small ghost looks to the future

So, she took her time. She sampled the shot of peach moonshine. The sweetness left a film on her tongue and the alcohol found a fast-track to her head. She bought a bottle. She watched, a little dizzy from the moonshine and from the sun, as Victoria's fingers trailed over tie-dyed hoodies and little crocheted trinkets.

"We should come back in September," Victoria said. "I love it when everything is pumpkin and cinnamon."

Maybe her tongue was still tied by the moonshine, but Trinity couldn't do anything but nod. They hadn't talked about this, their thing, whatever this was, lasting beyond the summer. The idea of September, still technically part of summer if you consulted a calendar, but decidedly outside of summer in pure vibes, felt beyond her. She tried to picture them both in flannels, gloved fingers interlaced, and her throat felt like it might close up.

Maybe she was allergic to peach moonshine and having feelings.

They stopped in front of a stall selling strawberries. Victoria's eyes were wide and excited as she turned to Trinity.

"Have you ever had strawberries that are, like, actually fresh? It's nothing like what you get at the grocery store."

Trinity glanced at the basket, brimming with strawberries, that Victoria was already hefting off the counter, then glanced up at a nearby sign. The stall belonged to the farm that was hosting the market. Trinity could see strawberry fields just beyond a nearby barn, a handful of strangers stooped in the rows.

"It's like eight dollars cheaper if you pick your own basket," Trinity said, finding her voice and pointing. Victoria didn't even bother to conceal her excitement.

"Can we?"

Trinity eyed her. "You're wearing a white shirt."

"I'll be careful."

Trinity shrugged. "It's your laundry." She reached for her wallet (a worn little leather thing, easy to fit into her back pocket). The staff waved her away.

"You pay after you've picked," the staff told them both. "Have fun. The picking's good today."

—

The picking was good. They chose a row halfway down the field, and the plants were practically dripping with ripe berries, warm from the sun. Trinity plucked them carefully, trying not to bruise the soft flesh under her fingers, and dropped them into the basket.

She was so focused on getting the nicest fruit, checking for under-ripe white patches or overripe berries starting to rot, that she didn't realize at first that Victoria wasn't adding berries to the basket.

Her mouth was stained red; so were her fingers and the front of her shirt. Juice had dripped down her forearms in sticky red rivulets.

"You can't just sit there and eat them," Trinity scolded, but without much bite.

"What? They let toddlers do it." It was true. In the next row over a chubby-legged baby was sitting happily in the dirt, stuffing his face. "It's hardly fair that we can't."

Trinity snorted. "Hardly." But then something else caught her eye: a group of kids just off to the side of the field, doing crooked handstands and shaky cartwheels, collapsing into giggles onto the grass.

The urge that came over her then was bone deep, trained by daily practice into her muscles.

She glanced back down at the strawberry basket. It was half-full. But as far as she could tell, there wasn't a time limit on picking.

And her need to move her body was immediate.

"Hey," she said, standing, still looking over at the group of kids. "Do you mind if we take a break?"

Victoria followed her gaze, saw the kids, but couldn't interpret what might be so important.

"Um, sure," she said agreeably. "Totally."

—

Trinity turned a cartwheel, easy as breathing. Dirt and bits of straw stuck to her palms.

She felt that old craving to fling herself into the air, trusting that her hands would connect with the vault, the bar, the floor, keep her in motion. She missed trusting herself, pure and simple.

"I don't think I've done a cartwheel once in my entire life," Victoria said, more impressed than Trinity had expected she would be (after all, it was just a cartwheel. Kid stuff.) She was holding the basket and watching. The kids, for their part, had glanced over only briefly before deciding that they were both old and therefore beneath their notice.

Trinity already wanted to try again, see if her body remembered harder skills. She wanted to tumble across the field with so much force her heels would leave dents in the ground. "You're missing out."

Victoria considered this. Then she set the basket down.

"Don't laugh."

Trinity shook her head. "I make no promises."

Then Victoria put her hands on the ground and donkey-kicked her legs up in a way that looked nothing like a cartwheel. Nothing like anything, really. She lost her balance and landed flat on her back. She laid there, squinting up into the hazy sky until Trinity stood over her and cast a shadow across her face.

"That was…something."

Victoria winced. "I told you not to laugh."

