One step towards the door, followed by another. Those eyes, shadowed by Cora’s hand and difficult to read, followed her movements.

Another step.

Cora sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees and hugging them to her chest. “Okay.”

If she’d had the energy, Frazer would’ve winced. It had just gone from hideous to hideously uncomfortable.

“You may need a shirt for that.” Cora smirked.

With a look down at her bra-clad chest, Frazer smiled, the motion making everything else seem a little easier. “Probably.”

Her eyes kept drifting to that bedside table. To her boss’s tie. Cora’s husband’s tie.

When her gaze dragged back to Cora, Cora’s eyes were staring at it too. Her hair was a mess, face drawn and tight. Her skin was ashen, an unnatural look on her.

Cora looked at her again. “I’ll see you at work?” The question should’ve been easy.

“Of course.” Frazer nodded, suddenly feeling like covering her stomach, her hands snaking over the skin. “So, I’ll see you.”

She almost made it to the door.

“Frazer.”

Only hesitating for a second, Frazer turned back. On the bed, wrapped in a sheet, Cora looked so small.

“Yeah?”

Owlishly, Cora blinked at her, shadows under her eyes. She asked, “Be my friend?”

Without thinking, Frazer said, “Of course.”

And she left.

The walls in the corridor were bare, no photos until the end as she turned into that incredible kitchen. A wedding photo Frazer refused to examine, her stomach twisting in knots.

Her white shirt was spilt like a stain on the floor by the dining table. She scooped it up and put it on, fingers shaky as she worked on the buttons. The table stared at her, a dent from Cora’s high heels on the edge. It may as well have been a glaring sign. It stared at her. Blinking. There was no way to get rid of it.

Instead, she picked up the wine glasses and gingerly placed them in the sink, then got out of there as fast as she could.

Frazer didn’t know herself anymore.

* * *

The door slammed, the sound bouncing off the walls, amplified and loud. The ache in Cora’s head felt deserved; it throbbed like karma.

No longer high on alcohol, instead soaked in hangover and regret, Cora could no longer hide from her own understanding that her experiment, this distraction, was long past seeming like a good idea. Why she’d kissed Frazer befuddled her. The plan had been to look, to not touch. To find some muscled, bearded young thing and gaze at him, then go home alone.

Cora sunk low on the bed, pulling the covers up and over her head. A scent of citrus, of sweat and sex that wasn’t her husband’s, engulfed her until her eyes burned.