Which is why she had little compunction opening up the cabinet that held Kate’s wine glasses and pulling out two. Another quick movement had her locating the bottle opener, and in the next few seconds, she had two glasses poured and had set one in front of Kate.
“I need your advice.”
Suspicion slid through her. “You’re not going to ask—”
“You about your fake engagement?” Heidi finished for her. “Fuck, yes, I am, because clearly you’ve got something big going on, but as much I want to squeeze every last bit of information out of you”—she lifted her hands and demonstrated her apparently very capable squeezing ability—“I also know your stubborn face.”
Kate frowned. “Stubborn face?”
“Yup.” A nod. A wave of her hand at Kate’s face. “Locked and loaded, front and center, insert other similar clichés here,” she said. “Which is why I’m going to wear you down with my life drama, and then you’ll dish on yours.”
Kate sniffed. “You wouldn’t make much of an evil genius, you know that, right?”
“Because I’m telling you my nefarious plan?” Heidi shrugged when Kate nodded then pointed at the wine glass. “You’re already halfway through that one. Another and you’ll tell me everything I want to know. Muahaha!”
Kate pushed the glass away.
Heidi snorted. “Yeah, right. It’s your favorite. I know you won’t be able to resist.”
Kate made a face. One, because her friend was right—it was her favorite. An ice wine from a small winery in Utah of all places. Two, because it was expensive, and she would feel too damned guilty if she didn’t drink it. Heidi wasn’t hurting for money, but she worked really hard and had pulled way too many hours re-stocking shelves at the college bookstore to afford to make her way through school, way too many hours doing double shifts in order to pay off her loans for Kate to waste some of her best friend’s hard-earned wages.
Kate’s mom getting the beauty deal just before college was the only reason Kate hadn’t been in the same boat.
She would have had the loans, the extra hours, the struggle.
Growing up without a lot of frills had taught her to appreciate the little things right along with the big—and no bills upon leaving school definitely qualified as big, same as the wine was a small luxury.
One that should be appreciated just as much.
One that had her scowling at her friend and taking another large sip.
Tart and sweet, with notes of berry, it was freaking delicious.
Probably why her friend was looking at her all smug and self-important. “If I have a hangover tomorrow,” she muttered. “I’m blaming you.”
“You know we’re finishing this bottle, right?” Heidi brushed her fingers over Kate’s forehead. “It’s small, so just three glasses each.”
“Three!”
A bop to Kate’s nose. “Release the lines. We’ll both be pleasantly drunk. I’ll spill, you’ll spill, we’ll all spill.”
Kate wrinkled her nose. “That sounds like a terrible childhood song.”
Heidi grinned, picked up her own glass, and took a sip. “I quit my job today.”
Since Kate had followed her friend’s example by drinking some of her own wine, she nearly spit all that glorious, tasty deliciousness out.
Let it be noted that spit takes were not sexy.
She repeated, they were not sexy. Sighing, she mopped up what had dribbled down her chin with a kitchen towel, while managing to swallow the rest, and glaring over at her friend. Heidi shrugged, not an ounce of remorse in sight. Kate set her glass down. “Why would you quit?” she asked. “You loved working at Carbon.”
Heidi was a molecular physicist whose field of study was the space between atoms.
Her friend had explained the significance of that to her on more than one occasion but had never been able to dumb it down enough for a layman, such as Kate. Heidi could talk about work to only one person in their group, and that was Kelsey, who was a brilliant engineer, had earned multiple degrees—some just for “fun”—but even she couldn’t begin to match her friend’s expertise.
“It’s not sexy enough for you and your advertising brain,” Heidi had declared on more than one occasion, which was possibly true.
Okay, it was mostly true.
Once Heidi began down a tangent of how atoms were mostly empty space and the speed of the electrons orbiting them, Kate’s brain shut down.
So, Kate might not understand the nitty-gritty of Heidi’s job, but she understood her friend.
And her friend loved working for Carbon Industries.
Loved it so much that she’d turned down several lucrative offers for other biotech companies over the years.
Kate reached across and snagged her friend’s free hand, held it tightly with both of hers. “Why, Heid?” she asked. “I thought you were really happy there, and I think it was only a week ago that you mentioned your grant money came through.”
Hazel eyes lock on hers, and it was impossible to miss the sadness in their depths. “It did.”
“So, what happened?”
Heidi made a face. “The climate has just been deteriorating over the last few months,” she said. “You know we got bought out”—a pause, her gaze alighting on Kate’s for a moment before she nodded—“well, all of a sudden every step of our lab process has to be run through our corporate liaison. The product side of the company wants to make sure R&D”—research and development and the department in which Heidi worked—“isn’t wasting resources and money.”
“Okay.” Kate squeezed lightly. “That doesn’t seem all bad.”
“I didn’t think so either.” Heidi pulled her hand back and pushed to her feet, pacing through the kitchen. “The problem is that our liaison is never available. And when she is, she clearly doesn’t understand science. It’s only numbers and appearances, and it’s so infuriating.” She tossed up her hands. “I don’t have the supplies I need because the grant money is all tied up in corporate, waiting for my freaking liaison to approve the orders. Beyond that, I can’t get approval for my interns to get overtime so they can come in on the weekends or after hours to check our experiments because those are resources that HR refuses to approve because it’s too expensive.” She paced back, scooped up her glass, and took a large sip. “Never mind that all of that was built into my request when I wrote the grant and the funds are there—”
A sigh.
“I’m boring you.”
Kate jumped to her feet and rushed over to her friend, hugging her close. “Absolutely not,” she said. “I was just thinking that this is the first conversation I’ve had with you about your work where I could understand everything.” She pulled back on Heidi’s snort. “And I empathize. I know you worked hard on the grant, know that you were so excited to get it.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I was.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.” Heidi made a face. “I’m really going to miss my lab.”
“Are you . . .” Kate stopped, nibbling at her bottom lip, then figured she might as well just ask. She and Heidi had never hidden anything and if she didn’t ask, she’d worry. “Are you going to be okay for a while without a job? Money wise?”