Bannister
…you’ll wake up with no room in bed.
Laughing, she latched her chin clip, zipped up her jacket, and hefted her bicycle down to the pavement.
Erin
That’s probably more on the mark than the original quote.
Then she braced a sneaker against its pedal and typed out one more comment.
Erin
Because bed-sharing leads to plenty of things besides fleas.
Pocketing her phone before she could second-guess herself, she kicked off from the curb and rolled onto Live Oak Avenue. But she did check her screen again at the traffic light leading toward Sand Hill Road.
He’d responded.
Bannister
Not all bad things, either.
Giddy heat suffused her stomach. Somewhere in Silicon Valley’s crush of grifters, dreamers, and gridlock, Bannister and Bunsen were up and alert to the beauty of the morning, just like she was. Had they gone jogging through a neighborhood in the Peninsula, or in the urban sprawl of the East Bay? Maybe they’d run past San Francisco’s Sunset District to Fort Funston, where Bunsen could frolic off leash. Or they could’ve gone back to Crissy Field.
Pulse thudding, legs and lungs straining with effort and exhilaration at the summit of every sand dune, the rich glisten of sun on sweat—
Red light.
She skidded into the crosswalk at Innovation Drive, weight pitching forward against her handlebars. She caught herself before she ended up spreadeagled in the middle of the intersection, but only just.
Focus. Monday. SVLAC.
She gave an awkward wave to a driver in the next lane when the light flipped to green for her turn. At least the guard at the campus security booth was too far away to have seen her nearwipeout. Both the effort of pedaling up Sand Hill Road and the wind chill from her ride were legitimate excuses for her rapid breathing and her hot cheeks, too. She locked up her bicycle—no damage done to its frame or tires, just to her pride—and swiped into the Modern Physics building, heading to the coffee station for a stabilizing dose of caffeine.
Careful to avoid the espresso button, she prodded the machine to life, then warmed up her overnight oats and sliced apples. She stirred creamer into her cereal when it began to smoke in the kitchenette’s fire hazard of a microwave, and kept an eye on the hallway while her coffee brewed. Most of her colleagues wouldn’t arrive at the office for another hour.
Most.
She also watched her muted phone.
Erin
Did you know that the easiest time of day to identify a psychopath is before 9 a.m.?
Bannister
I didn’t. Why?
Erin
Because people with psychopathic traits have a taste for black coffee, and you’re most likely to spot that tell in the morning. So the studies say.
Bannister
The “they” who say.
Erin
