“Of course,” Dolores said. “Daniel told me. I asked him to check in with you, to see if you needed the security code, but he said you told him you were fine. Obviously I would appreciate if you didn’t make a habit of staying here after hours, but I trust you and Asa. If that’s what you felt you needed to do to put together your presentation.”
And then Dolores winked at her—winked. Like “put together your presentation” was just a euphemism for something else. Lauren didn’t know if she was going to burst into flames of embarrassment or start hysterically giggling. The only thing that stopped her from doing both was that at least she knew there were no cameras in her office, so Dolores couldn’t know just what a euphemism that was. She also realized Asa had been right all along. Of course Dolores knew. And she didn’t care. Nobody cared. Except Lauren, and she’d messed everything up.
Lauren’s head was still spinning when she turned back to Eddie and his mom, who were kneeling down in the snow, trying to take a selfie next to a lumpy snowman Eddie must’ve built. Lauren rushed over, reaching for Ms. Ramirez’s phone.
“Here,” she said. “Let me.”
* * *
? ? ?
After Eddie and his mom left, Lauren went everywhere, looking for Asa. He wasn’t at the rink where she’d last seen him. He wasn’t in the break room, or the gift shop, or the coffee stand. He wasn’t even outside, where some of the other employees took their smoke breaks and where he could sometimes be found if he was keeping one of them company. That was the last place she looked, so sure she’d find him there she could picture him—in the middle of laughing at something Marcus said, kicking at the gravel of the parking lot, looking up when he heard the door, his eyes turning to pinpoints of an almost black when he saw her. Would he be welcoming? Or distant, angry? She didn’t know. She just knew she needed to talk to him.
Lauren was checking out the break room one more time when Kiki came behind her.
“He went home.”
Lauren spun around. “What?”
Kiki reached to open the fridge, taking out a LaCroix she’d labeled with a piece of masking tape and a bold note written in Sharpie—KIKI’S—TOUCH UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH! “He left for the day.”
“But I thought his shift ended at eight.” Not that Lauren had memorized his schedule, double-checked it on the board earlier.
Kiki shrugged. “Said he wasn’t feeling well.”
That wasn’t like Asa. Lauren tried to remember a time when he’d called out sick to work, and couldn’t think of one. There’d been a flu going around—was it possible he’d caught it? Or maybe food poisoning? Personally, she didn’t trust the hot dogs at Cold World because she’d seen them get left in a vat of water all day and then reheated the next morning. “Is he okay?” Lauren asked. “I mean, does he need—”
Kiki snorted at the same time she took a sip of her LaCroix, which couldn’t have felt great for her nose. “What do you think? No, he’s not okay. You broke his heart, Lauren.”
“I didn’t.”
Kiki rolled her eyes so hard it looked like it physically hurt. “Okay.”
“He broke up with me!” Lauren said. How was it possible for her to break his heart when it had been the other way around?
“I’m really not looking to get in the middle of it,” Kiki said. “I want to be your friend, obviously I’m still his friend, but all I’ll say is that your stories don’t match.”
“He said he couldn’t do it anymore!” Lauren said, feeling the corners of her eyes burn even at the memory of those words. She didn’t know what Asa was telling his housemates, but she remembered that part very clearly.
“Oh my god.” Kiki set her drink down on the table, as if she needed full use of her hands to have this discussion. “It would be hilarious, what clowns you both are, if it weren’t for the fact that you’re both miserable to be around. He meant he didn’t want to hide with you anymore, Lauren. Think about it. He spent years hiding relationships from his dad. He loved you, he wanted to be with you, he just wanted you to acknowledge it.”
Lauren rewound through the conversation in her head. She was ashamed that it hadn’t even occurred to her, that part about his dad. He’d never seen any need for them to hide their relationship at work, but he’d gone along with it, because she’d said it made her more comfortable. He hadn’t said how uncomfortable it made him, but she should’ve seen it.
“Why didn’t he just say that?” Lauren asked, her voice small.
“Because you were rushing to tell him just how fine it all was! And how, by the way, his job isn’t going anywhere. And how you only dated for a week, so it should all be fine, right?”
Wow, Asa really had told Kiki everything. Thinking back on that conversation through that lens, she saw how awful it all sounded. How cold she’d been. How she’d shut down, and shut him out.
“I thought . . .”
Lauren wanted to finish that sentence, but Kiki was staring at her with such compassion that she had a hard time forming words around the lump in her throat. Kiki, who’d questioned her choice to keep the relationship secret in the first place. Kiki, who had loyalty to Asa before she’d even met Lauren, and who had every right to hate her now.
“You thought he was rejecting you,” Kiki said, giving Lauren’s shoulder a squeeze. “And you wanted to make sure he knew that he couldn’t hurt you, that you’d already expected the rejection.”
Lauren let out a very ungraceful hiccup, wiping the back of her hand across her nose. She didn’t even want to think about what a wreck her face must look like.
“But don’t you hear how fucking asinine that sounds?” Kiki said. “People want to show up for you, Lauren Fox. You have to let them.”
“I know,” Lauren said, even if she wasn’t sure she did know. “But what if . . .”
What if they don’t. What if it’s too late now. What if what if what if.
“Then you show up for yourself,” Kiki said with a crooked smile. “Bloom where you’re planted.”
It took Lauren a minute to realize Kiki was referencing that coffee mug she’d given her, back when Lauren had first started at Cold World. She gave a phlegmy laugh that probably sounded disgusting. “Bloom. Okay, I’ll try.”
“So?” Kiki said. “You coming over?”
Lauren almost said yes. She didn’t want to waste another minute. But she’d also made such a colossal mess of everything that she worried it wouldn’t be enough, just telling him that she wanted him back, that she wanted to be better this time. She had to show him.
“I actually have an idea,” she said. “But I’m going to need your help.”
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
Asa slumped down in the passenger seat of John’s car. He had the worst headache and the last thing he wanted to do was go to a party.
“How long do we have to stay?”
Kiki leaned up from the back seat, sticking her face right next to Asa’s. “You know you’ll have fun once you get there,” she said, and he winced from how loud and close her voice sounded. At least Elliot seemed to take some pity on him, because they pulled Kiki back, muttering something Asa couldn’t catch.
John glanced over at him. “We’ll leave as soon as you want to,” he said.
Asa knew that the minute he got there, he’d probably feel too guilty to actually pull his friends away if they were having a good time. Someone deserved to enjoy New Year’s Eve, after all. But it meant a lot that John would even offer—and Asa knew his housemate was as good as his word. If John said he’d get him out of there, he would.
“Thanks,” he said, leaning his head back against the seat.
He wondered what Lauren was doing at that exact moment. Knowing her, she was probably organizing her closet again. Writing down lists of her resolutions for the year. Reading one last book to get in under the wire on her Goodreads goal. He almost smiled at the thought, before he remembered that he had no right to smile at anything she did anymore. Whatever she was doing, it was without him.
He pulled his phone out, started to click on their last text exchange before putting the phone back in his pocket. He didn’t know why he was torturing himself. Maybe he’d text her Happy New Year at midnight. That was allowed, right? The same message he sent to a dozen random colleagues and acquaintances.