Page 33 of See You Next Tuesday

Simone: What is? Dating a vlogger?

Anya: No! Letting a reporter take up column inches that could be used in support of our candidate to talk about his girlfriend instead. It’s unprofessional!

Anya: And vlogger isn’t even a word!

Transcript of Slack Private Message: Gabe Hunt and Kira Liu

Gabe: I worry that at some point it’s unprofessional

Gabe: She always has to be right, which means she always needs me to be wrong

Kira: She wouldn’t always need you to be wrong if you’d ever acknowledge that she’s occasionally right!

Gabe: Are you talking about the immigration vote?

Gabe: You KNOW I’m right about that, but she won’t let it go

Kira: Is she the one currently not letting it go, bud? Or is that you?

Gabe: I can’t believe you’re taking her side

Kira: I can’t believe this conversation is still happening

Transcript of Slack Private Message: Kira Liu and Simone Humphrey

Kira: They’re really on one this morning

Simone: You’re telling me

Kira: Gabe thinks Anya is making the campaign not fun, and he has a point

Simone: Anya’s pissed Gabe took credit for her AMA idea in the press, and she has a point

Kira: Fuck

Kira: I was so hoping this would get better when Anya and Zeke moved in together

Simone: Not sure hoping for the best is a terribly effective management strategy?

Kira: You’re right, this has gotten out of hand. I’ll talk to them today.

“Anya? What’s that smell?”

“Damn it!” Anya put down her phone and rushed into the kitchen. In her fervor of typing furious Slack messages to Simone, she’d completely forgotten the tray of bacon she was roasting. Little curls of smoke were rising from the oven—Anya turned it off and yanked open the door. The bacon was charred black.

“I think you might have burned it,” Zeke joked. He stood behind Anya and wrapped his arms around her waist, and she sighed and leaned back against him. She loved how big he was, tall and soft and burly.

“I wanted to make you breakfast,” she said mournfully.

“But then something happened with work?” His tone was knowing but playful. He was a campaigner too, a field organizer for President Flannery’s reelection campaign.

“Something happened with you-know-who.” Anya turned to face Zeke and gave him a dark look.

“Wooooow, this early?!” Zeke stared at his bare wrist, agog at the pretend time. “How does he get any work done, with all the energy he spends pissing you off?”

“He’s very committed to his side hustle as my mortal enemy,” Anya joked, already feeling a little better.

“Poor Annie.” Zeke hugged her, and she relaxed into his touch. Zeke always called her Annie—a callback to when they’d first met a few months ago in a noisy dive bar after a rally and he’d misheard her name. She’d called him Pete in turn to try to rile him up, but he loved it. They ended up sleeping together that night, and they’d been calling each other Annie and Pete ever since.