“Mara. You should report him.”
“I know. It’s just . . . this constantly belittling behavior is so hard to prove, and . . .” I shrug—bad idea, since my hair is now back in my eyes. I feel a little stuck. A lot stuck.
“So, what’s Sean’s last name?” Liam asks.
“Why?”
“Just curious.” He tries to sound casual, but he’s so bad at it. He’s clearly the worst liar in the world—how did he get through law school? It makes me smile every time.
“You need to practice,” I say, pointing my screwdriver at him.
“Practice?”
“Practice telling . . .”
My voice trails off. Because Liam is reaching up to brush his fingers against my cheekbone, a faint smile on his lips. My brain short-circuits. What—？ Did he—？
Oh. Oh. My hair. My lost, wayward strand of hair. He tucked it behind my ear. He’s just being nice and helping his ginger klutz roommate, who in turn is having a major brain fart. Classy, Mara. Very classy.
“Practice telling what?” he asks, still staring at the shell of my ear. It’s probably misshapen, and I never even knew it.
“Nothing. Lies. I . . .” I clear my throat. Get it together, Floyd. “Hey, you know what?” I try to keep my tone light. Change the topic. “The beginning of this cohabitation was an absolute nightmare, but I like this a lot.”
“This?”
“This thing.” I begin to screw in the back plate of the microwave. “Where we chat without throwing chairs at each other and you offhandedly ask for the last names of dudes who are mean to me with the obvious idea of committing unsanctioned acts of vigilante justice against them.”
“That’s not what I—”
I lift my eyebrow. He blushes and looks away.
“Anyway, I like this much better. Being friends, I guess.”
He glares at me. “I’m not your friend.”
“Oh.” I almost recoil. Almost. “Oh. I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that—”
“The other night Eileen gave Bernie a rose, and you said that it was a good move. That’s not something I can accept from a friend.”
I burst out laughing. “Come on, he’s cute. He is a dog trainer. He likes K-pop!”
“See, this? The reason you’re my sworn enemy.” He shakes his head at me, and I laugh harder, and then my laughter dies down and for a second we’re just smiling at each other and an unfamiliar liquid warmth spills inside me.
“I am positive Helena would have rooted for Bernie.”
He snorts. “You say it like it’s an endorsement. Like she didn’t constantly try to set me up with random people I cared nothing for.”
“She did the same with me!”
“And when I was a teenager she dated this guy who had been on a four-month shower strike.”
“Oh God. Why?”
“Not sure. The environment?”
“No—why was she dating him?”
Liam winces. “Apparently—and I quote—‘astounding carnal chemistry.’？”
I morbidly contemplate Helena’s sex life until Liam breaks the quiet and asks, “Do you ever think about switching jobs?”
I shake my head. “It’s the EPA. Where I always wanted to be. Seriously, fifteen-year-old Mara would travel through time to shank me if I were to quit.” I think I picked up on an odd note in his question, though. “Why did you ask? Do you ever think about switching jobs?”
He shakes his head, too. “I couldn’t,” he says. But I’m starting to know him, a little bit. I’m more attuned to his moods, his thoughts, the way he turns inward whenever he considers something serious. There is a wall of sorts that he builds between himself and everyone who tries to know him. Sometimes I wish it weren’t there. So I push gently against it and ask, “How are things at work?”
He is silent for a while, hands pressed wide against the island, watching me quietly as I finish screwing the pieces back together. My hair remains safely tucked behind my ear. “He asked me to fire someone today.”
“Oh.” I already know who he is. Mitch. Liam’s boss. Whom I privately hate with the intensity of a thousand microwave ovens. Who’s the reason Liam feels like he cannot pack up his black-market-organ-priced graduate degrees and his years of experience being a corporate meanie and find another job. “Why?”
“Someone on my team made a really stupid mistake. But fixable. And still . . . it’s just a mistake. We all fuck up—I know I do.” He absentmindedly rubs the back of his hand against his lips. “I really thought I could talk him out of it.” He shakes his head, and I frown. And press my lips together. And order myself to count to five before I say anything, just to avoid being intrusive or aggressive. Five, four, three—
“Honestly, your boss is a shit nugget and he doesn’t deserve you and you should quit and leave him to stir in his shit broth!”
Liam looks up, surprised. And amused, I think. “A shit nugget?”
I flush. “A valuable but underrated insult. But Liam, really, you deserve to have a better job. And before you point out that it’s hypocritical of me to tell you to switch jobs while I won’t do it myself, let me say that it’s a totally different situation. I love my job—I just hate the people I have to do it with. Including Sean. Especially Sean. Really, mostly Sean.” Oh, how I’d love to boil my post-run socks, make soup out of them, and then feed it to Sean.
“You could ask for a transfer.”
“I plan to. But it won’t help.” I shrug and plug the microwave back in. “The EPA’s opening a new unit. I’m applying to be transferred, but Sean the Asshole is, too.” I roll my eyes. “He’s impossible to shake off. Like a parasitic toenail fungus.”
“So you’ll be competing with him for the position?”
“Well, no. He’s applying to lead. I’d be among the plebs—a lowly team member.”
“You can’t lead because you don’t have enough seniority?”
“Oh, I don’t think there are seniority requirements.”
“Then why are you not applying to lead it?”
“Because—” I snap my mouth shut and look down at my screwdriver. Yes. Why? Why wouldn’t I apply for a leader position? What is wrong with me? It’s not like Sean is smarter than I am. He just loves to impose the sound of his own voice on unsuspecting passersby. And maybe I don’t have enough leadership experience to know that I’ll be a good boss, but I do have enough Sean experience to know that he won’t be. He keeps calling me Lara, for fuck’s sake. In emails. That he writes to my email address, [email protected]. Dude, you can literally copy and paste?
I look up. Liam is staring at me with a calm expression, as though patiently waiting for me to reach this very exact conclusion: I am better than Sean. Because everyone is better than Sean, and that includes me.
I feel a shiver of something warm run down my spine, as though I’m being held. Which is weird, since I haven’t hugged someone in . . . God, months. Not since Helena.
“Tell you what.” I put my hands on my hips, suddenly determined. “I’m going to apply for the leader position.”