"Blueberry Muffin? Really? You can do better than that."
She shrugs. "It's all I could think of with that blue skin, but in my mind, I added a layer of cream cheese icing, thick white ropes of it. If you know what I mean," she adds, with an unnecessary wink. I groan and drop my head.
"How are we friends?"
"You're just lucky, I guess. But seriously, what gives? You can't be working that hard."
"Actually, I am. Loora, this is important work. I care about this. It's got to be right." I pull Dr. Mack's notes toward me. "I stayed up last night to make sure this feature package does not sound like a freshman college paper."
"Uh-huh. I’d bet my left tit that if you couldn’t sleep last night, it wasn’t because of a scientist." Loora's gaze tracks to my neck, where my pulse beats too fast against the collar of my blouse. "Your scent is pushing through, Bee. I've got terrible nose genes, and I can still smell you from here. Sweet and sharp and absolutely desperate."
"Shut up."
"Make me." She offers the bag, a peace treaty wrapped in cellophane. "Seriously, though. The alien prince. The rotating ears. The thing with the tongue that the omega forums are absolutely wild about."
"There is no thing with the tongue."
My lie fools no one. I have researched the Layn aphrodisiac response, read the medical journals, the firsthand accounts, along with the detailed descriptions of chemical secretions thatrender omegas pliant and begging. I researched until two in the morning with my hand between my legs and my suppressants failing, hating myself for the curiosity even as I chased every detail.
Loora's eyebrows climb. "Oh, that was a terrible lie."
"It was a private lie. Respect it."
"I respect nothing but women making terrible decisions with hot men. Smoking hot, Beatrice Watson."
"Skylor Ak Layn is not a bad decision. He is my boss, which is worse. He is also the corporate overlord currently deciding whether Athena lives or gets folded into memory like countless others. I'm here to save a magazine, not to get railed by an extraterrestrial monarch against his desk after he finishes chomping me up with his vibrating tongue."
"I didn't say anything about desks. That was crazy specific. Now I won't be able to get that image out of my head, and obviously, you can't either. Do their tongues vibrate? I hadn't heard that part."
"Oh, my God. Were you leaving, or did you come to help?"
"I absolutely was." She crunches another handful, entirely too pleased with herself. "But this living vicariously is so much more fun."
"Loora."
"I'm just saying, if a woman had to make a terrible professional decision, she could do worse than doing it with him." Her attention flicks toward the corridor. "By the way, he was watching you when I came on this floor. A lot of watching going on. You're watching him. He's watching you."
"I am not watching him."
Loora just shrugs. "Then there's something wrong with you.How are we friends?"
She ignores my glare. Instead, Loora studies me as if I’m her latest fashion layout. Her dark brown eyes scan my face, reading a story I haven't agreed to tell.
"You know what your problem is?" she asks.
"I only get one? In that case, I pick having a friend who won't let me work."
"You still think wanting things makes you weak." She stands, gathering her laptop and chips with a sigh. "You think if you just work hard enough, prove enough, achieve enough, you'll somehow transcend being a person with needs and desires."
"Goodbye, Loora."
"You want him. So get over yourself and go get that man. Or alien. Which actually makes it hotter." She pauses at the door, her hand on the knob, and her voice softens. "Wanting isn't weakness. Weakness is letting fear make your choices because you're too scared to find out what happens if you just go for it."
She leaves, and I work on Dr. Mack's notes until the words stop swimming. There are solid words. Well written. Words that don't care whether Skylor Ak Layn has been watching me through glass. I can work with solid words.
The video meeting loads on my screen at exactly four. Dr. Kenzie MacArthur appears in a plain office with a wall of books behind her and a coffee mug beside her keyboard. She is younger than I expected, maybe in her late twenties, with thick, dark hair twisted up with a pencil and sharp eyes.
The first twenty minutes are exactly what I hoped for. So much more, Dr MacArthur gives me a Coffee History 101 course. She starts with its discovery by the Western world. How we came to rely on it as harmless comfort, while the ugly costs are hidden. The science gets dense fast, a dense that needs three tabs, two follow-up questions, and one translator who understands both chemistry and coffee addiction. I keep typing anyway, becauseburied inside all that soil stress and shade-grown farming is exactly the story Athena used to tell.
