Page 46 of Bad Girl
There were plenty of people on the floor but the atmosphere was strange. Heads down. Eyes on screens. The silence of people who had collectively experienced something humiliating and had silently agreed, without a single meeting or memo, never to speak of it again.
Really? They all witnessed one another shitting themselves. Now they have to face those very same people in the place where it all happened.
Was the cake you or me?I asked.
Let’s call it a joint task force, Bad Girl said mischievously.
My lips twitched when I thought of Carla curled up beside the pillar.
I spotted Francis at her desk and felt the knot in my shoulders ease slightly.
“Morning,” she said happily, only to get the side eye from Andy.
Carla and Graham didn’t look up.
I stood there for a moment and let that land.
I had never done anything to them. Not once. Years of coffee runs and covered gaps and swallowed sharp answers and carefully worded emails designed to cause the least amount of friction. Years of making myself smaller and easier and less of a problem.
It was the same in every team.
Why? Because these were the people who talked behind my back.
Not anymore.
That’s my girl.
Any lingering doubt and guilt about the cake dissolved. Just—gone. Cleanly and completely and without ceremony.
Fuck them.
Finley had gotten a taste of Bad Girl when he came through my door with a knife and bad intentions, and although it had been an experience I wouldn’t be cataloguing as enjoyable, I would do it again without hesitation. Because I wasn’t about to lie down.
Not for anyone.
Not anymore.
“Morning, Francis. Drink?”
“I’ll come with you,” she said, standing.“I’m loving the contact lenses, by the way. Permanent feature now?”
I nodded, setting my bag down on my desk.
“Good.” She fell into step beside me.“You have such pretty eyes. They shouldn’t be hidden away.”
That was when they all looked up.
Graham and Andy registered me with the mild interest of people clocking a change they couldn’t be bothered to name. But Carla’s jaw dropped. Her eyes did a slow, calculating sweep—hairline to hem—the way they always did when she was assessing something and deciding what to do about it.
“Get me a coffee,” she said.
“While you’re up, can I have—” Graham began.
“No,” I said.
Andy’s face did something pinched and complicated.
“When was the last time anyone got me a drink?”
