If it had been possible to crawl underneath her chair, transform into a literal puddle, Ava would have done it. She hadn’t thought she could sit through a worse work meeting than the sensitivity training.

“Well, if nobody volunteers, corporate policy is to have the people with the least seniority go. That’s Jules, but since—since Jules has already volunteered, we need someone else to join Jules on this mission.”

Ava winced as she listened to Tricia contort her speech in an effort to avoid using they or them. I just can’t do it! Tricia had cheerfully told Ava once, completely unprompted. I guess I’m too much of a grammar nazi! Since then, she went out of her way to avoid using any pronouns at all when talking about Jules, warping her sentences around her refusal. Ava wondered, not for the first time, why anyone would so proudly declare themselves to be any kind of nazi. She was so distracted by her irritation that she missed the last bit of Tricia’s speech, and it took her a few seconds to realize everyone was staring at her.

Rewind: The policy was to send the person with the least seniority. That was Jules. Jules had been hired on two months after Ava. Was there anybody else in between them?

Derek. Fucking Derek, who was the entire reason that Ava was here on a day she’d explicitly asked not to work.

“Oh, hell no,” Ava said.

“Why don’t the three of us talk in my office?” Tricia said sweetly.

* * *

Tricia’s office was a purgatory of fallen LitenVärld fashions, a claustrophobic island of misfit furniture. Chairs with denim upholstery, a glass-top desk with chrome accents, and a gag novelty lamp in the shape of a hairy, muscular leg, complete with sock garters. The look was completed by a couple of soulless art prints that reminded Ava of waiting rooms in urgent care clinics.

Ava decided to take a reasonable approach, since it was that or run screaming out of the store. “Tricia,” she said. “This is really unfair. I know I don’t have the seniority—”

“You do have the right to refuse the assignment,” Tricia said.

Relief flooded through Ava. “Okay, in that case—”

“But it would be grounds for termination.”

All the relief flooded right back out of her, replaced by a vision of her current checking account balance. “What?!”

“Listen, Tricia,” Jules said, leaning forward. “I’m happy to do this by myself. I don’t need—”