Okay, objectively, Lauren was beautiful. Maybe her glasses kept Daniel from seeing it, like she was a character in a teen rom-com. Her hair was dark and shiny, hanging just past her shoulders and sweeping across her forehead in bangs that Asa happened to know from overhearing her talk to Kiki that she regretted and was trying to grow out. It made her reach up to push them out of her eyes all the time, a gesture that Asa tried not to find endearing. Earlier, when he’d seen her put her hand in her mouth and suck, he’d felt a jolt of awareness so unexpected he’d almost fallen off the bleacher.
His gaze dropped to her hand now, and he frowned. “You should put some cool water on that,” he said.
“What?”
“Your skin’s all red.” He let out a huff of a laugh at her confused expression. “When you were so stricken by Daniel’s macho charisma that you spilled coffee on yourself?”
“I . . . wasn’t.”
“Hey,” Asa said, holding up his hands. “No shame in that game. I mean, except that it shows you have incredibly shallow taste. I’ve dated some douchey dudes, but even I can tell you to watch out for the ones who only make eye contact when they want something.”
It was a test. Asa didn’t know if Lauren already knew he was bisexual, from talking to Kiki, or if now she’d assume he was gay. And he didn’t know why it mattered, suddenly, but he’d dropped it into the conversation just to see how she would react.
“When I’m desperate enough to want dating advice from you,” Lauren said acidly, “I’ll be sure to let you know.”
He had a retort about just how desperate she seemed every time she got around Daniel, but it died on his lips. Maybe it was because he’d basically just come out to her, and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she’d taken it in stride, volleying back one of her usual insults without missing a beat.
Or maybe it was the memory of the way her face had brightened in that brief moment after Daniel had asked her out, that naked hope that had made her eyes spark. She didn’t look like that very often. Asa hadn’t even noticed, like living through years of gray skies, until one day the sun came out.
She stood up, still clutching her coffee mug in her clenched hand, and after a beat, Asa stood, too, and followed.
“We should work together,” he said.
“No.”
Two maintenance workers were crouched down in front of the bank of vending machines in the back hallway from the ice rink to the lobby, and he cut in front of Lauren as they went down to single file to get through the narrow space.
“You heard Dolores,” he said. “She doesn’t want half-baked ideas.”
“Mine won’t be half-baked.”
“But Dolores is right—I know this place.” He’d turned to face her, and she almost ran right into him. He put a hand out, as if to steady her, then dropped it back to his side. “Like we sell more boiled peanuts on the weekends than we do hot pretzels, but more pretzels during the week. Seriously. It’s a phenomenon.”
“So publish in a peer-reviewed journal,” Lauren said, moving impatiently to try to get past him. “I don’t think that bit of trivia is going to revolutionize Cold World.”
He mirrored her action, stepping back into her path.
“Can’t hurt.”
She put one hand on her hip, glaring up at him until he moved aside to let her through. “I know stuff, too,” she said as she strode off ahead. For someone a head shorter than him, she walked fast. He picked up his pace to stay close enough where he could hear her supposed superior knowledge. This should be priceless.
“Oh yeah?”
“Do you know how much money we’ve made from switching from plastic bags to reusable totes people buy in the gift shop? And it’s better for the environment.”
“Ah,” Asa said. “But do you know how many dads I see walking around, trying to juggle handfuls of stuff their families bought while getting the full Cold World experience? Bet they’d leave better reviews if they’d had a nice, free bag to put that stuff in.”
He didn’t even know what he was saying at this point. He had nothing against the reusable tote initiative, which had been one of Lauren’s pet projects this year. They’d reached her office, which he hadn’t been in since the day he messed with her chair. He couldn’t even remember at this point what had inspired him to do it.
She was sitting in that chair now, pushing into her desk and already focused on her computer screen, as if she simply had too much important work to do to give him one more second of her time. “I know exactly why you want to work together,” Lauren said, “and I’ve carried the weight of enough slackers doing group projects in school. No, thank you.”
The word slacker blinked in the air between them like a neon sign, and she still wasn’t looking at him. At this point, Asa was already regretting his impulsive decision to suggest partnering with Lauren. He wouldn’t want to deal with this shit all month. At the same time, he was damned if he was going to retreat now.
“You didn’t seem as opposed to working with Daniel.”
“Maybe if you were as respectful in the way you asked . . .” She lifted a shoulder, as if it couldn’t be helped. She lifted her coffee cup to take a sip, and he took a perverse delight when she made a face at the surprise of only getting cold dregs.
“Personally, if I were as respectful as Daniel, I wouldn’t sit front and center at a staff meeting if I planned to be on my phone the whole time.”
He’d landed one there. He could tell by the way her mouth pinched together. Finally, she gave up the pretense of getting back to work and leaned back in her chair, looking up at him. From this angle, he could see the slight shadow at her V-neck top, the delicate silver rose pendant she always wore resting against the pale skin of her throat. He glanced around the office instead, taking it in.
It was small and utilitarian. She’d been there two years, but she didn’t appear to have personalized the space at all, unless you counted the colored Post-its at the bottom of her computer monitor with scribbled reminders or the yellow legal pad where she was keeping some kind of list. Otherwise, it was a filing cabinet, her desk, and a single fake plant in the corner that he knew had been there since before he’d been hired ten years ago. The only nod to any wall art was a framed poster of an almost offensively generic winter scene, and somehow Asa knew that she hadn’t selected that, either.
“Why do you want to work together, anyway?” Lauren asked. “It’s pretty obvious that there’s no . . . I mean, that we don’t . . .”
She didn’t finish her thoughts, but she didn’t have to. There’s no love lost between us or we don’t get along. Either was true.
“I’m a naturally collaborative person,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow, as though she doubted that very much. “Well, I’m a naturally competitive person,” she said. “And there has to be something in it for the winner of this little contest. A bonus, a promotion, a new title, something.”
That caught his attention. “Why do you say that?”
“Think about it. Why not open this up to more people? Dolores could have even more ideas to choose from. She selected the three of us because we’re basically her short list for whatever this thing is.”
“But why ask Daniel, then?” Asa pointed out, bracing himself against her desk. “What title can the Crown Prince of Cold World get promoted to?”
She chewed on her lower lip, as if really considering this question. His gaze dropped of its own accord to her mouth—what was wrong with him?—before landing on the notepad with her scratchy handwriting on it. 3 call re lscaping quote, 1 update vendor ss A-C, 4 cat pants . . .
Her hand came down on the notepad, dragging it back toward her where he could no longer read it. He had no idea what to even make of such a cryptic list. Cat pants?
“I really do have a lot to do,” she said, one hand still covering the notepad, the other double-clicking something on her computer. He’d be willing to bet she was just opening and closing random folders until he left. Which he really should do—he’d come in early for the meeting but wasn’t actually on shift for hours. He had time to run home and take a quick nap. The thought had seemed appealing when he woke up hours before his usual alarm, but now he was feeling wired and sleep was the last thing on his mind.