Page 49 of A Conflict of Interest

“Sounds good,” I said. “You’ll have to tell me all about how it is.”

She giggled, swatting playfully at my arm. “Ah, you’re just being polite.”

I was just being polite by only saying that, because actually I was going to grab a copy of the book online and read it too. Maybe in some vain hopes that I could talk to her about it, but… also just because I wanted to experience the same things as Kelcey.

But I wasn’t telling her that, so I just smiled and said, “I’ve never once been polite. Anything else for you?”

“Mm. That’s all for now.”

“Only one book for you?” I laughed. “Speaking of not recognizing one another…”

“I know! Truly strange times we live in.” She grinned, leading me to the register. “I’ve actually kind of cracked the code. If I just buy one book at a time, I get to come back to the shop more often. Huh? How about that? I’m pretty clever, huh?”

She was the cleverest, most charming person I’d ever known. “Ruthless strategist,” was what I settled for saying, and she flipped her hair back.

We stopped into her favorite place on the way back—Kelcey’s holy ground, Target, where I strolled along at her side with a feeling like my heart could explode just from being at her side like this, helping her pick out some cute new décor to add to her apartment, weighing which ones were the cutest and the most charming, and we walked out with a whole armload of things neither of us needed, but it put a light in Kelcey’s eyes, so inmyopinion it was very sorely needed. And when we got back to her apartment and got in to huddle low from where the snow was picking up, I put on another pot of the spiced hot chocolate she liked, and my heart exploded when I set down two mugs on the table in front of the couch and she flung the fuzzy white blanket over both of us.

“I’m going to dig in and read a little,” she said, pulling her new book from the bag by the couch, as if I was taking inanythingshe was saying while she was cozying up next to my side under a blanket. “You can do what you like.”

“Can I read with you?”

She gave me a funny look. “Okay, be for real right now. Are you getting paid to promote this book or something? I’ve never known you to jump onto a book like this,” she laughed, and I looked away.

“Ha… how sincere do you want me to be?”

“Hm. What are the menu options? Is this like a zero to five chili peppers thing?”

I cleared my throat. “Sure, let’s say that. Sincerity burns sometimes. How many will it be?”

“Five, please.”

“Ugh, I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.” I picked at my fingernails. “The book is… something that you enjoy… and something that you’re experiencing… so I want to be a part of it too. To see the things you like. And I like anything that makes you happy. Okay? Great. Five chili peppers of sincerity.”

She stared at me for a long time—even while looking away, I could feel her eyes on me, and I knew she was making that soft expression with her lips parted, her brows knotted achingly softly together, and I thought I’d die on the spot waiting for her to say something before she said, “That is so sweet of you.”

“Yeah… I’ve heard I’m a little weird like this.”

“I like you like this,” she said with a small, nervous laugh, and I thought maybe—well, if she liked this, then I liked this. If she liked this, then this was my favorite thing in the world. Five chili peppers of sincerity. Six. Could I go higher? Maybe she’d have liked that. “Okay,” she said, and I looked back at where she was beaming at me. “We’ll read together. Should I just put it between us?”

“You want to read it out loud? I know you love dramatic readings.”

She laughed, nudging me. “Only if you voice one of the leads. I’ll pass it to you once it’s your turn.”

I snorted. “Ah, sure. Which one? I’ll bring my best dramatic delivery.”

“Up to you… grumpy girly or sunshine girly?”

Ah—I hadn’t realized this was a sapphic romance. Did it mean something if she was picking out a second-chance sapphic romance?

She was absolutely the sunshine girly. Which meant it was funnier this way. “I’ll be sunshine,” I said, and she laughed, giving me an incredulous look.

“Oh my god, who even are you?”

“Pure sunshine incarnate, that’s who. Let’s do this thing.”

We settled in together with the book between us, Kelcey diving into her dramatic reading, both of us cupping hot chocolate, and she kept her finger on the page pointing to where she was so she could nudge me when my part came in—luckily, the two leads both came into fiery contact in the first chapter, which gave me the opportunity to come in with my best impression of Kelcey’s voice, not knowing any better source of sunshine in this universe, and we both laughed until we were in tears at the increasingly unhinged voices we were doing, and when we reached the end of the chapter, both of us choking on laughter, she fell against me and shut the book, pushing it onto the table, and my mood turned into something more nervous as I felt her shoulders quiver with laughter against me.

“We should do an audiobook recording,” she said breathlessly.

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