exactly.” She stared through the little square hole at me, not looking away. “We had a fight.”
Her face disappeared, but her voice was still loud. “Lemme guess: about touching.”
I felt my lower lip jut out, puckering. “What else would we fight about?”
“Couples fight about lots of things, sweetie.” Her voice came from the kitchen, over the clanging of a pan. “But succubi tend to argue about one, if they’re crazy enough to be part of a couple.”
“You calling me crazy?” I said it with an air of amusement.
“Little bit. You are just like me, after all.” I caught a grin through the pass-through and then I heard water pouring down the drain in the sink. A minute later Charlie emerged from the kitchen. “I mean, there’s a whole world of men out there. You don’t really have the luxury of sleeping with the ones you like and expecting them to be alive in the morning, so...”
I looked away from her. “Yeah. I know it, he knows it, but it still makes us both crazy.” She sat down on the couch next to me, splaying out and putting her bare feet on the glass coffee table I’d bought as a replacement for the one broken months ago. “How do you deal with that?”
She had her mouth open, her tongue rolling over her molars, the very picture of disinterest. “You don’t sleep with the ones you don’t want to die, and you don’t get close enough to anybody to have it matter.”
“I just...I’m sick of being the world’s greatest tease to my boyfriend. He’s a good guy, and...” I stopped as her chest jerked in a case of the giggles. “What?”
“You don’t have to be a tease. I mean, there are other ways to—”
“Well, yeah, I mean, I know but—” I stuttered as I answered her.
“Just making sure. I wouldn’t have expected your mom to teach you anything.”
I blushed. “She didn’t. But I mean, I know stuff—”
“Sure you do, sweets. Sure you do.” Charlie slapped me on the thigh and clicked her tongue against her teeth. “So are we going out to eat or what? ‘Cause I’m starving and I poured the Ramen down the sink.”
“What?” I blinked, still thinking about what we’d been talking about a sentence before. “Oh, sure.”
“Your treat, right?” She gave me a wide grin. “Not all of us have high-paying gigs with the meta cops. The rest of us have to make our money honestly, and I blew the last of my cash getting back into town. Haven’t had a chance to stop by the...ATM...yet.”
“Sure.” I nodded at her and reached for my purse, which was hanging at my side. “My treat. There’s a Greek place over in Eden Prairie that’s really good—” My attention was caught by the sudden ringing from my bag. “Sorry.” I grabbed my cell phone and answered it while Charlie looked on with an eyebrow raised. “Hello?”
“Are you off-campus?” Ariadne’s voice was clipped, urgent, washed out slightly by the connection.
“Yeah.” I looked around the living room. “I’m just at my house, checking to make sure everything’s still all right.”
“I need you at Headquarters immediately.” Her voice was pinched, more hurried than usual. “The Director and I need to speak with you.”
“Umm.” I swallowed, heavy. “Is this about—”
“I’m not going to discuss it on an open line. Report to the Director’s office in forty-five minutes.” I heard a click and looked at the screen of my phone. She’d hung up on me.
I looked up to see Charlie staring at me, her head slanted to the side. “About this Greek place?”
I felt the tension in my guts and wondered if I was about to get a thorough ass-chewing back at the Directorate. “I can’t. I just got called back to work.”
Charlie’s jaw dropped slightly and then twisted to a kind of cold disbelief. “I just threw out the Ramen.”
“I’m sorry.” I put my phone back in my purse and my hand pushed my hair behind my ears before it fell over my eyes. “I have to go.” My hand came out with ten crisp twenty-dollar bills and I handed them to her. “This should cover dinner and a little more. I’m sorry to leave so abruptly, but—”
Her eyes lit up and she took the money a little quicker than I would have thought. “It happens.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and bit her lip as she counted the bills.
“How long are you in town this time?” I tried to catch her eyes,