They’d reached John’s Camry, and it was only getting colder, but Asa was putting off the moment when he had to open the trunk for as long as possible. He jangled the keys in his hand. “You’re not boring me.”
“That’s right, you like to hear about people’s dreams.”
The wind blew her hair across her mouth, and she tossed her head, giving a little laugh. He wondered what she would do if he cradled her face in his hands and kissed her. Soft, hard, every which way he could get his mouth on hers.
He wished he could ask her why she’d traded his name away for Secret Santa. But he wasn’t even supposed to know she’d had him in the first place, and he didn’t really want to get into how he’d traded, too.
“You said once that you’d quit,” Asa said, “if nothing happened with your proposal to improve Cold World. Do you still feel that way?”
“Probably.” She laughed again, but this time there was a manic edge to it. “I guess I should pack up my desk, huh? Considering it’s almost Christmas and I don’t even have an idea yet. Not one! Zip! A not-so-randomly-generated big fat zero.”
She brought her hand up to her face in a circle that he supposed was meant to convey the big fat zero in question, but soon she was pressing her fingertips to the area around her eyes. “My glasses,” she said. “Where are my glasses?”
He circled her wrists with his hands, gently dragging her hands away from her face before she poked herself in the eye. “I think you left them at home,” he said. “You must be wearing contacts.”
“Well?” she demanded. “Am I?”
The parking lot was well lit, between the streetlights and the neon glow from neighboring businesses. Asa leaned in, studying the slim ring around Lauren’s dark irises. “Yes,” he said. “Definitely.”
“That’s right,” she said, nodding like he’d just passed a test. “Lauren Fox wears glasses. Lauren Fox would never even joke about leaving a job until she had another one all lined up.”
“Lauren Fox talks about herself in the third person?”
“She would never try the punch, or dance. If you’d told Lauren Fox a month ago she’d have a date with Daniel Alvarez, she would’ve snuck into the bathroom to dry-heave over the toilet.”
He wanted to say that an inclination to vomit seemed about right around Daniel, but he didn’t trust himself to get the words out in a way that didn’t sound petty or jealous or both.
“You said it yourself,” she continued. “If it’s not fun, don’t do it. That’s my new motto, too! Being that Lauren Fox was exhausting. This way is so much better. Look, I’m not even wearing my necklace anymore.”
She tapped her bare collarbone, goose bumps visible on her skin from the crisp bite of the air. He’d noticed she wasn’t wearing it, but he hadn’t put any particular significance behind the choice, any more than he’d thought she’d just been in a contacts mood instead of a glasses one.
“Time to let go of the past,” she said. “And stop worrying about the future.”
Something about Lauren’s words didn’t sit right with him, or maybe it was the desperate undertone to her voice. It came off less like she was running toward something and more like she was running away. If she truly felt empowered, he’d cheer her on, but none of it sounded like her. “There’s nothing wrong with wearing a necklace that means something to you,” he said. “Or taking your future seriously, for that matter. There’s nothing wrong with being Lauren Fox.”
“Well,” she said, rubbing her upper arms. “I’m having a perfectly good time at the party without her, just living in the here and now. And speaking of, the here and now is freezing, so . . .”
He looked down at the keys in his hand. He’d almost forgotten why they’d come out in the first place, and their conversation had only made it that much more clear that there was no way he could give Lauren the present he’d made. It had definitely not been designed with an eye to forget the past, or ignore the future.
Reluctantly, he opened the trunk, reaching toward the back . . .
Where, at the last minute, he grabbed a bottle of coolant, peeling off the stick-on bow from the wrapped present and sticking it on the side of the plastic bottle with such sleight of hand he hoped Lauren wouldn’t clock it.
“Here you go,” he said, handing it to her and closing the trunk behind him. “If your car ever overheats, you know. You’ll be covered.”
She stared down at the bottle as if he’d just handed her a jar with a human brain inside. “It’s . . . antifreeze.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s half-empty.”
“Or half-full, depending on your perspective,” he said. God, this was painful. Maybe even worse than if he’d just given her the damn present. He suddenly felt like the whole party had been the worst idea he’d ever had, that he should’ve just stayed home and watched Netflix and gone to bed early.
And then she seemed to realize that her reaction might be rude, and that was even worse. Because he could see when the mask came down over her face, when she decided to smile and be polite the way Marcus had with the ten-song pocket gadget from Dolores.
“Thanks,” she said. “I guess I’ll just . . . drop this off at my car before we head back in.”
She didn’t bother unlocking her car, just set the bottle on top of her trunk like she knew it would be sitting right there waiting for her when she came back out. Dolores was always good about calling rideshares for anyone who needed one, and Lauren didn’t strike him as someone who’d even try to drive home after drinking, so she probably intended to leave the coolant there until she could collect her car the next day. Maybe it was less that she didn’t think it’d be taken and more like she didn’t care if it was.
When they came back through the front door, Asa was taken aback by the sudden cheers and applause, like they were walking into a surprise party. It took him only a few seconds to realize that someone had hung mistletoe over the door, and once again he and Lauren had gotten caught under it.
Chapter
Nineteen
It turned out that Lauren’s strategy at the beginning of the night of looking at herself in the mirror and repeating you are fun you will have fun wasn’t as effective as she’d thought it would be. She’d tried. Her time talking with Elliot and Kiki and other coworkers she normally didn’t interact with had been genuinely enjoyable, and after the first punch at least she’d felt loose and buzzy. She’d barely gotten a chance to talk with Asa, but she’d figured the night was young.
But Secret Santa had been a disaster, and she couldn’t even put her finger on why. She had a guilty pit in her stomach about not keeping Asa’s name, and then had been surprised he’d apparently drawn her name, too. It wasn’t like she’d expected anything big or super personal, but used coolant? After his speech about how wrapped gifts were more special, he’d only stuck a sloppy bow on it. That had to be a message.
And now they were under the mistletoe again, and Lauren had no idea what to do. Fun Lauren would definitely kiss him. Every version of Lauren wanted to kiss him. But apparently an entire personality change wasn’t possible just from the removal of glasses and a necklace, and the addition of some glittery eye shadow and some lethal punch. She wasn’t brave enough to make a move.
Asa reached up, the stretch lifting his shirt to reveal the tiniest sliver of bare skin at his stomach, and snatched the mistletoe off the top of the door. “This is a work party,” he said to the crowd. He shoved the mistletoe in his pocket, setting off the Fart Maker again. “Jesus,” he muttered under his breath, and somehow Lauren didn’t think he was reminding himself of the reason for the season.