A picture of his sandal-tanned feet hanging over a hammock strung between black mangroves on the Ecuadorian coast zipped into the chat. Adrian countered with a photo of his work laptop and a martini in business class. She left them to it, and switched over to her messages with Martina. Four unread texts were waiting for her.
Martina
I know we were both too busy for Pilates and brunch this past weekend (you’re not the only one looking for government data right now—I might’ve found some financial dirt on one of the city council trustees and their investment in the development firm looking to bulldoze my park!)—but: what’s new with you and Bannister? Did you get your date rescheduled?
Then, a few minutes later:
Martina
Wait… are you out with him right now?
(Oh my God. If yes, call me once you’re back!)
Bannister.
She squirmed. Friction from her sheets scratched her skin. Or was it guilt? She hadn’t spilled the truth yet.
Yet, but should she?
Popcorn.
Easy, Monaghan.
Had Martina already suspected… well, not the reality about Bannister, Forster, Ethan, and Erin, but something else?
I wouldn’t have clapped.
Her smugness would be unbearable. (She’d been smug enough when Erin had broken the news about her partnership with Ethan on the federal contract.) It might be even worse than her surprise.
If shewassurprised.
Erin
No, I’m home tonight. Working on the quantum gravity project.
She should be. It wasn’t even ten o’clock. She could grab her laptop and remotely double-check her calculations on their experimental laser angles. But… she had a question for her collaborator first. The obvious place to pose it was in SVLAC’s messaging system; email would be too slow, and Ethan wouldn’t thank her for stalling their research by burying an inquiry among the conference speaker requests, paper acceptances, and departmental bureaucracy overflowing his inbox.
What if he muted all work communications after hours, though?
(He didn’t.)
(But what if he did?)
She needed her answer. Needed itnow.
There was only one channel where she could be certain of reaching him.
She opened Bannister’s messages.
Erin
I have a question about our hutch setup.
An instant typing bubble appeared beneath her text.
Bannister
Did you mean to ask me here?
