Page 17 of Let's Talk About Love

“It’s your fault,” she blurted, making him laugh.

“Is that right?” He tilted his head to the side, smiling while biting his bottom lip.

A severe hot flash ripped through her, level: wildfire. It started in her head and scorched its way downward until it singed the coral pink nail polish off her toes. It may have been due to embarrassment or possibly desire (???), because, at that moment, they felt eerily similar to her.

She knew that look.

The Look.The one a person used when they tried to figure out if they liked what they saw enough to date. Not even a month ago, she wished people would stop giving her that look so she wouldn’t ever have to explain about being asexual. Did she want Takumi to find her attractive? She wasn’t sure, because what if he did? What if he asked her out?

What if, what if, what if?

Why, why, why?

Margot’s smiling face popped into her head. A warning. This was the beginning, and regardless of what happened with Takumi in the middle, everything would end with that one word. He’d want to know. She’d have to explain.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Her gaze stayed glued to the sidewalk.

“I’m sorry. I thought, um”—he paused—“I don’t know what I thought. Sorry.” He tilted his head back to watch the sky and muttered, “I have to stop listening to Essie.”

Essie, her brain hissed. Payback would be swift and satisfying.

“You know Essie?” She kicked a pebble into the street. Of course he did. Would it kill her to stop asking stupid questions? “Outside of work?” she clarified.

He gave her his attention. “Yeah. That’s how I got hired here: tangential nepotism.”

The bus came rumbling down the road. Alice stood, getting out her bus pass.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked.

“Probably,” she said, eyes flicking to his face, then ran for the bus’s doors. Once she sat, she checked out the window for him. Takumi continued to stand there, waving at her.

“I hate everything,” she whispered to herself, slouching in her seat.

CHAPTER

8

“I’m home!” Alice said. She threw her bag onto the slightly used but well-loved quilted purple couch. Glory trotted to the front door. She yowled for food, head-butting Alice’s shins. “I know, I know.”

Talking to the cat amused Alice to no end. Glory had personality. She made her desires and feelings known through actions with a scary amount of accuracy. Like how she flipped over her green food bowl with a contemptuous look in her eye.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” she chided, replacing the bowl and filling it. “Sometimes I think you only love me because I feed you.”

Dinner was an outstanding bag of popcorn washed down with Diet Pepsi. Alice wanted to lose herself in season five ofSupernaturaland pass out once her serotonin levels overloaded on the cutie patootie badass with the biggest heart named Dean Winchester. Snuggled down on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, she started the first episode. The house bills were split—she had convinced Feenie and Ryan to upgradeto the fastest Internet money could buy. Lagging sent her into a cataclysmic rage and buffering was her absolute kryptonite.

Two episodes later, Feenie came home, arms lined with shopping bags. “Finally! Good God, I thought I was going to have to stalk you from behind bookshelves just to see you.”

“I appreciate your enthusiasm for my well-being,” Alice said as Feenie passed her on the way to the kitchen.

“Someonehas to look after you.”

“By the by, you know you and your meddlesome ways are banned from my library, right?”

“What? Why?” Feenie snorted with laughter.

“You know why.” Alice paused the episode and set her phone down, ignoring the question. “Want some help?”