Trinity made a face. "I'm not laughing. Here," she said, offering a hand to help Victoria up. "Try again. Let me help you."

Victoria took her hand, a little reluctantly. "I don't know if I want to try again.

"You do," Trinity said, firmly. "You're not as far off as you think."

She stood Victoria up and adjusted her body in small ways. Arms up, hips pointed forward.

"First off: you need to straighten your legs," Trinity coached. "You're not going to kick the sky."

"It feels completely unnatural," Victoria said.

Trinity grinned. "That's part of the fun." She put her hands at Victoria's waist, more to guide than anything. "Go for it. I'm right here."

She kept her hands in place, barely-there touching her, as she tried another cartwheel. One leg was still bent, like she was afraid to stretch herself out fully, but the result was already much closer to something someone might describe as a cartwheel. Victoria overbalanced and landed on her butt in the dirt, but she was laughing, pleased.

But Trinity was in full coaching mode. "Better," she said, holding her hand out. "Do it again."

It was hour of turns and stumbles, Trinity moving smoothly and Victoria moving much less so, until Victoria turned a cartwheel that made Trinity nod and say: "That was good."

Victoria beamed and sat down in the grass. Both of them had gritty palms; the knees of Victoria's jeans were streaked from dirt and grass-stains. The children had left long ago, dragged home by their parents.

This time when Trinity extended a hand to help Victoria up, Victoria pulled Trinity down towards her. Took her face with both hands and kissed her. Her mouth was warm and still tasted faintly of strawberries. It was with a slightly dizzy, dehydrated feeling that Trinity thought that this was probably what summer should taste like.

They never went back to finish picking. They stumbled back to the strawberry counter, and the staff gave them a funny look as she weighed their basket. "This is only half-full," she said. "You know I have to charge you as if it's full, right?

It's not a secret that she'd taken Victoria's away rotation hard. Victoria might be the only one who doesn't know that Cassie barely scraped through those days. How she'd kept checking her phone in case Victoria might have answered her texts, wished her good morning, good night, even just sent back a little reaction to something Cassie'd said hours before. How her coworkers had kept catching her distracted, making rookie mistakes. How they'd started asking her to hang out more, because they liked hanging out with her, sure, of course, but also because she hadn't seemed much like herself with Victoria gone. And even though Cassie had seen all this happening to her, there had been nothing that she could do from stopping herself from just sort of drifting through her days, untethered, unless someone threw her a rope. Then she'd grab it and sort of let herself be pulled along.

Now that Victoria's back (and she is back, it's her and she's here, Cassie tells herself too many times a day, what she's telling herself right then when Victoria is sleeping less than an arm's reach away), she's desperate not to feel alone again.

She wants to go to a movie and reach into the bag of popcorn at the same time as Victoria and brush her butter-slick fingers against hers. She wants to be able to glance over to see how she's reacting to whatever's unfolding on-screen. She wants to go to baseball games and rest one hand on Victoria's knee. Not in a possessive way; more like I can't believe you're right here next to me and I can touch you any time I want to. She wants Victoria to feel Cassie's hand on her knee and turn to her grinning, lean towards her for a kiss to the sound of bat cracking against baseball, twining her fingers through Cassie's. She wants all of the little moments and touches she had before Victoria left and came back strange.

She falls asleep borne upon these worries like a little boat free of its moorings. When she wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of pounding rain, still feeling herself gently rocked by these thoughts, Victoria is gone. Just like she is every night.

Cassie rubs the crust of sleep out of her eyes and heads towards the balcony door to bring Vic back to bed.

It takes her nearly a minute to wake up enough to understand that Victoria isn't there. She isn't clutching a knife, she isn't spasming her hand like she wishes it were clutching a knife. She isn't craning her neck toward the unseen moon.

She just simply isn't there.

Panic hits her like a sledgehammer blow to the ribs. Since she's come back, Victoria's always been at the same place in the middle of the night. Cassie doesn't know where to look if she isn't there at the balcony door. Her apartment isn't that big. She doesn't know where else she could go. She checks the bathroom, she checks Harrison's room, she checks their bedroom again, just in case: nothing is out of place and Victoria is decidedly not there.

Then understanding makes her throat feel anaphylaxis-tight: maybe she got out of the apartment. Maybe she is wandering the halls of the building. Maybe she's lost, walking into neighbour's doors. Or worse: maybe she went out onto the balcony. Over the edge in her sleep. The idea is horrifying.

