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Offensive Behavior

Page 87

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“Have I lost you?” He heard a car glide into the spot adjacent to where they stood. Whoever was pulling a weekend shift deserved an apology. They’d get one.

“You haven’t lost me either, except I need to not see you for a while and then we need to renegotiate, set some boundaries, see if we can become friends again,” Owen looked back at the building, “without all this.”

That was more than fair. Reid looked down at his scuffed bike boots. “Sarina. I made her cry, and this morning forgot about her allergies and sent a truckload of flowers.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Reid. That’s not the only time you’ve made me cry. It’s the only time I let you see it.”

“Oh shit.” It was Sarina’s crappy car in the lot. It was Sarina leaning in to kiss Owen on the cheek. He’d made her cry before last night. How could he not know that?

“And Dev is the only one of you who remembers it’s lilies I’m allergic to. Send as many roses as you want.”

He closed his eyes, mortified, so he had no warning when Sarina kissed him on the cheek. His hand went there. “What was that for?”

She stood a little apart. “For all the times I wanted a better life for you. For all the times I wanted to kiss you on the cheek like I can Owen and Dev and Kuch and not have you get weird about it. You’re one of my oldest friends, even if you have no idea what that means. But I can’t do the cheek thing because you—”

He put his hands up. Surrender. “I get it. I get it.”

“Do you?”

He sighed. “I’m weird. Oh Christ. I’ll try not to be so weird in the future.”

She let out an exasperated sight. “You don’t get it. Be as weird as you want. We dig the weird. I get to have a cool life because of the way you’re wired, but you can do better, Reid.”

“Did you come here to chew me out?” Because he couldn’t take much more of this.

“Nope, I came here to make sure he’s okay,” she smiled at Owen, “because that’s my job, and it’s what a friend would do. I don’t have any trouble confusing the two things.”

“I can do better.”

“Yeah you can. And if you don’t Zarley will find you out and leave you, and I like her. I’d like to have Zarley as a friend.”

His eyes were leaking again. “Dev will never forgive me.” He could tell by the way Sarina nodded there was no reprieve for him with Dev. “Right.” He wished he’d brought sunglasses. “I still have to fix this.”

Sarina face palmed. “Oh Reid, you’ve done enough.”

He looked into her eyes. “Trust me.”

Her lips compressed and she looked away.

“I get that I have to earn it again. Get Ziggurat back on track ’cause that’s your mess and this one last time, trust me to clean up mine.”

Owen had a coughing fit that turned into a laughing fit as Sarina pumped him on the back. She laughed too. What was so funny? He had to do a bunch of interviews with journalists and admit he was under the influence of the orbit of rash and obnoxious or otherwise off his nut, and he regretted everything he’d said, he was a sore loser, and needed to grow up, that Owen and the Plus team had things under control and Ziggurat would deliver as expected.

And then he had to go home and hope Zarley didn

’t greet him with an empty apartment and a tick in the box of that reduced him to a bad memory.

TWENTY-TWO

It was lunchtime, if you considered 2.30 p.m. a good time to eat lunch, when Reid came home. He hadn’t shaved, he looked exhausted and there was something about the way he stood back and didn’t greet her that made Zarley’s heart spontaneously dismount. He really thought she’d clear out.

“Hi.” He was fidgety like Cara got when she was having a bad pain day. A hand to his hair, he patted his pocket, shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Sorry to run out on you. Are you okay?”

She walked toward him. “I’ve caught up on schoolwork. I’ve gossiped with Cara. I made us lunch. I had a bath, all on my own, swam some laps in it.” He didn’t smile. He wouldn’t look at her. She could virtually see the headache he had in the press of two wrinkles over his nose. She stood still. “I voted for kink, Reid.”

All the air came out of him in a rush. He took two steps to close the gap between them and knocked her off her feet in his haste to get his arms around her. He staggered and she let out a yip, but he had her, they weren’t going anywhere.

“You thought I’d leave.”



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