Really, Frazer felt fairly entitled to be drunk. She’d just panicked at a potential easy, no-strings-attached date’s house and had gone and walked around for hours before ending up in the same bar she’d started in.

Cora was still talking. “Don’t shrug like you don’t agree! When I was at university, potatoes were the only reason I didn’t die of starvation.”

The snort that left Frazer’s body was incredibly unattractive. “I was shrugging because I don’t care that I’m drunk.”

Cora nodded and said “oh” as if that segued perfectly from what she had been saying.

“And I completely agree. Potatoes are amazing. But I disagree on one point.”

As if Frazer was about to unveil the secrets of the universe, Cora stared at her.

“The best food to live off at university was cheese on rice.”

She had come all the way back to this place with one thought in the back of her brain—that maybe she could find her boring co-worker.

Cora blinked. “An entire nation lived off potatoes for years. You really think rice with cheese beats potatoes?”

“Totally. There’s more protein.”

“There is not.”

“There so is! It’s cheese, Cora.”

Apparently that was an argument. Frazer really needed to work on that. Tomorrow.

They stared at each other for a minute before Cora whipped out her phone.

“What are you doing?” Frazer asked.

“If it weren’t for Google, we’d all be lost,” Cora said. Frazer watched her as she squinted at her phone before finally closing one eye to stare at it.

In reality, Cora was less boring and more entertaining.

“Can’t focus without closing an eye?”

“Shut up, Frazer. Oh! Here it is. Wow, Google has its own little converter thing on the page to tell you how much protein there is. Okay, 100 grams of cheese—twenty-five grams of protein.” Her eyes looked predatory, and Frazer felt something strange in the pit of her stomach. “Potatoes are so going to win. Twenty-five grams? How much is that, like the weight of a coin, right? It’s nothing. Okay, in 100 grams of potatoes…” Her face fell.

Already smug, Frazer asked, “How much is there, Cora?”

Silence.

“Cora?” Frazer practically sing-songed her name.

“Two grams.”

“Oh. Two… What’s that? Like, the weight of a mosquito?”

“Potatoes are still better.” She slipped her phone into her bag and reached for her wine.

“Admit you lost.”

Lips pressed together, Cora shook her head. “Nope.”

“Admit I was right.”

“Never.”

Frazer was more than glad she’d left Lauren’s and increasingly glad she’d come here. The thought of sitting in her quiet house with just her aquarium for company had made her mildly depressed, even with the recent addition of a Nemo and a Dory, since they seemed to hate each other. Probably because they were actually two clownfish; maybe she should have called them Nemo and Marlin. Now she really didn’t mind about all that. The air of sadness that always sat around Cora had eased. She seemed more relaxed, to be genuinely enjoying herself.