Cassie heads to the front door, finds that it's still locked. She can't bear the idea of the balcony.

A floorboard creaks and she spins. Victoria's there. Her hair's wet, like she was in the shower (besides having checked the bathroom, Cassie doesn't remember hearing the shower running). Plus, her clothes look soaked. She's dripping onto the floor.

"You were outside," Cassie says, as the wind shifts and rain pelts the window.

"I was outside," Victoria echoes dreamily and Cassie's sure that she's still asleep. Gently, so gently, barely-touching-her gently, Cassie guides her back to the bedroom and peels off her wet clothes (they make a wet slapping sound as she drops them onto the floor). She tucks Victoria, naked, slightly damp, and shivering, between the sheets and crawls in on the other side of the bed. Victoria relaxes into proper sleep next to her, both hands curled up into fists under her chin. There is something that looks like dirt under her fingernails. But it's dark: it's hard to tell exactly what it is.

Cassie reminds herself to mention it to her in the morning. She can't show up to work with hands like that.

She isn't sure how she manages to fall asleep but she does, shins pressed against Victoria's shins. She figures, as she drifts back to dreaming, that she'll feel it if she leaves the bed again.

—

"Where did you go?" Cassie asks in the morning, blowing the steam off the surface of her coffee. Victoria is eating a cut of meat that could be called bacon if it were sliced, salted, cured, cooked. Her eyes are wide and startled when she looks up to Cassie.

"I went somewhere?"

Cassie feels desperate. "Yeah," she says, and she hates how she sounds. Prickly. Upset. So, so tired. "You were wet from the rain."

"Oh," Victoria looks down at her hands. She'd gotten up early and scrubbed under her nails without Cassie even reminding her. Everything looked pristine. "I must've gone out on the balcony." She looks up at Cassie, "That's okay right?"

Cassie feels her nose crinkle. Pictures Victoria smashed into the asphalt hour storeys down. "It's not exactly safe if you're sleepwalking."

"You're right," Victoria says quickly. "Definitely not safe. I'll be more careful."

Cassie nods, but she can't think of how Victoria can manage to be more careful while she's unconscious.

"We can try soft restraints," she says. She's suggested before and, like before, Victoria balks.

"I told you already: unless I'm awake and it's for fun, I don't want that," she says. "I don't think it's that serious."

"I just don't want you to get hurt."

Victoria reaches her hand across the table, pats the back of Cassie's hand with grease-smeared fingers. "I won't get hurt," she says. "You take such good care of me." She smiles. "I think you forget that I can also take care of myself."

"You're right," Cassie says, even though she's feeling queasy. "You're perfectly capable. I just—I just worry."

"Because you care."

"I care a lot."

Victoria's still smiling. She has so many teeth, Cassie thinks absently. They look so new and sharp. "I care about you too," Victoria says. "You know I would never let anything happen to you either, right?"

Cassie isn't so distracted by Victoria's mouth to hear her and understand wholly that she means it.

—

"Cassie."

She turns towards the voice, sees Baran across the parking lot, quickening her pace to catch up. She offers a smile as she falls into step beside Cassie. Victoria had already gone inside ahead of her; Cassie had dropped her off at the doors before swinging back around to park.

"You left early the other night."

Cassie doesn't know what to say. If she brings up the ground beef that Victoria stole and scarfed down while locked in the bathroom, then she's admitted that that had actually happened. There is a chance, albeit a slim one, that Baran hadn't noticed the missing meat. An even slimmer chance that she hadn't seen the cling wrap from the packaging in the bathroom trash, the gore and pink juice in the sink. If she doesn't bring it up, and Baran has noticed these things, then maybe Cassie will seem like she's hiding what happened. And also maybe she'll miss her chance to ask Baran if she's noticed anything wrong.

"Yeah," she says, hedging, "I'm sorry. It was a great night though. Your place is gorgeous."

Baran looks at her like she's expecting more.

"Um," she searches her memories of the night that aren't Victoria pushing globs of half-frozen raw meat into her mouth. "Your friends are nice. And I really liked that, um, pâté you put out. Where'd you'd get that?"

Baran raises both eyebrows just a little. "Thank you," she says, "I'll send you the address to the cured meats place where I got it. I'm just glad you had a nice time."

