hellooo with the dreamy little smile
what are you hiding over there??
I didn’t even need to check the title to see who sent it. I also wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of a reaction. I typed a reply.
HELENA
you could try saying hello like a normal person
STELLIE
ooh there’s the scowl
That was enough for her—Estelle’s voice picked up from near the doors as she came towards me.
“Are you texting someone cute?” she said, and I slipped the phone into my pocket, turning to where she was dressed for the rain in an oversized pink coat, tugging the hood down and freeing her ponytail.
“Sending status reports along to Houdini. Do you just follow me everywhere?”
“I was free and remembered you were just finishing up a job here, so I decided to see if you were hanging out in the closest coffee shop texting your girl.”
“I’m not…” I sighed, rubbing my forehead. “She’s not my girl.”
“I’m teasing you,” she laughed, but something in her expression said she wasn’t entirely just teasing. “So you—”
“It’s good to see you, actually,” I said. “Linyue was just talking about you.”
She paled. “I’m a dead woman.”
“Positively, actually. She said Cheng Shiyi is coming back around in line, and suggested I could meet him at another…fancy rooftop event. And that you and Ms. Branch could be there too.”
She lit up. “You want me to score you an invite to a fun night out? Oh my god, you should have said so earlier! What are you thinking? Sunset drinks? Late-night dancing? Yacht party? Estate party? Uptown, downtown? Something classy? More techies?”
“How many upcoming parties do you know of?”
“Like, all of them.”
“I’ll ask Julie,” I laughed, and she stopped, quirking her eyebrow at me with her smile faltering.
“Is that her name?”
“Oh, er…”
“You said it before like it was just a pseudonym she used for her music work, but now you’re talking like that’s just her name.”
I pushed out a breath. “Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t asked.”
“You haven’t? I thought you two were, like, inseparable.”
“We’re just doing business work together,” I said. “But I’ll ask her anyway.”
“Aren’t you curious?” she said. “I’m not even the one who’s hanging out with her and I’m dying to know.”
Mostly because I knew she was uncomfortable about the subject. And besides, I had so many nicknames for her at this point, it was hardly a concern. But I didn’t want to tell Estelle that we were avoiding the topic of her marriage and that we got around it by me just having a lot of pet names for her. “I figure if she wants me to know, she’ll tell me,” I said, and she snorted, leaning against the bar next to me.
“Okay, virtuous. Gentle and gracious. You can do your saintly thing and I will google her.”
That felt like such a violation of her privacy, around a topic she obviously wanted to be private about, but… it wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about it. I was desperate to look up the husband, figure out what I could about him, but I’d talked myself down from it multiple times now saying I respected her privacy. But if Estelle was already looking her up anyway…
