Page 21 of A Break in Communications

“Well, you are my girlfriend tonight.”

She sighed, rolling her eyes, and she gave me a light shove. “If you’re my girlfriend, make yourself a useful one and get me another drink.”

“A little bossy, huh? Don’t worry, I’m bossy in other ways.”

She shot me a look, but I swear there was a little smile at the corner of her lips. Or maybe it was my imagination.

I went back to pick up another champagne flute from where the supply was dwindling a little low now—once again, company was a bunch of cheap bastards—except a voice stopped me, awoman leaning against the table next to me and sayinghey,and I looked at where Veronica Preston raised a hand in a lazy wave.

As far as Prestons went, she was all right… she looked too much like Anna to not be pretty, but mostly she just looked like a second-rate Anna Preston. Like a painter had set out to make Anna and left her unfinished. But she and Anna seemed to get along okay, so I guess she was all right. “Veronica,” I said, leaning against the table with her. “Good to see you here, at this event you aren’t supposed to be at.”

She blinked slowly. “What, are there rules on who’s allowed to be here?”

She was also a little slow sometimes. I smiled. “Well, if they let you in, then I suppose not. Did you come here just to drink the champagne?”

She shrugged. “And to find someone to smash.”

Well, I had to respect her directness. I doubted our office was the place for it, though. I put on a smile. “I… hope that goes well for you. Something I can do for you?”

She folded her arms, scowling at me. “Just don’t screw with Anna, okay? She really likes you.”

Well, that was news to me. “Does she, now?”

“What—she’s your girlfriend. Shouldn’t you know that?” She scowled. “Don’t tell me she denies it to you as much as she did to me earlier.”

“Ah.” I looked away, a hand to my forehead. “Truth be told, it’s all pretty new, and I still can’t get my head around the fact that I get to be with Anna.”

She studied me for a bit before she dropped her arms, her expression softening. “Damn, you’re really into her.”

Honesty worked in my favor this time, I guess. “It was love at first sight on my end. I just never thought I’d get a chance.”

That did it—she broke out into a big smile. “Aw. That’s so cute and stuff. I never thought Anna would be cute.”

“Hey—what the hell does that mean?”

She laughed. “Oh, jeez, you even go to bat for her. Okay, you’re good. Sister-approved. Don’t worry, she’s, like… obsessed with you. I swear every time I’ve seen her since forever, she’s been talking about you. I bet it was love at first sight for her too and she was just too emotionally constipated to realize.”

Veronica was going to start giving me false hopes. “Anything I should know about her, from the court of sisterly wisdom?”

“Oh, god. Where do I even start? She loves snickerdoodles. Her favorite flowers are violets. She’s a big Terry Pratchett fan, and she tried to get me to read the books when we were little, but I couldn’t get into them. I’m not really a reader, but she is… all kinds of books, novels, graphic novels, web serials, audiobooks. She loves a cozy spot by a window in the rain or the snow to listen to an audiobook. We were both big fans of that stupid show Sherlock, and we wrote fanfiction for it. Had our own little fanfiction universe with all our own little internal canons. She didn’t want to read all my erotic Mystrade fics, though. She’s just an intelligent, well-rounded woman who’s always wanted to be the best she can be, and she’s always had big dreams, always on her visualizations and her affirmations, set on her vision board from the beginning. That always meant a lot to her,” she laughed. “Don’t think she’s done her vision boarding in a while. God, there’s so much to say. She’s three years older than me, but we basically grew up together, sharing everything. I hate her, but I love her.”

I blinked, slowly, taking it all in, and in the end, I focused on, “You tried to share erotic fanfiction with your sister?”

“I think I missed out on forming those synapses where I’m supposed to find that kind of thing embarrassing.” She shrugged. “People fuck. I’m sure you and Anna fuck, and I’m sure it’s great. Doesn’t ruin anything for me.”

God, could you imagine? I didn’t think I could even take seeing Anna in her underwear without my heart exploding. “So I should study up on my Sherlock ships if I want to keep her.”

She laughed. “We both started hating the show around the same time. I bet she’d tell you off if you tried talking about it, but she’d totally secretly love it. She was a boring-ass Johnlock shipper, obviously. I even wrote a Johnlock fic that was only alittlesmutty and she still didn’t read it.”

“I wouldn’t, either, if my siblings wrote one.”

She beamed. “Do you have siblings?”

“Ah, yeah, I guess, technically, I have a brother, but he sided with my dad when he kicked me out for being a lesbian. My grandmother’s my real family.”

She made a face. “Sounds like your dad and your brother suck. Do you want me to kill them?”

“Yeah, actually, if you come across them and have some free time to commit murder, that would be great. Thanks, Veronica.”

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