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said, swiveling in his seat. “Just small things here and there, but any little thing can be make or break for firms this size.”
    “Got it.” I rolled back the notes to the front page. “So, which company needs a visit from Aunt Kiara next?”
    Phil's brows knotted. “What?”
    I straightened. “I mean do you have my next assignment?”
    “No, I understood you. But are you serious?”
    “Yeah, why not?”
    He blinked a few times and shook his head. “You know, sometimes, I forget that you’re gunning to be the first person to make partner in just five years.”
    “No...that would be insane.” The lowest I'd heard was seven and that was for some off-the-charts genius from MIT. Five, five was too low, right? “Wait, has there been anyone who made partner in six years even?”
    Phil chuckled. “No, Kiara, not yet. But, we shall see.” He clicked through his screen. “Yeah, we have a request from an oil supermajor. Just a small project.”
    Not as fun as wind or solar, but I was still learning.
    “Sure. Guess it's in Houston right?”
    “It is indeed.”
    I spend most of my days in Houston , Deacon's voice echoed in my head. Maybe it'd be good to be home for a bit.
    “I'll take it,” I said.
    Phil squinted at his screen. “Actually, the schedule for this one is a bit accelerated. You just came off a heavy assignment-”
    “I said I'd take it, Phil. I'm a girl of my word.”
    “Right.” He shook his head. “Of course you are.”
    I spent the rest of the afternoon researching background on the project. I really didn't get as far as I'd hoped. Thinking about oil just had me imagining Deacon shirtless, sweating out in some desert flat, swinging a hammer. That was how oil guys worked right? Even if they were directors posing as rig hands.
    Around seven, my phone rang. I nearly flicked to receive before I read the name on screen: Viola Martin.
    It was my mom. I snapped out of my waking dream in an instant. What a way to ruin my evening.
    Why on earth would she be calling now? Or at all? I'd made myself pretty clear the last time I answered a year ago. No, I didn’t want to talk to her. And no, I definitely wasn’t visiting home.
    Sometimes, a panic overtook me that they might find out where I lived. Heck, it wasn’t more than fifteen miles away – which barely covered a third of Houston city limits.
    But so what if they did? It's not like they could cast their spell again. They'd only gotten that to work by making me believe they were right. They couldn’t fool me again.
    I flicked off the call, deleted the voicemail that followed and tried to work, but my mood was too prickly. Even summoning Deacon into my head didn't soothe me. It just brought me back to how uneasy I'd felt before succumbing to him. Maybe it wasn't so great to give him such free rein in my thoughts.
    It was time to head home anyway.
    The ride was against traffic, and it chilled me out. Our apartment was in a nice little corner of Rice Village. You could kinda see the hubbub of the college bars and food plazas a couple blocks down, but the only sound was the swish of the leaves from the trees lining the block.
    I opened the door, carefully. Snowflake had a way of sneaking out. I trusted the little guy to come back, but the apartment complex was pretty tired of the battlefields left from his merciless campaign against the local bird population.
    He'd been a stray I found at my first apartment after switching schools, and slowly I got his trust. I named him Snowflake cause he was hard to catch but melted in my hands once I finally did.
    But when I walked into the living room, the little traitor was purring on Mira's lap, offering her his furry white belly, and covering more than her short shorts did. Mira stroked my cat absently, eyes planted on the TV screen. Two women were screaming at each other.
    “Did you just wake up?” I asked.
    Snowflake leaped out of her lap. Mira startled to me, her long black hair flinging around her narrow