"You can admit that you're jealous of me."
False blinks up from her phone. "What?"
Gem slides past where she's sat on a stool beside the kitchen island, and opens the fridge.
"It's okay." The red head throws a tight lipped smile over her shoulder to False, then turns back to rifle around the fridge. "You don't have to pretend you're not. I get it, I'd be jealous too if I was you."
False's heart begins to race. She's honestly got not a clue about what Gem is referring to, but still she feels like she's just been caught, exposed. Like a child whose parents just found them stealing cookies from the cookie jar.
"I'm sorry?" she finally manages to croak out.
Gem sighs and closes the fridge. She reaches across the island and pats the hand False has resting against the countertop.
"False- Katy," Gem begins. Her tone immediately irks False. Slow, gentle and dripping in sympathy. It's as if she's talking to a little kid, not her coworker, a grown woman older than her. "Katy, I've seen the way you look at me and Charlie. I know you want what we have. And I'm not trying to get you to confess or anything, but please, it's just so obvious."
The distant chatter of the guys hanging out in the living room is swallowed by the sound of blood rushing in False's ears. Gem is talking nonsense. Absolute nonsense. But then why does False feel so guilty? Why does Ren's face fill her mind? "Gem I don't-"
Gem sighs again, this time sounding a whole less disappointed. It's a content sigh, at least False thinks it is, but she doesn't really trust her social deduction skills with the way her and Gem's conversation has been going so far.
Grian calls, or more like whines, Gem's name again from the living room.
"Look, I think you're confu-" False begins.
"Hey, I'm rooting for you. And Ren." She gently gives False's hand a squeeze. "Just... Me and Charlie are special. Don't let the jealousy eat you, consume you. Make do, with what you have and what you might get... With Ren, I mean."
And then Gem is gone, False left frozen in her wake, in an empty kitchen, with an empty heart.
