“I can’t let you do that. You’re planning on going to the competition and ruining me.”
“I won’t. I’ll find something else to do, somewhere else.”
“Or I could give you the training and tools to succeed right where you are.”
“That sounds like bribery.”
“You’re the one who said I liked making deals.”
“Deals aren’t bribery.”
“Aren’t they?” I toss back the rest of the whisky. Now I’m feeling the burn. My head is warm, my chest is warm, and other things are heating up too, aching and acting strangely. I don’t think it’s the whisky as that thing was acting up even before that.
Zoe stares a few more lethal daggers at me. If she could cut me, I wonder what she’d go for first. Probably the throat. The jugular. Or maybe the major artery in my thigh. No, definitely the jugular.
“Do you want to know or not? Do we have a deal?”
I hold out my fist in front of me. “Rock, paper, scissors, and we’ll see. Best of five.”
“For what?”
“If you win, you can quit. You can go wherever you like. No repercussions even though I think it’s a poor decision. I’ll let you make it, ruin your career, whatever you want.”
“And if I lose?”
“Then you tell me what I want to know, and you keep working for me. At least for a month. Give it an honest try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
“If by pleasantly you mean extremely unpleasantly, then I guess you might be right.”
“So?” I give my fist a shake. “What’s it going to be?”
Zoe bites down hard on her bottom lip, which makes my cock twitch so hard that I could probably slice my own jugular with it. Maybe the whisky is finally kicking in because what kind of a mental image is that?
“Fine. But if I win, I also want you to give me some money so I can restart my life. I would have been fine if you hadn’t walked into it and messed it all up. It would technically be your fault I have no job. And I have mouths at home to feed.”
“What?” I nearly drop my empty glass.
Zoe grins wickedly. “You should see the look on your face. No, I don’t have children. Cats. I have three cats.”
“Why the hell do you have three cats? Isn’t one enough?”
“Maybe I wanted to turn into a crazy old cat woman. I hit thirty this year, so I thought now would be the best time.”
It takes me a second to realize she’s fucking with me. I also realize I’m not going to get any more out of her. Maybe she does have cats. Maybe she doesn’t. If she had kids or some sort of significant other, I don’t think she’d be here. She wouldn’t see it as appropriate, and she would have either brought them all just to rub her domestic bliss in my face, or she would have sent me an email telling me to go eat poop by myself. Or a text. That’s more Zoe’s style.
At least, it used to be her style. I’m not sure what her style is anymore. We’re no longer kids. People grow up. People change. People can change a lot, even in a few years, and it’s been a few and a few more, and a few more years on top of that.
“How much are we talking?”
“Ten thousand. You can easily afford it.”
I snort because I thought she was going to come up with something quite a bit better than that. She could have asked for a million or a hundred thousand, making it worth her while even mentioning it, but no, she asks for something sustainable. The actual amount it would probably take to cover her rent and bills while she tries to find another position.
Zoe always knew who she was, even when she was ten years old. That was one of the things I admired most about her. She was never lost like I was though I hid it well. She never had to bother trying to hide it because she never felt like that. She was always confident and proud of who she was. She never felt empty, ever. She was the younger one, but I remember how much comfort I took in sharing a room with her. We had bunk beds because our house was really small, and I always slept better, knowing she was right there in the same room as me.
“It’s a deal.”
Fine. She tosses back her whisky again and doesn’t look at me. “You count.”
“Rock, paper, scissors.”
Our hands fly out at the exact same time, showing identical paper signs. Our fingertips almost brush, but she jerks her hand away just in time. My insides turn into a wild, twisted mess when I feel the heat of her hand. So. Close. To. Mine.
“Rock, paper, scissors,” I count again.