Kyle slipped on his jacket as we walked out of my bedroom. Fiona, my roommate, was eating at our island. She merely waved at Kyle as he walked past. We stopped at the door where he turned to me. "As always, it's been fun," he said.

"Yeah," I said, fighting the sigh that wanted to come out. "I'll see you tomorrow. Tell Davis hi for me."

"I will." He gave me a half-hug and opened the door. I locked it behind him before walking into the kitchen in search of food.

"You should just go out with him already," Fiona said around the food in her mouth. Her eyes were glued to her latest novel. It was some sort of historical fiction that she'd told me about and I promptly forgot the details of.

"We're just friends." It was our usual conversation. "We've always been just friends, and we're always going to be just friends. I like things the way they are."

Fiona raised an eyebrow at me. "We need to find you a boyfriend, one way or another."

I pulled some leftover takeout out of the fridge and sat it on the island. "If I wanted a man, Fi, I'd go find one." I shook my head as I opened the container and sniffed. It smelled okay, so I got a fork and began mixing the beans and rice.

"Yuck." Fiona wrinkled her nose at me. "I'll never understand how you can like your food cold."

I just smiled at her. "Go write on your article," I told her.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mom."

"The more you write the more you can sell, and we could use an extra rent payment." I raised my eyebrows at her.

She crossed her arms and sighed. "Fine. I don't know why you're trying to get rid of me, but I'll go."

"I'm not trying to get rid of you - I just need some space to get a jump on research for the next video."

"What are you guys debating this time?"

I bit my lip. "The pros and cons of Vitality, actually."

Fiona whistled. "Wow. Which side are you on?"

"Cons."

"Yikes. Well, if you need me, I'll be holed up in my room writing about Melissa Starr and her MC."

"Have fun," I called to her back. She raised a hand in acknowledgment.

Truth be told, I wasn't planning on doing much research at all. I didn't want to win this one. But I had to at least looked like I was trying, and she was sweet, almost to a fault, but she also had a habit of interrupting me whenever I was doing something important when she wasn't also doing something important. Writing, for instance.

She would have made a good editor in my opinion. If her reviews were anything to go by, she should switch careers, but I knew she wouldn't. I suggested that once, a long time ago, and she told me she would never be able to tell people their writing was bad. It didn't help when I told her that reviewing books was basically the same.

Sighing, I finished up the last of my food and made my way to my laptop in my room. I opened a private browsing window and felt like a criminal. I don't know why. No one at Vitality would ever know I'd looked for specifically bad things about their website. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, and not in a good way.

About twenty minutes into it I was ready to be done. There wasn't anything I wanted to search for less right now. Nothing really looked interesting, and the stuff that was made me feel weird to look at. I mean, it's one thing to look up your boss, but it's another thing to research rumors and other stuff that could be used for their defamation. In fact, I wasn't 100% sure we should even do this debate. It could possibly result in my being banned from the website altogether.

I closed my laptop at that thought. Twenty minutes was long enough.

---

When I'd graduated a couple of years ago I knew I was going to keep on doing videos with Kyle, or even without him if he'd left. They made me so happy that I never wanted to do any other job in the world. That included customer service, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Even now, as I sat at my desk at 6 AM, squinting at my laptop through blurry eyes since I literally crawled out of bed five minutes ago.

I wanted coffee so badly. There was no way anyone should be up this early, yet I already had a call waiting for me to take when I logged on. I settled my headset over my ears and lowered the microphone. Stifling a yawn, I answered the call. "Thank you for calling Life Bar. How may I be of assistance today?"

The calls were all as expected: faked cheerful voice as I helped the nice (and not-so-nice) people to straighten out their bills and memberships. When I first started working for the health and fitness company I expected to enjoy it, but it slipped quickly into the monotonous kind of job I'd always had a distaste for. Still, I enjoyed helping people and this was no exception. I did it better than a lot of people in my field.

Around six-thirty I heard Fiona moving around, so I texted her to bring me a coffee and a slice of toast with butter and syrup. I finished up the call I was on and waited. She came in a minute later with a plate and a steaming mug. "Thank you so much," I told her gratefully. I couldn't help but notice the orange and the butter knife occupying the plate with my toast. I looked up at her and raised my eyebrows.

She shrugged her slender olive-skinned shoulders. "You need to eat better," she said simply. "At least, I thought you were going to try to."

I sighed. "Fine, but could you peel it and stuff? I can't do that and take these calls - it'll get my keyboard all sticky."

She shook her head at me, but started doing it all the same. "You're ridiculous," she told me.

"Thank you very much," I told her before taking a sip of the coffee. I let out a contented breath. "That hit the spot." I took another sip before answering another call. By the time I was done with it Fiona was done peeling and segmenting my orange. "Thank you so much," I told her, popping one in my mouth. The sweet smell of the orange made me a little sick, but I could get past it.

"You're going to finish around lunch?"

"Yep. Meeting you at the gym at one?"

"Sounds good. I'll grab us some Subway and wait for you outside." I groaned. She shook a finger at me. "You said you wanted to eat better! Subway's good for you!"

"Maybe, but a salad every day gets tiring."

She crossed her arms. "What do you want, then?"

I glanced at my screen, where I was being monitored for how many calls I was taking to track my efficiency. "I want to get back to work," I muttered.

"What?"

I shook my head. "Get me flatbread with their turkey, pepper jack, onion, tomato, jalapeño, and some mustard."

"Ew."

"You asked."

"Fine." She grabbed the pad of sticky notes I kept on my desk, wrote out my order, and stuffed it in the pocket of her yoga pants. "I'll see you later." I shook my head at her back as she left. She worked at a gym - which happened to be owned by the same company I work for - and she wore athletic clothes, even though she didn't technically have to. Especially since she worked in the offices, handling finances and miscellaneous stuff.

The morning dragged on. By the time I was done with my shift, my legs were stiff from sitting for six hours and I was starving. I did a few stretches and and changed into my athletic gear. Since I literally lived six blocks from the gym, I decided I would walk there.

As expected, Fiona was waiting for me out front. She's holding two sandwich bags from Subway and gently swinging them. I walk up to her and we silently walk across the road to a small park and grab one of the picnic tables.  A few bites in, she asks, "How did your research go last night?"

There's a teasing tone to her voice that I don't appreciate. I put my (dripping) sandwich down. "It went well. Why?"

She shook her head and looked rather amused. More amused than someone eating a sandwich should be. "No reason. I mean, I didn't know competing online at Mario Kart counted as research of any sort."

I made an indignant noise at her. "How did you know I was playing that?"

She snorted, trying to hold back a laugh. "Girl, you shout."

Well, she wasn't wrong. I laughed at that one. "Okay, fine." I shook my head and picked at my lunch. "It's just, well, I kind of feel really, I don't know..." I shrugged. "Guilty, I guess. Like I'm doing something I shouldn't be when I try to find negative things about Vitality. I mean, they're super quick to ban people who violate rules, and that's where a large chunk of my income is from."

Fiona reached across the table and pat my hand. "I need to tell you something about Life Bar, then." Her face looked serious. Whatever it was, I felt it couldn't be good.