There's something guarded and careful about her tone that wriggles right under Cassie's skin. Fuck.

"Hey," she says, touching Baran's elbow to draw her in, secret-close. "I'm sorry we lefr early. You, well— You might have noticed that Javadi hasn't exactly been herself."

Baran looks surprised. And curious. "Hasn't she?"

"She's fine, of course," Cassie backpedals. She can't handle it, being the only one who seems to see something amiss. "I guess I just worry that she's stressed. Her sleep has been…weird, which can be a sign of burnout."

She had looked up the information the night before, had opened up too many tabs and slipped down a rabbit hole; she hopes she sounds like she's repeating what she'd read casually enough.

"You think she's burnt out?" Cassie hears it again, the strange undertone in Baran's question.

"I don't know," Cassie lets herself sigh. "Something's just different. I remember what it was like, being a student. It wasn't so long ago."

Baran presses her lips together, considering. "I haven't noticed anything unusual, no," she says. "But if you're concerned, I'll keep an eye out for anything that might affect her objectivity." Baran looks at her. "Are you okay, Dr. McKay?"

Cassie flinches, "I'm fine," she says. But Baran stops walking, prevents her from escaping through the doors of the PTMC and into her work.

"You seem tired lately," Baran says. "Exhausted, actually, distracted and," she frowns, "jumpy."

"Jumpy? No," Cassie protests, "Are you trying to say that I'm projecting?"

Baran hikes one shoulder up in a half-shrug. "I'm not a psychologist," she says carefully. "I just know that you've had a challenging time recently and, perhaps, you were expecting a sort of panacea when Victoria returned from her away rotation." She catches herself and adds, "That's just my assumption. From what I've observed."

"Panacea," Cassie echoes dully.

"Don't look so serious. I haven't noticed it affecting your performance, but I did want to bring it up because, well, it might if you let it continue."

Confusion and humiliation jockeyed for Cassie's attention. Quiet horror slipped past them both. "I'm sorry," she told Baran. "I'll…get some sleep. Make sure I'm not losing focus."

Baran nodded sharply, her feedback delivered. She walked ahead.

"Take a few minutes before you come inside," she told Cassie over her shoulder. "You seem upset. But please come find me if you need to discuss further." Her smile was a small, delicate thing. "Take care of yourself, Cassie. And oh," she looks serious again, "Tell Victoria that she's welcome over any time. You both are. I'll make sure to prepare something that's more to her tastes." She disappears into the building.

She starts to follow Baran inside but stops herself. Maybe, she thinks a little numbly, she is just tired. Maybe she is projecting something onto Victoria that isn't there. After all, no one else seems to see that anything is wrong. The idea that she might be the one who is wrong about everything disturbs her. If she's wrong about Victoria, then maybe her sense of perspective and proportion are way off on other things and she just doesn't realize. Maybe Baran's right to be concerned about her.

A strange light found its way into Trinity's gaze. People who didn't know better would guess that it was a sly sort of glee. It was actually something much more guarded. Hopeful. "You were worried about me."

Baran went into Trinity's kitchen, found a clean cup, and filled it with tap water.

"Of course I was," she said as she made her way back towards the couch.

Baran stroked her face softly, smoothed damp strands of hair away from her face.

"I brought you water," Baran said, her voice low. "You're still feverish. You need to stay hydrated."

Trinity had been complaining about not feeling well for days, really playing it up, too, whining, listless, and overall pathetic, but the fever had only started in earnest last night. Baran had felt the heat radiating off of her body lying next to her in bed. Sometime in the night, Trinity had migrated to her sagging corduroy couch. It didn't appear that she'd moved since, which was more than a little concerning.

Trinity shook her head as Baran brought the cup to her lips. Sipped it and spat it out, let it dribble down her chin, onto her t-shirt already damp with sweat.

"I need water," Trinity said. Baran brought the cup to her mouth again.

"This is water," she insisted. But Trinity tugged her chin away, petulant even as she was half delirious.

"Water," she croaked.

Baran sighed and set the glass down on the coffee table. Trinity shifted her legs to make room for Baran at the end of the couch. Baran settled in and pulled Trinity's feet into her lap.

Trinity made a little moaning sound and let her eyes close.

"I want to go home." Trinity's voice was small.

"Of course," Baran soothed. "Where's home to you?" She only knew vague details: something about the west coast, the ocean.

