She leaned against the wall next to me, her forehead and forearms pressed into the drywall as if she were in upright, rapturous prayer. I thought about reaching out to touch her, but I didn’t want to prove her point. As it was, I didn’t know which side of her argument I landed on.

“At least you have the power of tits.”

“Fuck you.”

“Hey, I—”

“No, seriously,” she growled, grabbing my face with one pinched hand. “Fuck you if you mean that. I would trade in everything about being a woman if it meant I could be taken seriously. If I looked like Trey—horror, even if I looked like you—I would be running this fucking place. I am so much smarter and stronger than any man I have ever met, and yet still, if I want to get what I want, I have to act like a baby deer in the woods. Do you know what I used to do to baby deer in the woods, Pey?”

Her grip was so tight, there was a good chance I would fail if I tried to yank free. But if I didn’t, it could be considered a joke we had going together. A bit.

I stayed still.

“I’m sure nothing good.”

“It’s so fucking insulting,” she said, letting me go. “I am so many steps ahead of you—all of you. I’m at the end of the maze; I have been forever. And yet I can’t get out without your goddamn key. A key you didn’t do jack shit to earn, a key you were just handed by chance. So I have to go back and take your slimy-ass hand—not yours, Pey; I’m talking about men in general—but it’s bullshit.”

Cal put her head in her hands, and I regretted the sarcasm, because she was right. I had been around long enough to see what she was saying, but I had never really thought about it. I had seen a lot of terrible people over the millennia, but I didn’t know anyone like Cal. I was lucky to have her on my team. And it had nothing at all to do with her tits.

“I’m sorry,” I said, turning to face her. “Truly. Men are assholes.”

“And then with the platitudes,” she said, pushing her hands through her hair.

“Seriously. You’re way smarter than me. I don’t even know what that word means, ‘platitudes.’ Some kind of animal?”

Cal laughed, whether in pity or actual amusement I couldn’t tell.

“You’re not the worst,” she said, her hand landing briefly on my arm.

“You are, for implying Trey is better looking than me.”