“Yes,” Jules whispered, wondering if she would get any severance pay at all and how many therapy sessions she’d be able to afford with it.

“However…” Vivian kept her gaze firmly focused on the wall. She stopped, took a deep breath, and started again. “However, this professional tendency of mine does not extend to my private life. As I had assumed you were aware, but obviously you’re not.”

At the last part, her voice grew sharp, like it always did when she was pointing out someone’s utter stupidity.

Jules’s elbows were aching from the way she’d put her entire body weight on them. She dragged herself to a sitting position. It would have put her at eye level with Vivian, if Vivian had deigned to look at her. “Uh, okay?”

“People who are part of my personal life,” Vivian said, her cheeks going a little red, “people like that—these people aren’t replaceable. And I don’t ‘throw them away.’”

She had shocked Jules before. Heck, she’d shocked Jules more often than anybody else of Jules’s acquaintance. But she’d never made Jules wonder if she was hallucinating or on drugs.

“Oh,” she said.

“Oh,” Vivian mimicked as she had earlier in the evening. It lacked bite this time.

“I’m…personal?”

“Yes.” Vivian’s voice was as clipped as if she’d just told Jules to get her coffee.

Vivian wasn’t firing her? She didn’t hate her? Vivian thought of her as somebody personal?

She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Her heart was pounding, but she had to focus. Some things had to be said, no matter what. “If we’re getting personal, you said earlier you thought I’d go to bed with Monique. Which was not an okay thing to say. And then you said you didn’t even need me. Is that how you feel?”

Vivian looked away. “Try not to take it too seriously when I say things in the heat of anger that I might not actually mean.”

After a pause, during which Jules processed Vivian’s words, she rubbed a hand over her forehead. She’d better not be getting a headache from this. Something was up with Vivian’s inappropriate accusation about Monique, and Jules needed more time to figure out what it was.

“So are you saying I’m your”—she took her courage in both hands—“friend?”

It seemed impossible. Incredible. Vivian didn’t have friends. Simon himself had said as much. But Jules might be her friend? She might occupy a role in Vivian’s life that nobody else did?

Vivian did not reply, and Jules wondered if she’d gone too far.

Then Vivian said, “I’ve noticed the way you look at me.”

Huh? Jules opened her mouth to say something when she realized what Vivian meant. What she had to mean.