"Sh!t." Pulling away from the peephole, Shayne braced her brow to the doorway and hoped that maybe if she stayed very, very quiet, the person on the other side of the door would eventually go away. Or vanish.

"I know you're in there, Shayne." The hard rap of knuckles and Rita's exasperated voice sliced through that delicate bubble of wishful thinking.

"Who is that?"

Hostia puta...Turning around with a guilty grimace, and faced Bianca. They'd started as friends in the nightclub scene, both DJ's with a love for heart pounding beats and vibrant crowds. Bianca was a thing of beauty. They'd tried to get a serious go once before Shayne realized they were too much alike to make it work without risking the friendship. And friendship, in Shayne's world, was king.

"Relax. She's the consultant I told you about."

"She better be." Bianca arched a menacing brow. Purple and blue braids tossed over one shoulder, the left side of her head shaved clean to show off the koi fish tattoo curving from temple to throat. Piercings adorned her face, a trio in both brows, septum, bottom lip and both ears from lobe to curve. "Well, open the damn door. I have a job to get to."

Rita's heavy knock punctuated her statement and Shayne swallowed a groan. Head hung, she unlocked the door, dragged it open. Holding it wide. "Rita, hey. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Rita's scathing rebuke was cut off as Bianca wedged past Shayne and tossed a haughty glare straight at the woman standing outside her apartment. "I'll be off at three. Want me to come by afterwards?"

Shayne shifted her eyes from Rita to Bianca and back again. "Uh...well, I've got an early morning at the gym, but I'll call you if I think Asher will let me get away with a later start."

"Fine." Bianca leaned in, pressed her lips to Shayne's. Holding there until she brushed the edge of inappropriate PDA. Giving Rita one final death glare as she walked away.

Bracing the door, Shayne sighed as Rita remained in the hall, arms crossed and chin raised, wearing another awful suit. "You're giving me that look."

"Is she married?"

"No."

"Engaged or otherwise involved?"

Shayne swiped a finger in an x over her heart. "Nope."

"Good. That's all I care about." Uncrossing her arms, Rita waved her back a step she crossed the threshold and shut the door, flipping the locks. "Why haven't you returned my calls today?"

Crossing from her front entry way into the open concept living space, Shayne scrubbed a hand over the back of her neck with a lazy stretch. "I've been...occupied?"

"I'm not even going to ask." Rita levelled a flat smirk at her answering laugh. "So, where are they?"

Shayne's stomach pitched, rolled. But rising panic didn't stop her from feigning complete and utter ignorance as she lowered to the blunt end of the sectional. "Where's what?"

"The tests, Shayne." Rita loomed over her, entirely unimpressed. "Where are they?"

"I...well," Shayne rolled her hands in the space between them, hoping to pluck an excuse from thin air, but was left with no choice but to tap out. Or in this case, tell the truth. "I haven't exactly got to them...yet."

After her apology visit, Asher had agreed to work in her training around various appointments with Rita and follow-up assignments. But when the first batch of them had shown up on her doorstep the next day, her eyes had wheeled in her skull.

Interview questionnaires, psychological and personality test, personal essay topics... Halfway through the stack Shayne had tossed the package on her dining table and backed away like the papers were a snarling, vicious animal out for her throat and never looked back.

Rita lifted her hands to her face with an exhausted groan and dragged them down. "It's been three days! This is important. I thought you understood that?"

"I do, alright?" she grumbled as she pushed back to her feet and shoved her hands into the back pockets of her sweats. "I just don't see how filling out a bunch of damn tests and forms is going to do anything." And she'd tried to explain that to Asher, hoping he'd back her with a phone call to Rita. Instead he'd threatened to pull her out of the UFC fight so Shayne had bit her tongue on the subject, and planned to get to it. Eventually.

Or stall until she was eighty.

"I need time to get to know you. Your quirks and facets. I'm not out to mold you into something you're not, lies won't get us the results we're looking for. Those tests will help tell me who you are. Who you really are."

Shayne curled her bare toes in the thick, soft pile of the shag carpet skirting her dining table, bobbed a reluctant nod. "Fine. I'll get to it."

"Good." Rita tossed her black purse, simple and boring as her suit, onto the sectional. "Go get them and let's start now."

Shayne's eyes popped to her in gaping disbelief. "Right now?"

"Yes."

"Can't I do it tomorrow?"

"I came all this way for those tests, Shayne, and I'm not leaving here without them. I have appointments and meetings lined up next week that I refuse to reschedule because of you."

"Jesus," Shayne grumbled, "if I have to do all this sh!t, the least you could do is buy me a drink first."

Eyes narrowed, Rita drew in a heavy breath. Nodded sharply. "I want answers, you want alcohol. If that's what it'll take, then I will consider it a fair trade."

