When they reached Valerie’s mansion, Naomi tucked herself on Valerie’s green velvet sofa. This was the sofa she should have bought for her apartment (well, a budget version). The softness enveloped her. She arranged the cushions and pulled the throw blanket around her. Valerie had to work, and so Naomi watched television on the screen that took up nearly the whole wall, and she was seventeen again, back at home the summer before college.

Naomi waited to tell Valerie her news until after dinner.

“I’m not staying,” she said, without preamble.

Valerie paused in slicing the cheesecake she’d bought. She dropped a slice on the plate.

“It’s what spurred me to leave,” Naomi continued. “I was offered a job I couldn’t refuse.”

“Leaving NASA,” Valerie murmured, sticking the spoon in the cheesecake, where it stood at attention like a flag. She passed the plate to Naomi. “Not transferring?”

“I thought about it. I could do good work at the AMES centre. Or go corporate again.”

“You know there’s always a job for you at Hawthorne.”

“Of course, and I’m grateful for that. I am. But I feel like… I need to stand on my own two feet. Somewhere where I’m not under Cole’s shadow. Or yours.”

Valerie speared her slice with a spoon. “What’s the job?”

“Life sciences botany research for the ESA and Lockwood. At the Sutherland Space Centre in Scotland.” Naomi pressed her spoon deeper into the cheesecake.

“You’re taking a job with my main rival?” Valerie asked, her voice flat.

Naomi took the smallest spoonful of cheesecake. Vanilla and the comforting fat of cream cheese. “I know, I’m sorry, but the job was too good—”

Valerie rose, clutching the plate. “No.”

Naomi blinked. “Come again?”

“I said no. You are not working for Lockwood. You are not moving halfway across the world to work in some tiny, backwards spaceport surrounded by sheep.”

“I’ve already accepted the offer.”

“You’ll stay here, at Hawthorne.”

“Valerie,” Naomi said, struggling to keep her voice firm. “I’m not.”

Valerie’s back was straight, her nostrils flaring.

“Valerie, I have to live my life,” Naomi said, standing. “Cole already tried to get me to do things I didn’t want to do with my career. I love you, but I’m not letting you do the same.”

Valerie’s face worked, her hands clenching the marble countertop of the kitchen island.

“I’m sorry,” Naomi said. “But I need to do something on my own.”

“On your own,” Valerie bit out. She put her plate on the counter. “You realise that with one call, one whisper, I could make that job disappear?” Her eyes were dark pools, features shadowed by the light above her.

They stared at each other in an impasse.