Trinity was quiet enough that Baran almost thought she had fallen asleep. But no: when Baran glanced over she saw that her eyes were open again, and she was staring hard into the middle distance. Baran didn't press further; she understood the longing for a home that she didn't know anymore, maybe had never known. She wasn't sure that that was the nature of Trinity's quiet, exactly, but she guessed she might not be so far off.

"What would make here feel more like home?" She asked instead.

—

Baran let the water run cold before filling the tub. It made her nervous, running a bath so cold, far too cold, really, but Trinity had insisted.

Trinity appeared in the doorway, face pale and drawn. She was clutching a box of table salt with both hands. She shuffled over to the tub's edge and dumped the entire box into the water.

"I could pick up Epsom salt for you," Baran watched her as she set the emptied box down onto the tile and dipped her fingertips into the water, testing.

"This is better," Trinity said, voice still rough. She stepped into the tub with her clothes on and sank down until the water touched her chin. Her shirt clung to her, translucent. Tiny bubbles silvered her bare skin where it was underwater.

"I can't let you stay in there long," Baran said. She was already searching for signs: shivering, blue lips, even though she knew hypothermia wouldn't settle in quite so quickly.

Trinity looked up at her, hands still swirling the water softly. "I'm fine," she told Baran. "You can leave me here."

Baran shook her head. She wanted to touch Trinity's face, prove that she was already too cold, prove that she had to get out immediately. "Out of the question."

Trinity considered this, then bent her knees so that she could slide her body until her entire face slipped under the water. It was only a few seconds before surfaced again, but watching her go under had made Baran's heart hammer.

Trinity wiped the water out of her eyes and looked up at her with a look that was so existentially exhausted.

"In my bedroom, top drawer" she said, and it took Baran a second to realize she was receiving instructions. "There's something there that might help." Her eyes flashed then with familiar mischief. "Don't go looking through the rest of my stuff like a perv. You'll find exactly what you might expect."

"What am I looking for?"

Trinity gave a little shrug that translated to ripples in the bath water. "It'll be easier to explain once you find it. You'll know what it is."

Baran was familiar with Trinity's room as a place to sleep and a place to fuck. She knew the basic geography: she could feel for the switch on the bedside lamp in the dark with reasonable precision, she knew that the drawer in the same bedside table held the toys, the lube. But she'd never lingered in the space before, looked at the detritus of Trinity's life (mostly blurry polaroids and hair elastics). She'd certainly never gone through Trinity's dresser.

She pulled open the top drawer, as Trinity had instructed. It was a sock drawer, mostly, but next to the balled up basic crew socks was a folded animal fur. Baran lifted it out of the drawer gently. It was surprisingly heavy.

Trinity's eyes were liquid as they watched Baran return carrying the pelt in her hands. She looked absolutely terrified.

"I don't usually let people touch it." Baran tried to hand it to her then, so that she could stop holding it. So that maybe Trinity might stop looking so scared. Trinity took it from her and hugged it to her chest, the chestnut fur turning slick and shiny where it touched the water. The fur was soft leaving Baran's fingers; it left a briny smell on her hands.

"It's a pelt?"

Trinity squeezed it tighter. "Sealskin. California sea lion. It's…mine."

Baran nodded, sat down on the closed toilet seat lid. "It's beautiful," she said, because it seemed like the right thing to say.

But the look Trinity gave her was hard. "You aren't getting what I'm saying. It's mine," she repeated. "It's my skin."

Baran nodded again, but she understood in that moment that Trinity was right: she didn't get what Trinity was trying to tell her, only that the moment seemed monumental, a confession.

"I think the fever's because it's been too long," Trinity said. Tears welled in her eyes then, spilled down her wet cheeks. Saltwater meeting saltwater. "No, I know that it's because it's been too long. I just—" her voice hitched and snagged on a sob, "I can't put it on anymore."

She held the pelt up then, dripping over the edge of tub, for Baran to see. There was a large slash through the fur, a cut so clean it had to have come from a sharp knife or straight razor. Baran touched the sliced open edges with her fingertips.

"How'd this happen?" Baran asked, Trinity didn't answer, just kept swiping away at the tears trailing down her face.

She reached for the pelt again. "May I?"

Trinity nodded sullenly, but Baran still had to coax it gently out of her grip. She examined the cut more closely, then looked back to Trinity.