"Seriously?" Bemused, Shayne watched as she marching over to the dining room table to gather the stack of files and paperwork half spilling out of them.

"You've got twenty minutes to get dressed." Files hugged to her chest, Rita angled her wrist revealing a slender gold watch with a mother of pearl face. "A second longer and you'll be paying for those drinks."

Shayne was done in less than fifteen, though Rita barely suppressed a shake of her head as she emerged with damp hair, ripped and faded jeans topped with an oversize tank that showed off a lot of tattoos and a fair bit of side boob. Tossing on a cropped leather jacket and some converse, they'd stepped out into the dusky evening air and settled on a bar around the corner. The environment was cozy, buzzing with energy but still quiet enough that they could have a conversation without shouting across the table.

As the hostess led them over to the high tops near the bar, Rita plunked down the stack of paperwork on the table before dragging out the tall chair and hoisted herself up into it without much fuss. To her credit she didn't even turn up her nose at the sticky tabletops or the musty smell of an old bar crammed with sweaty bodies and cigarette smoke wafting in from the open patio.

"Do you guys want any menus?" the server asked, perking up as Shayne settled across from Rita and shrugged out of her jacket.

"Yes, and I'll have a Stella on tap."

"Martini. Dirty. Extra olives," Rita said, resting her hands atop the files and angled her head as a visible shudder rippled through Shayne. "What's the matter? You don't like olives?"

"F*ck no! Olives are sweaty pickle balls of death that destroy everything they touch, especially alcohol."

A smile tugged across her lips and Rita pressed them tight together, smothering the laughter that would have otherwise escaped.

"Why do you do that?" Shayne asked, lowering her menu.

"What?"

"Resist laughing? It's not the first time."

What little mirth had flitted across her face vanished. "I don't like to laugh."

"Bullsh!t. Everyone likes to laugh."

"Not me. I'm not saying I don't appreciate humour," Rita quickly amended at Shayne's scoff. "I just prefer to feel other more relevant emotions."

"Nothing's more powerful or relevant than laughter."

"Love."

"Love is too codependent." Shayne's brows swooped together. "Love requires reciprocation or it hollows you out and can hurt like a bitch. Laughter—you don't need anyone for that."

"So you have a thing about love and I have a thing about jokes. Suffice it to say we stand on opposite lines of the subject. Now are you going to start earning your drinks or not?"

"Yeah. Sure. Subject closed." Shayne reached for the files but Rita brushed her hand aside and sent delicate nerves to tingle.

"No, I'll ask, you answer and I'll fill in the details."

"You sure you want to do all that writing?" she asked while accepting her pint of beer, rubbed her tingling hand against her thigh.

"I know short-hand." Flipping open the top of the file folder, Rita began with the easiest of the four tests, where the bulk of the questions were light, unassuming and required simple selection between multiple-choice options before digging a little deeper.

Before making a call, do you rehearse what you are going to say? Why? How do you think you will die? What in your life are you most grateful? If you could change anything about the way you upbringing, what would it be?

A plate of nachos, four beers—three martinis—and a pound of wings later, they'd made a sizable dent. Rolling up a napkin, Shayne lobbed it onto the collection of near empty plates.

"Complete this sentence: 'I wish I had someone with whom I could share ...'?"

"Everything." The word slipped out without pause and had Shayne sitting a little straighter. Where the hell had that come from? To her great surprise and relief, Rita was pleased enough to jot it down without pressing for more.

"What is your most treasured memory?"

"Meeting my sisters."

That answer sparked a flash of interest in Rita's eyes. "How did you meet them?"

"In different ways. But each is as special as the other. Most of us met while attending Chaplin over the summer. Except for Six. She was different," she said, a smile warming her voice.

"What is your most terrible memory?"

"I think you have an idea what that might be." Shayne sighed. The entirety of the testing had been this constant ping ponging from one end of the spectrum to the other. Happy memories to sad. A ricocheting journey that was beginning to chafe.

"Coming out to your family."

She nodded. "Do I need to go all over it again?"

"No. No, I remember the finer details." Rita lowered her head as she wrote, the pen swirling and swooping into a gibberish code she'd need a translator to decipher.

Shayne squirmed against uncomfortable low back of the chair and wished she was reclining on her couch in her sweats. "You know this thing is weirdly one-sided."

"That's the point." Dropping the pen, Rita gave a long stretch before running her fingers through her hair, freeing it from the tight bun. Dark hair tumbled around her face, spilled over her shoulders and released a wave of citrus into the air.

"Yeah, but shouldn't I be getting to know you and all? If I'm supposed to put myself in your hands?" Rita angled a glance up at her, the wind pushing in from the patio tugged on the fine strands of hair around her ears and Shayne's fingers itched to slide it back in place.

