I shake my head. “It’s the EPA. Where I always wanted to be. Seriously, fifteen-year-old Mara would travel through time to shank me if I were to quit.” I think I picked up on an odd note in his question, though. “Why did you ask? Do you ever think about switching jobs?”

He shakes his head, too. “I couldn’t,” he says. But I’m starting to know him, a little bit. I’m more attuned to his moods, his thoughts, the way he turns inward whenever he considers something serious. There is a wall of sorts that he builds between himself and everyone who tries to know him. Sometimes I wish it weren’t there. So I push gently against it and ask, “How are things at work?”

He is silent for a while, hands pressed wide against the island, watching me quietly as I finish screwing the pieces back together. My hair remains safely tucked behind my ear. “He asked me to fire someone today.”

“Oh.” I already know who he is. Mitch. Liam’s boss. Whom I privately hate with the intensity of a thousand microwave ovens. Who’s the reason Liam feels like he cannot pack up his black-market-organ-priced graduate degrees and his years of experience being a corporate meanie and find another job. “Why?”

“Someone on my team made a really stupid mistake. But fixable. And still . . . it’s just a mistake. We all fuck up—I know I do.” He absentmindedly rubs the back of his hand against his lips. “I really thought I could talk him out of it.” He shakes his head, and I frown. And press my lips together. And order myself to count to five before I say anything, just to avoid being intrusive or aggressive. Five, four, three—

“Honestly, your boss is a shit nugget and he doesn’t deserve you and you should quit and leave him to stir in his shit broth!”

Liam looks up, surprised. And amused, I think. “A shit nugget?”

I flush. “A valuable but underrated insult. But Liam, really, you deserve to have a better job. And before you point out that it’s hypocritical of me to tell you to switch jobs while I won’t do it myself, let me say that it’s a totally different situation. I love my job—I just hate the people I have to do it with. Including Sean. Especially Sean. Really, mostly Sean.” Oh, how I’d love to boil my post-run socks, make soup out of them, and then feed it to Sean.

“You could ask for a transfer.”

“I plan to. But it won’t help.” I shrug and plug the microwave back in. “The EPA’s opening a new unit. I’m applying to be transferred, but Sean the Asshole is, too.” I roll my eyes. “He’s impossible to shake off. Like a parasitic toenail fungus.”

“So you’ll be competing with him for the position?”

“Well, no. He’s applying to lead. I’d be among the plebs—a lowly team member.”

“You can’t lead because you don’t have enough seniority?”