Chapter 11
This was a bad idea.
This became apparent as soon as Yasmine arrived at the Nightingale.
She stopped short of the still broken door, gazing through the window to find Bella holding court in the kitchen. The blonde was sitting on the counter, legs swinging, the greased-up cooks and teenage baristas laughing at her jokes like she was the funniest woman alive.
You’ve entered workout mode! Enjoy your workout!
Yasmine stared blankly at her wrist, wrestling with the realization that her pulse had risen to 135 just from looking at Bella for too long.
Unbelievable.
She decided, then and there, that this had become unsustainable.
She would just have to turn on her heel and head home.
She’d write Bella a text about how she caught the stomach flu, Venmo her a few thousand dollars for a hotel stay, and then, over the period of a few weeks, slowly break the news that they could not actually work together.
It would be for the best. It might be awkward at first, but so be it.
By the time her plan was fully formulated, a hand was pushing Yasmine on the shoulder.
“God, you really do need a drink,” Bella said with an almost pitying grin, linking their arms together. “Come on, tell me the address. I’ll cover the Uber.”
And when Bella’s hand gripped tightly around Yasmine’s bicep, not letting go, every escape hatch in Yasmine’s mind promptly closed.
It’ll be fine, she thought, fully knowing it wouldn’t.
***
“This is your definition of respectable?” Bella whispered as the doorman graciously took Yasmine’s jacket. “I feel like I’m committing white collar crime by osmosis.”
Yasmine rolled her eyes affectionately. She thanked the gentleman, tugged Bella by the sleeve of her shirt toward the reception, then shot back, “These people wish they were criminals. I’ll take you to where the actual evil rich men are sometime. Way different vibe.”
12th Street was, by Yasmine’s standards, passable. Sure, it had one or two Michelin stars—which used to mean something back when vampires were in charge of distributing them—but this place didn’t even have anything contestably legal on the menu.
Everyone knew a really good restaurant required a lawyer.
Nevertheless, what it did have was floor-to-ceiling windows on the eighty-ninth floor, affording them a full bird’s eye view of Manhattan. And when the hostess guided them to their seats right by the glass, Bella, for once, didn’t have anything to say.
Her bulging eyes were doing all the talking.
“Nice, right?” Yasmine said, annoyed at the sheepish tone in her voice. Why did she care if Bella was impressed? She chose this place merely because it was close by. Not because—
“This view is amazing,” Bella whispered, and Yasmine’s stomach tightened, relief pouring through her. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this high up in my life.”
Bella had that tone in her voice again. That brief and rare vulnerability. Yasmine didn’t realize how rarely she heard it until then, how much she enjoyed hearing it.
“You’ve never taken a plane?” she asked quietly, hoping not to scare her off the subject.
Bella laughed, as if it was an unbelievable question. “I didn’t start being broke yesterday. It’s been a lifelong endeavor. No, the best I’ve done is a ship.”
“A ship? Like, overseas?”
Yasmine watched Bella smirk in the reflection of the glass, the city lights filtering through the mirror image of her face.
“No. To Provincetown. For vacation. From Boston,” Bella emphasized mockingly as she slowly removed her leather jacket, exposing the skin-tight satin underneath. The long-sleeve was a V-neck with the top button undone, which Yasmine hoped she didn’t spend too long noticing.
Apparently, she did.
“You like my shirt?” Bella said in a low, conspiratorial whisper.
Yasmine’s smart watch nearly lit up again. She swallowed roughly, looking anywhere but at Bella’s face, which was smirking wildly.
“It’s… fine.”
“Your eyes said otherwise.”
Startled, Yasmine’s eyes flicked urgently up to meet Bella’s.
Is she actually flirting with me?
No. She’s just the type of person who talks like that.
A waiter in a crisp black suit cleared his throat. They both glanced up, completely torn from their bubble.
“Have you had a chance to look at the menu yet?” he asked.
“Not in the least,” Yasmine muttered under her breath. But before she could tell him to give them a few more minutes, Bella turned towards him, beaming, and said, “Yes. Four shots of fireball, please. Two for each of us.”
Yasmine nearly had an aneurism. So did the waiter, probably, but he hid it well.
“Fireball?” Yasmine deadpanned. “Are you nineteen?”
“Four shots, of course,” the bartender interjected, not missing a beat. “Anything else?”
“A real drink,” Yasmine said quickly, before Bella could do more damage. “An Old Fashioned for me and a Negroni for her.”
After the waiter nodded and made his way back to the bar, Bella lowered her elbows onto the table and frowned comically. “Eugh, a Negroni?”
