Asking what a CTO was wasn’t going to get me any closer to an Instagram follow, so I just said, “Okay. What’s the bottom line?”

“Harkness might end up being a nonissue. Or it might be the reason you need to find new jobs. Right now, it’s impossible to tell.”

Tisha’s “fuck” was a soft muttering. Florence, I thought, and my mouth felt dry. Where is Florence right now? How is Florence right now? “Thank you, Nyota,” I said. “This was very helpful.”

“Call me after today’s assembly—we’ll have a better idea by then.” It was nice of her, that we. “But it wouldn’t hurt to start sprucing up your CV, just in case. Austin is a great place for tech startups. Look around online, ask your nerd friends if they have leads. Do you guys have any friends, aside from each other?”

“I have Bruce.”

“Bruce is a cat, Tish.”

“And your point?”

They started bickering, and I tuned them out, trying to calculate the likelihood of Tisha and me finding another job together. One that would pay well and afford us the scientific freedom we currently had. Florence had even allowed me to—

A horrifying thought stabbed at me. “What about our personal projects? Employees’ patents?”

“Mm?” Nyota cocked her head. “Employees’ patents? For what?”

“In my case, a bio-nanocomposite that—”

“Uh-huh, hold the TED Talk.”

“It’s something that makes produce stay fresher. Longer.”

“Ah. I see.” She nodded in understanding, her eyes suddenly warmer, and I wondered what she knew. Tisha would never mention my history, but Nyota was observant and could very well have noticed on her own. After all, for years I’d spent every spare moment at their house, just to avoid returning to my own. “This is your project? Your patent? And you have an agreement that guarantees you ownership of this tech?”

“Yes. But if Kline changes hands—”

“As long as the agreement is in writing, you’re good.”

I remembered an email from Florence. Long words, small fonts, electronic signatures. Relief punched through me. Thank you, Florence.

“Guys, try not to sweat this too much, okay? Go to the assembly you’re probably already late for. Find out all you can and report back. And for the love of Justice Brown Jackson, update your damn CVs. You haven’t been a pet groomer since undergrad, Tish.”

“Get off my LinkedIn,” Tisha muttered, but she was flipping off an already blank screen. So she leaned back in her chair and settled for another subdued “fuck.”

I stared ahead and nodded. “Indeed.”

“Neither of us has the emotional constitution for job insecurity.”

“Nope.”

“I mean, we’ll be all right. We’re in tech. It’s just . . .”

I nodded once more. We were happy at Kline. Together. With Florence.

Florence. “Last night, Florence texted me,” I told Tisha. “Asked if I wanted to go over to her place.”

She turned. “Did she say why?”

I shook my head, feeling half-embarrassed, half-guilty. Way to show up for your friends, Rue. “I told her I had plans.”

“What were you—oh, right. Your quarterly sex-up. Rue After Dark. Oh my god, how have we not talked about the guy.”

“What guy?”

“Really? You send me a picture of some dude’s driver’s license and then ask what guy? Nice try.”

“It was a valiant attempt.” I stood, trying to avoid remembering deep-set blue eyes. That Grecian urn profile that had forced me to stare. The short brown curls, just this side of too messy. He’d kept his eyes straight ahead as he drove me home, as if adamant not to look in my direction.

“Have you heard from him? Assuming you did the unthinkable and”—she gasped, clutching her sternum—“gave him your number.”

“I haven’t checked my phone.” It now lived at the very bottom of my backpack, pressed under an extra hoodie, and my water bottle, and a stack of books that were due back at the library in two days. It was going to stay there, at least as long as I caught myself wondering every ten minutes whether he had texted.

I liked to force myself to keep a certain detachment when it came to hes.

“I should have gone to Florence’s,” I said, remorse prickling at the bottom of my stomach.

“Nah. Having to choose between you getting laid and having a heads-up on this here clusterfuck, I’d probably choose orgasms for you. I’m a generous soul like that.” Tisha lowered her voice as we walked side by side, treading down Kline’s sea-blue, ultramodern hallways that teemed with employees, all heading toward the open space on the first floor. They all smiled at Tisha—and nodded at me, polite but much more somber.

Kline had started out as a small tech startup, then quickly ballooned to several hundred employees, and I’d stopped keeping track of new hires. Plus, the solitary nature of my project made me a bit of an unknown quantity. The tall, serious, distant girl—who always hung out with the other tall girl, the funny and delightful one everybody loved. At Kline, Tisha’s and my popularity levels were as mismatched as they’d been since elementary school. Luckily, I’d learned not to mind.

“Sadly,” I murmured, “no orgasms were had.”

“What? He did not look like he’d be bad at sex!”

“I wouldn’t know.”

She scowled. “Isn’t that what you met him for?”

“Originally.”

“And?”

“Vincent showed up.”

“Oh, fuck Vincent. How did he—I don’t even wanna know. Next time, then?”

Since you never do repeats, he’d said, and my body had heated at the wistfulness in his tone.

“I don’t know,” I whispered truthfully, feeling some of that wistfulness myself as Tisha and I took a seat on a couch at the back of the room. “I think that—”

“Never a dull fucking moment,” said a musical voice, and the cushion dipped on my left side. Jay was our favorite lab technician. Or, more accurately, Tisha’s favorite, whom she’d swiftly befriended. By virtue of always being around her, I’d been folded into that relationship. It was the unabridged story of my social life. “I swear to god,” he said, “if they fire all of us and my visa falls through and I have to go back to Portugal and Sana breaks up with me—”

“Love the optimism, babe.” From the other side of me, Tisha leaned forward with a grin. “We researched this whole mess, by the way. We can tell you what a loan assignment is.”

Jay’s eyebrow arched, and the piercings speared through it flickered. “You didn’t know before?”

Tisha shrank back, disappearing behind me. “There, there.” I patted her leg comfortingly. “At least we’ve never pretended to be anything but what we are.”

“Dumbasses?”

“Apparently.”

A waterfall of red curls appeared in the crowd, and the knot of panic in my chest instantly loosened. Florence. Brilliant, resourceful Florence. She was Kline. She’d fought tooth and nail for it, and wasn’t going to allow anyone to take it from her. Certainly not some—

“Who are those four?” Tisha whispered in the sudden hush of the room. Her gaze had drifted past Florence, to the figures standing beside her.

“Someone from Harkness?” Jay guessed.

I had expected slicked-back hair, and suits, and that uniquely off-putting finance bro flair. The Harkness people, however, looked like they might have belonged at Kline in a different timeline. Maybe dressing down was just a power move on their part, but they seemed . . . normal. Approachable. The long-haired woman was at ease in her jeans and seemed pleased with the turnout, and so did the broad-shouldered man who stood just a little too close to her. The tall figure in the well-groomed beard surveyed the room a touch haughtily, but who was I to judge? I’d been told several times I didn’t exactly inspire fuzzy warmth. And the fourth man, the one who joined the group last, gait unhurried and smile confident, he seemed . . .