"What do you want to know?"

What did she want to know? "Tell me why you're against laughing?"

Rita exhaled heavily, her bottom lip pouting forward as she did. "I was teased," she said was a resigned roll of her hand. "Mercilessly. I have a strange laugh; they found it hilarious to mock. Made early years of schooling an absolute misery. So I stopped."

Shayne knew a thing or two about the mean, ruthless teasing of children. She'd dealt with more than her fair share growing up. "I'm dyslexic," she blurted. "I get it, you know. Kids are vicious f*ckers."

Understanding rounded Rita's shoulders. "Is that why you dragged your feet about all these tests?"

"Kinda."

"Why didn't you say so?"

"Same reason you prefer not to laugh." A devious thought flickered in her mind and inspired by idea, she trapped Rita's knee between hers under the table.

"Shayne..." Rita said, tone wary with warning. She gave her knee a tug but Shayne's grip was solid and her hands closed over the sensitive point above the joint.

"C'mon, I'm seriously on pins and needles. I want to hear it."

"No—no, oh no—Shayne, please! Stop!" But she didn't stop and soon enough the first sounds trickled out as Rita laughed; keening, and high and hilarious. The kind that once started, infectious and bright, it spread and made you laugh so hard you were crying and your gut ached.

It wasn't dainty and shouldn't have been adorable or endearing—but it was. She was.

After paying the bill, she joined Rita on the curb, files tucked into her large purse, the streets thick with bodies enjoying the soft sea breeze and late evening air.

"Forget what those kids said, you should laugh more," Shayne said, nudging her with a playful swing of her elbow.

Rita snorted, laughter still shining in her warm brown eyes that rolled at the suggestion. "No, I shouldn't. I really shouldn't."

Maybe it was the bodies sliding around them bringing them closer together, the culmination of alcohol, or maybe it was something else too profound to name, but the space between them was shrinking. Thinning out. Bleeding away.

Denial was pointless—attraction was definitely there. Strong enough to startle them both. Compel them both. Torsos bumped, hands brushed. Eyes held.

Soft hair skimmed over Shayne's fingers. Softer skin followed behind the curve of Rita's ear. Still she didn't move. The lush fullness of Rita's bottom lip slid from between her teeth. A whisper away. That's all it would take. And then she'd know—finally know...

"Hey, dykes, get a room!" Bawdy laughter followed the crass remark. Yelping Rita slammed against Shayne as the last guy in a pack of five cracked a palm against her ass, and flicked his tongue between forked fingers as he jogged off with his laughing friends.

Rage swelled, so bright Shayne was almost blinded by it. Hands curled into fists, her pulse hammered hot and fast behind her eyes and when she would have challenged him—hell, all five of them—Rita braced her back. "Stop, please—let it go. Please..."

Only because her face had gone white and her breathing shallow did Shayne listen.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Hand to chest, Rita slumped against the wall. People were looking on around them. Some amused by the spectacle and it sickened Shayne to her stomach. She was used to this kind of bullsh!t. But someone like Rita? The shock alone would be brutal as it was unfamiliar.

"Hey, look at me—right here. Breathe. That's it." Shayne bracketed her in, hands to her shoulders, fingers kneading the tense muscles as Rita gasped and panted, bent over and hyperventilating. "Don't let those assholes get to you, they're just—"

She'd barely caught her breath when Rita shrugged away. Hands busy—fussing with her hair, her purse, her blazer. "It's late and I've got what I need. I have to go."

Shayne took a large step back, giving her the space and distance she so clearly needed. "Yeah. Sure."

Wordless, eyes wheeling away from Shayne's face, Rita hit the curb and leapt into the first cab in the line stretched up the street, and without looking back, swung the door shut and was gone.

It shouldn't have hurt so much. Rita was married. Straight. Was as unavailable as unavailable could be. But it f*cking did. Sharp and jagged as a bone shard lodged where she was already bruised.

What the hell are you doing Shayne? What the f*cking hell are you doing?

Digging her cell out of her back pocket, she unlocked the screen and slid into her text messages. Located a new one from Bianca.

BiBi: Thinking about your lips... ;)

Shayne: Hey - 3am works. I'll keep door open.

**A/N**

I was so excited to get to this scene with Shay/Rita. I hope you guys enjoy the read and I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on the developing chemistry between them?

For those who are curious - the questions were lifted from an interesting article I'd read called 36 Questions to Fall in Love. Apparently it's the secret to falling in love with anyone.

You can check out the link to see the full questionnaire.

Enjoy the weekend

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/no-37-big-wedding-or-small.html?_r=0