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A reluctant smile tilted my mouth. Wow, var Rorik had no chill. It was kind of cute.

7.30 is fine , I typed back. I’m drinking plenty of water. Thanks for your concern. Swimming was good.

I stared at it after hitting send. God, I was terrible at making conversation.

How was your workout? I added quickly.

He replied just a few seconds later. Yeah awesome. We need a redo of our friendly little running competition by the way, seeing as the last one didn’t count.

I snorted. Why didn’t it count?

Because I had to leave early! he replied.

You didn’t HAVE to leave early, I typed immediately. You said you weren’t actually flying off to Paris for the weekend.

No but I got cramp , he sent. So it didn’t count. We need to do it when we’re both at peak physical performance. I’d already done an hour of hardcore leg exercises.

I found myself snorting again, then gave Vee a sheepish smile when her head popped up over her computer monitor.

“What’s got you laughing?” she asked cheerfully.

“Oh, just—” I flushed. “Um, a meme my sister sent me.”

“Let me see.” Hustin rolled his chair closer.

“Me too!” Vee chirped, standing up from her desk to walk around.

I stiffened, trying to shoot Hustin a subtle yet meaningful look. “No, Vee, you… you won’t want to see it. It’s… gory.”

Hustin stared at me for a second as understanding dawned. His eyes shot down to my phone screen when I tilted it toward him, showing him var Rorik’s name at the top, before a wide grin revealed all his sharp teeth.

“Ooh yeah, that is gory.” He rolled his chair back, waggling his brows at me. “You don’t want to see it, Vee.”

“Oh no, nothing gory for me.” She wrinkled her nose and retreated back to her desk.

“Let me know if your sister sends any more,” Hustin said lightly, an innocent expression on his face as he gazed at his monitor. “I want to see all of them.”

Chapter Nineteen

Anita

W e ended up texting on and off all afternoon.

It was actually fun talking to him. I’d never been that good at small talk or thinking of ways to keep conversations going,

but Nuni excelled at it. He usually sent two or three texts in a row—just a stream of consciousness that I should’ve found annoying. I generally liked my conversations short and to the point, but I didn’t find it annoying at all, and there wasn’t any point to this anyway. We were just talking for the sake of it. Because I just wanted to talk to him.

It somehow managed to make me forget about the awkward conversation we’d be having after work. We talked about everything else. Mainly what we disagreed on. Favourite foods—his was his mum’s porin, a traditional demiurgus dish, whereas mine was niçoise salad. The best bars and restaurants in the city, which made it clear how different the circles we mixed in were. Which was the best of the four movies in the Team Lava Force franchise, which were wildly popular when we were both kids. He insisted it was the third, Team Lava Force 3: Revenge of the Molten Jock, whereas I thought it was the first.

A few times, when there was a lull in the conversation, he’d text me something like, The dude speaking right now in this conference call sounds like he’s holding in a Deep Earth-rumbling fart, or, Holy shit I can see two guys in suits out my office window having a full-on brawl. I’m gonna try and film it.

It was kind of weird how easily we slipped into more casual conversation. But I supposed it made some sense—he’d seen my vulva. Twice. It almost felt weirder to try and maintain a distantly polite tone through text after that. Especially as we weren’t even talking about work stuff. We were just talking.

And I didn’t want to stop.

I’d been right—he was a bit of a frat bro, but in a funny way. I kind of liked the way he talked. It made me feel like I was getting to see the other side of Nuni var Rorik. The relaxed side, with some of the highly polished lacquer stripped away.

I wasn’t as good at loosening up. I tried to remember to ask him questions back, to send more than direct sentences that gave nothing to continue the conversation. It made me worried that he’d think I wasn’t actually interested in talking to him, which was the wrong thing to be worrying about. Shouldn’t I have been worrying about our looming conversation later? Worrying about how to tell him that yes, I had in fact shown him my pussy in the gym sauna, but unfortunately that didn’t mean we could have sex again. Worrying about how to explain to him why I’d done it: I’m wildly attracted to you, and when you’re around my id seems to take over, but again, sorry, my stance hasn’t changed.