Yasmine was grateful for the chance to argue about something that wasn’t Bella’s shirt. “Don’t even talk to me for the next five minutes. Fireball.”
Bella gave her one of those wolfish grins that looked entirely out of place on her Gucci-ad-campaign of a face.
“You need to loosen up,” she said, kicking Yasmine’s foot lightly under the table. It was stupid and immature but it sent a jolt of electricity up Yasmine all the same.
She kicked her right back and said, “I can loosen up without reverting to the worst impulses of American youth.”
Bella cocked her head to the side like a curious dog.
“You know, Yasmine, for as much as you’ve grilled me, I’ve never really gotten the opportunity to ask you where you’re from. Because it’s clearly not America.”
At that, Yasmine’s leg went limp, their game of footsie abruptly ending. Her hand tightened into a fist where it lay on the glass table. Bella noticed, her eyes traveling from Yasmine’s firmed up arm back to her face, eyebrows arching in question.
“It’s not a secret,” Yasmine said quietly.
It wasn’t. It was just that the question made her relive memories she’d rather stay shut in a box for the rest of eternity.
She knew she wasn’t rare in that way. Good childhoods were distributed with some rarity to all of Earth’s creatures, and Yasmine had not been one of the lucky ones.
Frowning, Bella reached out and touched Yasmine’s hand.
“Hey, sorry. We don’t have to talk about it. I’m happy to bug you about other things.”
Yasmine inhaled with a shudder, looking down at their hands on the table. Bella squeezed her warm palm around Yasmine’s cold fingers, wearing a worried little frown on her face.
She was giving Yasmine grace she certainly hadn’t earned.
“I’d be a complete hypocrite if I didn’t tell you. Russia, originally,” Yasmine said, withdrawing her hand from Bella’s and stuffing it into her lap. It felt like it’d been stung by a bee. “But we moved around a lot. Spent a lot of formative years in Romania and Austria.”
Something she said made Bella’s throat bob, but she seemed to gather herself quickly.
“You must speak a lot of languages,” she said, tapping her fingernails on the table. Her hand looked lonely there now. Yasmine regretted stealing hers away. “I only know two.”
Yasmine brightened, curious. “English, and…?”
Bella wrapped her arms around her midsection as she gave a little nervous smile.
“Latin,” she confessed quietly.
Yasmine blinked. What?
She had expected Romanian, obviously. Maybe not Spanish, given that report card, but German, potentially…
“...Latin?”
“Your drinks, ladies.”
Four shots were placed with an assassin’s accuracy on the table. The waiter carried the Old Fashioned and the Negroni on a tray that he kept lifted in the air, probably waiting for them to finish the offending fireball before serving them.
Not missing a beat, Bella thanked the waiter, then reached for the shots, handing one out to Yasmine. Reeling from whiplash, Yasmine was helpless to take it.
“Let’s make a toast,” Bella said, pressing her glass to Yasmine’s. “To our partnership.”
Yasmine’s mouth opened, then closed. “Our what?”
“Our scientific partnership?”
Oh. Oh.
“Yes. Right. That. Cheers.”
Bella laughed with her head leaned back, clinked their glasses, then downed both shots in practiced succession. Yasmine took hers down as well, too obediently, and nearly dry heaved when the cinnamon liquid seared down her throat. Utterly disgusting.
“I feel like I’m back in college getting hazed by my sorority sisters,” Yasmine muttered, trying to stop herself from gagging. Bella just giggled, completely unfazed. “Which reminds me, I have a new question I need you to answer before you join my lab.”
The waiter took their shot glasses away and set down the real drinks. Yasmine was eternally grateful to see the fireball disappear.
“Anything,” Bella mouthed silently, balancing her chin on her hands and beaming up at Yasmine. The alcohol had colored her cheeks a rosy pink, and the dim light brought out the yellow in her eyes. She was, unfortunately, a painting.
“I need you,” Yasmine said, pointing at Bella with her finger. “To justify to me why you would turn down both Princeton and Harvard to work with the human cockroach Ford Waldorf.”
Bella’s smile fell. Yasmine immediately worried that she’d hit a nerve, internally chastising herself for hurting the poor girl’s feelings. But Bella recovered quickly, as Bella always did.
“Did he get mad at you for poaching me?”
“Of course he did. He nearly took the paint off the walls of my office.”
Bella giggled at that, and Yasmine felt like a general who had just won a war. It was truly disastrous how much she cared about Bella enjoying her company.
“Simple answer,” Bella said, grabbing her drink. “I chose him because you rejected me.”
“Oh, that makes—” Yasmine paused, then spluttered as Bella took a long noisy sip of her Negroni. “What do you mean, I rejected you?”