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Mmm. Yes, please.
sounds good. enjoy yourself she tapped in.
Excess energy, ha. They’d made love five times, counting the shower time, and slept hardly at all. But she was buzzing with plenty of excess energy herself. She was restless and fidgety, and wanted to break into a song-and-dance routine on the street. But she contained herself, with some effort.
When she got to her apartment, she was relieved not to see her landlady or any of her neighbors. Smudge made his displeasure with her known the moment she walked in. She hastened to feed him and placate him, but he was having none of it, ignoring her frostily as he wolfed down his breakfast.
She plugged her phone in to charge and headed to the bedroom, picking out a burgundy wool dress suit with a short sixties-style skirt that made her feel like Audrey Hepburn. After a shower, she tried twisting her hair up into a tidy bun, but as usual, ended up looking like a burning bush. Sleek was just never going to be her thing.
As soon as she got her makeup on, she heard the rapid-fire beeping of text alerts. She lunged for the phone. It could be Drew.
It wasn’t. Two missed calls from Ava, and a whole bunch of messages.
?? where are you?
didn’t we have a coffee date at Ruby’s to run over the Bricker Foundation stuff?
c’mon Jenna, I have things to tell you and a busy as hell day!
Oh, cripes. She’d asked Ava to give her feedback on the spiel she was going to give Bev’s friends from the Bricker Foundation. All the drama had wiped that appointment completely out of her mind.
She tapped in a quick response.
sorry, running late. On my way. Hang tight.
A frowning emoji arrived and then, I’ll order for you. cinnamon buns good today.
She gave Smudge an apologetic belly rub and got her thumb bitten, less gently than usual. Message received. She grabbed her car keys.
She got lucky with parking, and trotted into Ruby’s panting and red-faced. Ava sat in her usual booth with her laptop out and a pair of severe black reading glasses perched on her nose that somehow only managed to accentuate how ridiculously pretty she was. Her honey-blond hair was loose and swirling down over her black sweater. She looked up at Jenna, and her eyebrow climbed.
She lifted a cup. “Vanilla latte, triple shot,” she said. “Because I am a good friend.”
“Thanks.” Jenna slid into the booth and took a grateful sip of the hot beverage.
“So before we take a quick look at the Bricker Foundation stuff for today, let me just show you these stats,” she started briskly. “Ernest and I were talking about the big picture for Arm’s Reach last night, and it’s fantastic, the progress we’ve made.”
“Um, about that,” Jenna said. “I appreciate everything you’ve done, Av, but I need to back off for a little while.”
“Back off?” Ava looked horrified. “That’s insane. Your visibility is through the roof. You show up first on every search. You’re trending everywhere. You’ve been telling a juicy story, and everyone’s paying attention to it. You can’t stop now!”
“But that’s just the thing, Av. You’re a storyteller. I’m not. I’m a scientist. I like facts. Hard data. Not stories.”
“Sure, but this is all in the service of science, Jenn. Oh, hey. Speaking of facts and hard data, where in the hell were you this morning?”
Jenna choked on her coffee and sputtered into a napkin. “Excuse me?”
“I went to your apartment, since I was up early,” Ava said. “You weren’t there, but your car was, so I knew you hadn’t gone to work. So what gives?”
Jenna almost blurted out the truth, but something stopped her. And she couldn’t even lie and say she’d gone jogging, or to an early spin class. Her face got hotter. She couldn’t meet Ava’s eyes.
Ava took a bite of cinnamon bun, frowning in puzzlement. Then she stopped chewing, and just stared at Jenna’s face, her eyes going wide.
“No way.” Her voice was flat. “You didn’t.”
Jenna pressed her hands against her hot cheeks. She didn’t bother to deny it. It seemed ridiculous to lie, after last night’s huge, public scene. She tried to laugh it off. “It’s so surprising to you? After what you saw last night?”
Ava swallowed her bite of pastry with evident difficulty. “I thought you were just, ah...you know. That it was all part of the, um...”