"I have to get back," she said, "but can I take this with me? I think I can fix it."

Trinity looked scared again. "You'll bring it back?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

"Trinity, of course I'll bring it back," Baran told her. "What would I do with a sealskin?"

Trinity seemed to realize something then. She laid back down in the tub, water lapping her chin again. She nodded. "Okay."

"Just promise me one thing," Baran said as she turned to leave, the sealskin draped carefully over one arm. "Get out of that tub soon."

—

Trinity was still in the tub when Baran returned, gym duffle slung over one shoulder. She looked up at Baran with glassy eyes.

"You came back," she croaked. Baran realized then just how awful Trinity must have felt while she was away: adrift on feverish thoughts and afraid that Baran might not actually come back, that her pelt might be gone forever.

"I came back," Baran echoed softly. "And I have something for you."

She reached into her gym bag and pulled out the sealskin, dry now, and held it out to Trinity, who reached for it with pale, pruned fingers.

She ran her hands lovingly over the fur. Her searching fingertips found Baran's work immediately: a tidy line of sutures.

Trinity looked up at her, searchingly. "Do you think this might work?"

Baran thought the sutures could hold up to a fair amount of tension (she had good technique), so she nodded.

Trinity considered this, then held out her hand to Baran. "Help me up."

Baran took her hand and pulled Trinity upright and supported her as she stepped out of the tub. Her skin was cool now to the touch, but Baran sensed that the fever still lingered underneath.

Trinity stood there, dripping onto the tile, clutching her mended sealskin.

"Um," she said. She seemed suddenly self-conscious. "It might be weird if you watch."

But Baran didn't want to leave Trinity alone again, not when she was too ill to get out of the bathtub on her own, too ill to take care of herself properly. She told Trinity as much. She didn't add that she was also curious.

"Okay," Trinity said, a little doubtfully. Then she drew in a breath, peeled off her wet, clinging clothes and, naked, slipped into the skin.

Baran watched, stunned, as Trinity's body winched forward to make a new shape.

Baran knew, distantly, that she was somehow not reacting to Trinity's transformation. That, outwardly, she was maintaining the same professional calm with which she dealt with blood and viscera and life-changing injuries. But on the inside her thoughts were a roiling counterpoint to her calm. What the fuck? She thought. What the fuck? What the actual fuck?

She was trapped in Trinity's bathroom with a six-foot long sea lion. A sea lion that, as far as her senses could be trusted, was Trinity. It had Trinity's eyes, startling in an animal face. And, yes, there it was: the line of sutures.

Baran wasn't familiar with sea lion anatomy but, if she were to guess, the wound that she had closed lay right over the heart.

Trinity barked loudly and the sound made Baran jump. She scrambled backwards out of the bathroom and pulled the door closed.

She kept moving backwards until her back met the wall across from the bathroom door. Baran realized that her heart was hammering. She was frozen, panic pinning her in place.

What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?

There was a wet, crunching sound. A soft thump. Then silence.

Then: "Baran?" Trinity's voice was muffled through the door. Baran opened her mouth to answer but her words had run dry.

"Shit," Trinity swore, "Fuck. I tried to tell you. I—Fuck."

Baran's better instincts told her to just leave. Go home. Sleep the day off. Maybe check in with Trinity tomorrow. Maybe check her own temperature. Maybe she'd caught something too, was delirious, hallucinating.

Trinity cracked the bathroom door open. Her hair was wet, slicked back from her face. Her face, Baran noticed, had a little bit of its colour back.

Trinity opened the door a little wider when she realized that Baran was still there. Beyond Trinity (who was definitely naked) Baran could see the seal pelt puddled on the tile floor, wet and glistening, next to the pile of wet clothes Trinity had worn in the bath.

"Let me try and explain again. Better this time," Trinity looked down at her bare feet. "If I didn't freak you out too much."

Baran cleared her throat, tried to line up her words just right. "Freaked out doesn't begin to describe what I'm feeling," her voice came out strained. "But I'd love a proper explanation."

"Yeah," Trinity said. "I'll order in something. It might take a while to, um, get through everything."

She padded over to the couch to find her phone. "I'm thinking sushi?"

Baran couldn't be certain of her expression, but she supposed she must have looked appalled because Trinity immediately laughed awkwardly and muttered to herself.