Someone pulled out the stool next to his and sat down. Like they didn't have the whole fucking place to choose from. He jerked round angrily to tell them to— "Oh."
"I thought I'd better check on you," Joona said in mild embarrassment "You nearly got run over by a couple of trams."
He turned away. "Enjoy your moment of triumph."
"Suffering in others is not a cause for rejoicing."
"In that case, give the hippie philosophy a break. It pisses me off."
"They turned you down."
"Yeah. All right? They turned me down. Bastards."
"Did they say why?"
"I'm not rich enough. That's what it was in the end. My stake in the company isn't enough. For fuck's sake, I've got a thirty percent investment in Z-B shares. A third of everything I earn goes straight back into the company. What the fuck else do they expect from me?"
"I don't know. What did you expect from them?"
"A fair chance. No, not really. I should have known. Me of all people. I know how companies really work, what really counts."
The barman put his margarita jug down in front of him, pushing a coaster forward for the glass. It was a proper margarita glass, with a thin rime of salt around the rim.
"What does count?" Joona asked.
"Internal politics. You want one of these, or have you got to run back to shout at my fellow corporate cyborgs?"
"We're not exactly on timesheets and shift work." Lawrence nodded to the barman. "Another glass, please."
Waking up was accompanied by its timeless twin: where am I? Lawrence opened his eyes to see a long room with a desk and a couple of worn comfy chairs at one end. The floor was bare wooden boards, with a couple of rugs thrown down, one of which he was lying on. Opposite him was a broad arched window, with thick old curtains drawn. Scraps of streetlight shone around the edges, casting a dreary sodium-yellow illumination against the walls. Several large prints had been hung above the small fireplace, posters for various exhibitions and poetry recitals decades out of date. Definitely student digs. Brighter slivers of light silhouetted the door. When he lifted his head he could see a bed at the other end of the room. Joona was sitting on it, her back against the tarnished brass railings. She had a quilt wrapped around her shoulders. A reefer dangled from one hand, its end glowing morosely in the gloom.
"Oh, hell," he muttered. At least he was still wearing his uniform. "How did I...?"
"I brought you here," she said. There was a current of humor in her voice. "My turn to rescue you from the bar."
"Thanks." He sat up gingerly. "Do I owe you a twenty?"
"No, a friend helped get you into the tram. There's a stop close to the end of this street."
"Uh, right." He didn't remember much after the third jug of margaritas. Just bitching on about Z-B and how he would have loved to be the first person to land on a new world. He ran his dry rubber tongue around the inside of his dry mouth. The taste was awful. Apart from that he wasn't too bad, just stiff from the floor. "How come I don't have a hangover?"
"I made you take aspirin and vitamin C, and a couple of liters of water."
"Right. Thanks again." The mention of water made him want to pee. Badly. Joona told him where to find the toilet, just outside and down the corridor.
"Try to be quiet," she said as he hurried out "Everyone else is asleep."
His watch said it was quarter past two.
When he got back she was still sitting at the end of the bed, the reefer down to its last half-centimeter. "Want some?" she asked.
"No, thanks. Us cyborgs don't, remember?"
"Of course."
"Look, thanks again for taking care of me. I'd, er, better be going."
"Really?" She took a deep drag. "What's waiting for you?"
"Nothing much, I guess. I've still got three weeks' leave due. I just don't want to impose on you any more tonight."
"If I'd thought you were imposing I wouldn't have brought you here."
A sharp tingle moved down Lawrence's spine. He walked over to the bed and knelt down. She didn't say anything, just kept gazing at him with wide eyes. He took the last of the joint from her fingers and inhaled the way he'd seen it done on the i's. The smoke was bitter enough to make him cough.
Joona started to laugh. "I win."
"Win what?"
"I got to you."
"Yeah." He grinned and took another drag before handing it back. "You got to me. But then you were never going to run off and join the officer college with me, were you?"
She shook her head as if she'd been admonished and pouted. "No."
"Can I stay here the rest of the night?"
Joona nodded.
"With you?" he asked softly.
She opened the quilt. She was naked underneath.
When Lawrence woke up in the morning his earlier confusion was replaced by something close to embarrassment Classic case of now what?
He was lying along the edge of the bed, the quilt covering him, with his back pressed up against the wall. The mattress really wasn't wide enough for two. Joona was curled up beside him, looking a whole lot more fragile than she had last night. She was thin, skinny enough for her shoulder blades and collarbones to be prominent, and a lot shorter than he recalled. She must have been wearing heels before. Funny he'd never noticed that.
When he tried to pull the quilt up gently around her shoulders she stirred and woke. Pale blue eyes, he saw, a contrast to her darkish skin.
"Well," she said.
"Morning."
"Yes, it is."
She snuggled up closer, closing her eyes.
Again: now what?
"So, er, what time do you have to get up?"
Joona's eyes stayed shut "You're always in a rush to go nowhere, aren't you?"
"That's me."
"I was going to take a break from college. It's getting heavy there for me right now. I hadn't got a plan for getting up."
"You're at college?"
She sighed and sat up. "Yes, the Prodi. It's a complete shit-hole. They don't even have enough funds to stop the building from falling apart, and the lecturers are all fifth-raters who couldn't get an appointment cleaning the toilets at a decent university." She got up out of bed with a sudden energetic motion and padded over to the window, pulling the curtains back with a quick tug.