Page 134 of So Wild

“Liar. You want to sit at home and scribble pictures for your game.”

Julia frowned. “The pitch needs to be done by the end of the month. I need to work. And they’re not scribbles.”

She could practically hear Ash rolling her eyes. “All you ever do is work. You need to get laid. How long has it been? A month? Two months?”

“An irrelevant amount of months. Scarlet Woman is my boyfriend and she needs all my love and attention.”

“You can’t screw a video game. I hope you know that.”

“No, Ashley, I didn’t know that. I’m breathlessly awaiting the day Scarlet Woman gains a physical body and drills me against a wall.”

There was a short pause and Ash sighed. “Are you coming to this party or not? Because that hot dreadlocks guy is gonna be there and I want to have sex with his face.”

“Then have sex with his face. You don’t need me there for that.”

“He’s a gamer, and having a computer genius there will be a great icebreaker—”

“I am not a computer genius. Stop saying that?”

“—besides, guys always think we’re twins. Another excellent icebreaker.”

“Sure, play on people’s incest fantasies, that’s cool.”

“—and aren’t you the least bit curious about how a beautiful man’s dreadlocks would feel running over your naked body?”

“No.”

Ash exhaled irritably. “What is your deal? You’re snarky, even by your already low standards. Did you see your cop or something?”

Julia’s heart thumped hard against her ribs. “No, I haven’t seen him.”

“You’re justhopingto see him?”

She winced. Her sister played up the party girl white-trash angle but she wasn’t the least bit dumb, in fact when it came to other people’s duplicities, she didn’t miss a trick.

“No, and he’s notmy cop,” Julia protested. “He’s just one of the many cops I fix shitty, outdated computers for.”

“Except much sexier, apparently.”

“And much more married,” Julia said, partly to her sister, mostly to herself.

Her phone beeped, informing her the battery was nearly empty. “I’ve gotta go. If you don’t hear from me, have a great weekend. Say hi to Blake and the gang.”

“I will. Just think, now you’ll have the whole place to yourself to unleash all your married-cop sexual energy upon.”

Julia closed her eyes. “That’s disgusting, goodbye.”

With one last snigger, Ash hung up.

“Heathen,” Julia announced to no one in particular.

On the pathetic-ness scale, bailing on a party to draw pictures in your bedroom had to be an eight, but the effort it would require to get dressed up, make fake smiles and awkward conversation until people were drunk enough to let go of their nervousness…who could be bothered? It was so much easier to go home, cuddle the dogs, and work on Scarlet Woman. Love and sex had the potential to be amazing but they required risk. They meant taking a guy to bed only to discover he was bad at oral and his cock smelt funny and his dirty talk made you wince and you had to lie there in the dark, crafting the text message you’d use to end it, even as he snuffled away at your genitalia.

Fuck that. Love and sex were a gamble. Work and leftover Chinese food were satisfying, if slightly pathetic, guarantees. Julia finished packing the last of the computer cords, standing on her tippy toes to place them high on the shelf. She was five-eleven in boots and this was one of the only circumstances in which she was grateful for her height; reaching the top of shelves, no boyfriend or stepladder required.

“Well that’s that,” she said just to hear the words echo around her. She dusted her hands on her black jeans, picked up her satchel, and strode to the door.

She stopped dead, blinking furiously because her eyes had to be mistaken. The door was closed. The reinforced, locked-from-the-outside door was closed. With slick fingertips, she reached for the handle and turned. It didn’t budge. White-hot panic licked up her wrists like fire. She shook the handle again, making it rattle like a machine gun. Nothing. Her chest expanded and contracted, expanded and contracted. Someone, some life-ruining, IT woman-hating idiot, had pushed the encyclopedia to the side, locking her in the property office. Julia moaned softly as the true horror of her situation hit her like a freight train. Brenthill was a twelve-hour station. There was no night shift, there was no weekend shift, and it was almost seven o’clock on a Friday evening.

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