“Why do you know that?” she asks, and he shrugs.
I don’t usually reroute the conversation back to myself when it’s this personal, but I want my friend’s advice. I know what Demi would say. She’ll say: Be careful. Sex is just sex until it’s not. And when it’s not, and it turns into more than just sex, the line is thin and hard to find.
These two will definitely be brutally honest with me. Despite their odd banter, they are in love, and they still believe in love. Demi is too jaded to even believe in the possibility of it all.
“Do you think I’m making a mistake?” I ask. “Be honest.”
“Are we ever not?” Alice asks.
“I think you should go with your instincts,” Troy says. “You’re living with this guy, pretending to be in a relationship, both of you have ulterior motives, and both of you are aware of these motives. As long as everything is copacetic, mutual, and respectful–”
“Jesus Christ,” Alice cuts in. “He’s hot, you’re hot, if you want to fuck like rabbits when the doors are closed, fuck like rabbits when the doors are closed. Hell, fuck like rabbits with the doors open. I’m sure Deborah would love that.”
On cue, Prudy appears at my cubicle. “I hate to interrupt your daily gossip session, but Deborah wants to see you,” she says.
“Which one of us?” Troy asks.
“Ashlyn, obviously,” Alice says.
“How do you know?” Troy asks. “She might want to talk to us.”
“We aren’t banging Zane Calloway,” Alice says. I try to avoid one-on-one conversations with my boss, preferring to fly under the radar. But right now I’d make peace offerings with Russia if it meant getting out of this conversation.
“I’m coming,” I say. I breathe a sigh of relief before entering Deborah’s office. She’s drinking coffee today. That’s different.
“Are the wheatgrass crops not yielding well?” I joke. She doesn’t smile. I had to try.
“You two look good together,” she says.
“Oh?” I ask.
“A double date is a very nice play. Especially with Cal Flynn there too. Makes the whole appearance a public feature.”
“That was his idea,” I say with a smile.
“And the kissing…nicely done, Ashlyn,” she says, and I have to bite back a grin. Nicely done is about as close as any of us will get to Deborah saying she’s impressed.
“Thank you,” I say, but the words barely leave my mouth before she purses her lips again and goes back to the Deborah I know.
“Do you have any photos for me?”
“I…” I stutter.
“Ashlyn. Don’t get me wrong, the public photos are great, but I want personal.”
“I don’t really see how anything could be more personal than the bedroom shots he published in Modern Man magazine recently,” I say.
“Are we Modern Man Magazine?” she asks sharply.
“Well, no. But we could do a shoot with him of our own,” I suggest. “One where the photos aren’t taken from the bushes.”
“First off, those photos are of a staged bedroom, not his bedroom, so it’s cringey at best. And secondly, you have access to the real thing. I don’t think I need to explain to you how valuable photos of Zane Calloway in his own bedroom would be.”
“Right,” I say, deflating a little.
“If you want to keep working here, you’ll do the right thing,” she says before turning away, and I take that as my cue to leave.
I think Deborah and I have different ideas about what the right thing is.
