Ending the call on Lisa’s loud protest, Cora dropped the phone in her pocket.

“Hi.” Cora said. Or squeaked, actually. Frazer looked really angry, and Cora had no idea how to talk to this version of her. After a week of calm smiles from Frazer, it was almost scary.

“Hi?” Frazer asked. “Hi!”

Cora cleared her throat. “Frazer—”

Frazer crossed her arms and glared at Cora.

“No.” Frazer said. “You need to stop. You need to stop this now.”

“I—”

“I don’t care, Cora, okay?” Frazer’s eyes were a blazing green, the flush of her cheeks setting off her anger. “I don’t care. You need to stop. I did everything you asked of me, all the time. Every time. We were friends. We had sex. When you wanted, in the circumstances that suited you. Then you wanted it to stop, and it did. And then you got pissed I was with someone else and asked me to stay away from you, and that’s what I’ve been doing. But I can’t keep doing that if you keep watching me all the time.”

“Frazer—”

“I have been polite. I have been your colleague. Did you stop to think of me in all of this?”

Heat flushed Cora’s face, because no, no she hadn’t.

“And,” Frazer said, jaw clenching as she took a breath, “it doesn’t matter anyway. I need you to stop. To stop this and let me be. You have to stop looking at me like that.”

Cora tilted her head. She shouldn’t be smiling right now, but the grin on her face hadn’t wiped itself off since she announced to Lisa that she liked women. And Frazer was so angry, and she looked really hot like that. Her eyes were almost glittering.

“Like what, Frazer?”

“No! No acting like you have no idea what I’m talking about. You can’t glare at any woman I speak to like you want to slaughter her or at me like you want to strip me naked right there. You can’t want sex, then just friendship, then for me to disappear, then follow me with your eyes like that. It’s not fair.” Her nostrils flared. “You need to leave me alone.”

Everything in her body language told Cora she needed to back away. Instead, she took a step closer. Her eyes flicked to Frazer’s lips, and somehow that made Frazer even madder.

“I need you, Cora, to leave me—”

It was the worst thing she could do in that moment. Cora knew that. But she needed Frazer to get it. She closed the gap, pressing Frazer against the door, their lips crashing together. Frazer’s hands gripped her shirt, and in that second, Cora realised how much she missed this part of Frazer. How her body responded, how Cora wanted to sink into her and never crawl out.