Irina was a woman who enjoyed play in every aspect of her life.
It made her hard to pin down.
I was supposed to work up a schedule for her, a routine that I could give to Curtain (who I’d enlisted) and Axe-Man (who Zeus had drafted) so that we could begin to snoop around the production lot.
As far as I could tell, she didn’t have one.
Her marriage with Javier couldn’t have been a good one because she was only ever at his side if there was a political event or dinner. Otherwise, she kept to Wet Works and the beautiful Spanish-style home she’d erected at the back of the lot in the forest before the mountains.
She didn’t keep anything out in the open in her office, always keeping her phone glued to her long-nailed hand, and she never divulged anything illegal in front of me.
In conclusion, I was nowhere.
Almost two months into a job I hated, a job I’d fought viciously with Nova about, and I had absolutely nothing.
So I was more irritable than normal the Monday following my fight with Nova. Our fight had been on the preceding Wednesday, and we hadn’t spoken since.
I tried not to let it bother me, even though I’d taken out my phone to text him no less than three or four times a day.
There was nothing to say that hadn’t already been said, no more feelings to hurt that hadn’t already been torn apart.
We were at an impasse that had started two years ago when he’d kicked me in the heart and told me to get over my crush, one that had only deepened, maybe irrevocably now that we’d kissed, now that we’d fought so fundamentally over the way we lived our lives.
“You’re sulking,” Harleigh Rose accused me as we pushed out of the warm, damp room we’d just spent an hour in doing our weekly yoga class. “And you know I hate when you sulk and don’t give me the goods. It’s the least you could do given I have to put up with this yogi crap once a week just to see you.”
I laughed, as she’d meant me to, and bumped her hip with my own as we tugged on our shoes and grabbed our bags.
“You know you secretly love it,” I teased.
She snorted then shot me a coy look. “It’s hell. But I will say, Lion loves my new-found bendiness.”
“Oh, my God,” I groaned through my laughter, palming my face. “You seriously can’t go an hour without talking about what that man does to you in bed.”
She shrugged a shoulder and grinned unrepentantly. “Trust me, if you had a man who made you come until you couldn’t remember your own name, you’d talk about it all the time too.”
An older woman gasped in horror at H.R., but she only blew her a kiss and tugged me out the doors of the yoga studio and onto Main Street.
“I’m going to tell Loulou that you said that next time you complain about her talking about her sex life with Zeus,” I promised.
She narrowed those true-blue eyes at me and scoffed. “You wouldn’t dare. Best friends don’t snitch.”
“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”
“Bitch,” she griped good naturedly as we reached my pale blue VW bug convertible.
“Slut,” I returned easily as we got into the car.
She laughed and immediately plugged her phone into the car to play her music. I took a moment to stare at her, feeling twin emotions of soft jealousy and joy that my best friend had found happiness after so long.
She kicked her shoes off and crossed her bare feet on my dash as I pulled into the light traffic.
“So does this sulking have anything to do with Nova?” she guessed. “I’m gonna assume you guys haven’t fixed what he broke?”
“You mean my heart?” I asked then instantly regretted it.
I didn’t want to be bitter.
It wasn’t fair to me, my relationship with him, or to Nova himself.
Our argument the other day had only highlighted that.
It was just, sometimes, it wasn’t easy being friends with the person you loved.
Friendships usually operated on the same level, a reciprocity inherent in the contract.
With Nova, I was always too invested, my emotions a lump sum I couldn’t parse away no matter how hard I tried to match his call.
“Babe,” Harleigh Rose called, pulling my gaze to hers because we were at the one stoplight on Main Street. “I know I’ve been like sickeningly happy and probably more unavailable than I’ve ever been since Cricket, but I hope you know, I’m your girl. No matter what.”
Her words pulsed like warm light inside my chest, making it impossible to hide the secrets I’d been keeping from her in the dark corners of my mind.
“Nova kissed me,” I told her.
Even though I was braced for her indecipherable shout and the punch she landed on my arm, I still winced when it happened.