Lauren dug in her purse and pulled out her phone, stepping away to make the call. He was surprised by just how much he missed the nearness of her. He knew she was distracted by the logistics of this situation, and she’d be back to hating him any minute, but for now he was relieved she was at least talking to him again.
He should be irritated with her. It was her fault the door was closed, after all, and he had definitely not planned to spend his night at Cold World after working a long day. But somehow he couldn’t manage it. He found himself courting a fuck it, whatever happens happens attitude, which almost never boded well.
She was at the other end of the hall now, the phone pressed to her ear. He could make out bits and pieces of her conversation, but not enough to know if she was making any progress. Already the call with Daniel was lasting longer than he’d expected, he’d give the bastard that. He inched a little closer. It wasn’t eavesdropping if they were both in a shared space, right?
“I totally understand,” she was saying. “It was a long shot. I—” She broke off, and he couldn’t help but notice how tense her body language was—her shoulders curved inward, her fingers tight around the phone. It was completely at odds with the light, breezy tone she was obviously striving for on the call. “No, no, of course. It sounds like Dolores really needs you there.”
Lauren paused, listening. “Oh,” she said finally. “Sure. I guess I could—but I’m not sure that you’d understand what the—”
She turned, giving Asa a little frown. Busted. He tried to raise his eyebrows in a Well? Is Daniel coming? expression, even though it was clear by now that he wasn’t.
“Yes,” she said finally, sounding more decisive. “I’ll email them to you. Okay. You—”
She held the phone away from her ear, looking down at it as if to verify that the call had dropped. When she looked up, she gave Asa a brittle smile. “Well,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to break out the flashlights. Do you know Morse code?”
“With all due respect,” Asa said, “that seems like something you would know.”
She furrowed her brow, like she was trying to figure that one out, before shoving her phone back in her purse. She folded the papers she’d been holding into a crooked, messy square, obviously not caring how crinkled they got.
“What are you doing here after hours? Why did you prop the door open?”
“I told you,” he said. “I had an idea. I wanted to see if I could make it work.”
He could tell she was dying to ask what the idea was. And in the mood he was in, he just might tell her. But he could also tell that it was the same moment she remembered their conversation in her office earlier, the way it had ended.
She glanced at her watch. She was the only person he knew who still wore one, but it fit her. He had a feeling she liked to know exactly what time it was no matter what she was doing, was the kind of person who would check a movie’s runtime to know what she was getting into before agreeing to see it.
“They should be done with dinner around eleven,” she said. “So maybe Daniel will be able to come then. If not, we’ll figure something else out. We definitely can’t stay here all night.”
She looked at him, as if for confirmation, but it took him a second to catch up. “No,” he said after a beat. “Definitely not.”
She was still staring at him, as if expecting something more. He wasn’t sure what that might be, so he just stared back.
“I’ll be in my office,” she said finally, turning on her heel.
He figured he might as well go back to trying to get the snow machine to work. If they were trapped in the building for the next couple of hours, there was nothing to be done about it now—until they heard whether Daniel was going to drive out or not. Asa wasn’t holding his breath. But he understood Lauren’s point about not wanting to interrupt Dolores’ dinner. He didn’t particularly relish having to explain to his boss why he’d been here in the first place.
The machine they’d bought years ago looked almost like a movie projector, connected to a reservoir of water. It was supposed to shoot very cold, atomized water into the air, which would then freeze into something resembling an actual snowflake. The problem was that, no matter how cold they kept the Snow Globe, it wasn’t quite that cold, and the water couldn’t freeze fast enough to keep up. This, apparently, was a common issue with the machine according to the online reviews, which Asa found out only after Dolores had already brought it back from the trade show.
He did find one video, though, where a guy filming a web series in California figured out how to re-jig the machine with a fabric filter and a special dry bubble mixture. The “snow” was essentially tiny bubbles, but it might work. They already had the colder stuff on the ground, after all, and only needed a little bit of falling snow to create an effect.
Of course, they sold other equipment that was built specifically for that purpose. But he knew that Dolores wouldn’t be impressed if his proposal was simply Buy new stuff, so he was determined to make this conversion work. He’d made the bubble mixture at home based on the video’s instructions, and now all that was left was to put it all together and see what happened.
He carried a ladder from the utility closet into the Snow Globe, crushing its legs down into the snow to try to stabilize it before climbing up and carefully setting the snow machine on top. He didn’t love the way the extension cord was stretched across to the back wall, but it would have to do for now until he saw if this could be rigged up more permanently.
Holding his breath, he clicked the on switch.
Nothing. Not even a reluctant churn to suggest the machine had turned on and was trying to work.
He clicked the switch back to the off position, counting to five in his head before flicking it back on. As though that would make any difference. The machine still didn’t even make a sound.
“Fuck!” He clenched his fists, but he stopped just short of shaking the ladder in frustration. Breaking the machine further wouldn’t do anything, even if it was already busted to begin with.
He just wanted something to go right for once.
“What are you doing?”
Lauren’s voice from behind him almost made him fall off the ladder. He squared his shoulders and steadied himself before he climbed down and faced her.
“Nothing,” he said. “Any word from Daniel?”
“It’s only been fifteen minutes.”
“Oh. Right.” He ran his hand through his hair, and she tracked the motion. There was an odd, tense beat where she just stood there, hugging her arms around herself against the cold. She’d put on her usual cardigan over the red dress, a drab shroud over the vibrant color, and he found himself wishing she’d take it off. Not just because he wanted to see her bare shoulders again—although he had to admit that was part of it—but because he liked the idea that she might not always have to be buttoned up and hidden away around him.
Of course, that was ridiculous. She was cold. She’d put on her sweater. They were barely friends, not much more than colleagues. There was no reason to read anything more into it than that.
“So why are you here?” he asked. It came out harsher than he’d intended, but then, he couldn’t help but flash back to her words earlier that day. She’d told him to stop, and that was what he’d vowed to do. No more mentioning working together, either as a joke or in seriousness, no more pestering her for information, no more teasing her, no more trying to spend time with her outside of work.
Being trapped inside Cold World with her was really going to complicate matters.
“You’re trying to get it to snow.”
Not an answer to his question, but clearly as close as he was going to get. He gestured futilely toward the ladder. “I thought I’d found a way to rig something up, but if the machine wasn’t a dud before, it definitely is now that I’ve tinkered with it. It wouldn’t even turn on.”
Her gaze followed the extension cord stretched across the space. He expected a lecture on safety, but eventually she just said, “Maybe it’s the outlet.”