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“I don’t do jazz hands.”
“You do metaphorical jazz hands.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “You’re both very annoying.”
“And yet we’re right.”
Lauren didn’t answer that. Instead, she reached for her keys on the counter and turned them over in her hand.
“She’s going to training straight from here tomorrow?”
Jenna nodded. “I expect so.”
“And she’s driving?”
“How should I know?”
Lauren went to reply that Jenna seemed to know everything else, but she hesitated.
Paige watched her carefully. “You’re going anyway, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” Lauren shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “I’ll offer her a lift.”
Jenna’s grin was immediate. “Look at you. Being a functioning adult.”
“Don’t make it weird. It’s just practical.”
“Of course it is,” Jenna said innocently.
Lauren pointed a finger at her. “I mean it.”
“We believe you,” Paige said, though her smile suggested otherwise.
Lauren shook her head and grabbed her hoodie from the back of the chair. “Right. I’m going to go before you both say anything else.”
“Good luck!” Jenna called after her.
“I don’t need luck,” Lauren muttered, already heading down the corridor.
She needed to get it over with before she talked herself out of it. Despite everything she’d said, and everything Paige and Jenna had said, Lauren was still scared shitless of Carly—and she had never once managed to be brave in front of a woman she wanted to impress.
She paused a few steps away from reception. Carly sat behind the desk, gaze fixed on her laptop screen. The picture of efficiency, apart from one strand of hair that had worked loose by her ear. Carly tucked it back without looking up, and it slid free again almost at once, and Lauren realised she’d been standing there long enough to watch it happen twice.
Lauren stepped forward. “Hi.”
Carly looked up. “Hi.”
“I just saw Paige and Jenna. They mentioned the videos.”
Carly nodded. “We’re going to try again. Different format.”
“Right. Good.”
Lauren shifted her weight, then stilled herself. The silence opened between them, familiar and awkward, but this time she didn’t rush to fill it.
“You’re coming to training tomorrow as well?” she asked.
“That’s the plan.”
