company’s blog along with a photo of him in his gear.”
“Was he wearing the shorts?” Nadine shifted on the incredibly uncomfortable seat and waved her foot around until it found purchase on a stool rung.
“With a shirt that had pouches on the back.” Lisanne drained her beer. “You need to get out there. All you do is work.”
“It’s not all I do.” She saw Lisanne open her mouth to disagree. “Almost not all.”
“Close enough. You need a hobby,” said Lisanne.
“I’ve started reading obits.” At least she’d read a few.
Lisanne looked taken aback. “Okay. I didn’t expect that. Why?”
