It took a while for the Boss to reply. “You know what, Teddy? I think we are.”

“Awesome.” Double rewards!

“But we’ll need to get changed first, and, um, maybe we can grab it to go and eat it at the dorm?”

That way they could go to sleep right after eating. The Boss was real clever. “Yeah, I like that idea,” Teddy said.

“Good, good, and, um, Teddy?”

“Yeah, Boss?”

“Thanks. You did really well tonight.”

Teddy grinned big and proud. Triple rewards! It was the best night ever.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

A Perfectly Ordinary Day

It was a little strange to go from a day where everything felt like it was happening all at once, to a rather quiet day where Emily woke up, showered, went to classes, crammed some homework between breaks, then finished for the day around noon.

All perfectly normal, all perfectly ordinary.

She stopped by an Im Orton’s on the way back to the dorm and picked up some doughnuts (not all honey-glazed . . . but a few of those) and a strong coffee to keep her going, then walked all the way back home.

Again, all perfectly ordinary.

Her room was a bit messier than she liked it, with a pair of very empty pizza boxes left on her desk, and a half-eaten box of fries scattered across the floor leading up to the mattress like an evidence trail, but Emily could ignore that.

Teddy was there, sleeping with her tummy exposed and her mouth wide open. Her entire belly was bloated, no doubt with the two large pizzas she’d devoured the night before.

“Teddy?” Emily asked once the door was closed.

Teddy cracked one eye open and stared at her. She mumbled something that could be vaguely made out as “Boss?”

“I bought doughnuts,” Emily said.

Teddy’s response was a painful groan before she tried to roll onto her side, then failed as both her tummy and the wobbliness of the mattress conspired against her.

“I’ll, uh, put them on the desk,” Emily said.

“Mm-hmm,” Teddy said.

Emily paused next to Teddy’s bed to look at her arm. The signs of the burn were still there, though they’d gotten a lot less obvious overnight. Teddy was a fast healer, then. That was great. Emily didn’t know how they’d handle a hospital visit.

She set the box of doughnuts on her desk, then stacked up the pizza boxes to one side after checking to see if there were any leftovers (there weren’t). Then, because she was in a cleaning mood, she picked up the fries flung all over and packed everything away next to the door so that she could put it out later.