“Stop what?”

“Stop looking at me like that.”

Fizzy laughed at her. “Your mainframe is actually melting.”

“He’s a good-looking man, okay?” Jess conceded. “So, yes, there’s a proximity effect there.”

Pointing to Jess’s giggling smile in the picture, Fizzy said, “You look like you want him to eat you for dinner.”

“Okay, nope.” Jess sat up straighter, dragging her hair into a bun. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Melting.” Fizzy stared at her in wonder before shaking herself into action and unpacking her laptop. They got to work; Fizzy wrote, Jess crunched data. But she could feel Fizzy look up at her every once in a while, studying her like a sample in a dish. And she felt the weight of her scrutiny so physically that Fizzy might as well have been standing behind her, hands on her shoulders, pressing down. Lucky for Fizzy’s head and the external hard drive on the table between them, she looked away just before Jess reached for something to throw at her.

Jess knew Fizzy probably had a thousand questions about all of this. She did, too. What in the fresh hell were she and River actually doing? How did she feel about being so physically attracted to someone she wasn’t sure she actually liked? What should she do with all of this interest in her loins? And in all this silent questioning, it never occurred to Jess that 8:24 was coming soon.

The door opened with a jubilant ding, and her heart skipped away, double tempo.

Stride, stride, stride.

River passed through the room with the sweeping confidence of a king through a court, and Jess felt the air shift all around them, an honest-to-God change in atmospheric pressure.

Fizzy leaned to the side, spotting River, her eyes going wide. “Holy shit.”

Jess didn’t have to turn to know that everyone was watching him. And then, even with her back to the room, Jess felt them all turn to look at her.

Ignoring the feeling, she turned around. River was smiling… at people? A healthy flush to his cheeks, a tiny yet unmistakable upturn to his mouth.

Fizzy’s voice glimmered with wonder: “What did you do to him?”

“We did not—”

“He’s smil—”

“I know,” Jess snapped. “It’s weird. Shut up.”

She did not shut up: “When you two actually—”

Leaning in, Jess hissed: “Shhh!”

She pretended to be very, very engrossed in her work, but it was useless. And she knew without having to watch him that once he’d picked up his drink, he was headed their way.

He set down two cups on their table. “Hey.”

Jess and Fizzy stared dumbly up at him. He was so gorgeous and commanding that all Jess could manage in response was a flat “What.”

He nodded to the drinks he set down. A flat white. A vanilla latte. “I thought you might want a fresh one soon,” he said.

“Thank you,” Fizzy and Jess said in monotonal sexbot unison.

The left corner of his mouth tucked in. “You’re welcome.” He held Jess’s gaze, and the dark weight of it lit the fuse leading to the bomb in her libido. “Did you see the Trib?”