With Love, from Cold World, page 22
“Marj isn’t coming,” she said. “Of fucking course. After I made so much pointless small talk with every Stetson grad in a clearance suit at her party. She barely acknowledged me.”
Kiki glanced up, seeming to notice her boss for the first time. “Oh, hello,” she said, waving her phone. “Sorry about that. Girlfriend troubles.”
“Are there any other kind,” Daniel said. Asa supposed it was the guy’s way of trying to show some sympathy, but the comment rankled nonetheless. Of course there were an infinite number of problems, including the inherent misogyny in Daniel’s own statement.
Or maybe what really rankled was the way Daniel had stepped closer to Lauren when he said that, putting his arm casually around her shoulders. As if she were his girlfriend. As if she were trouble.
“Uh,” Kiki said, voicing his thoughts aloud, “a ton of other kinds, actually.” She turned to Asa, deliberately cutting Daniel out of the conversation. “You want to go grab a drink at the bar? I could use one.”
“Sure,” Asa said, raising his eyebrow at Lauren. “Want to join?”
Next to them, Dolores and Daniel had started speaking in rapid Spanish, the conversation appearing to escalate quickly. Daniel had dropped his arm from around Lauren’s shoulders, or she’d sidestepped him again, but she was watching the exchange with a line between her brows.
Asa waited for her response, feeling more and more like a fool when it didn’t come. Even Kiki seemed to take pity on him, throwing out her own “Do you want us to get you anything?”
Lauren dragged her gaze away from Daniel long enough to give Kiki a distracted smile. “No, thanks.” Then she glanced at Asa, as if suddenly remembering something. “Actually, punch sounds good.”
Under different circumstances, Asa might’ve warned Lauren about just how strong the punch was. He couldn’t remember if he’d seen her drinking any in the previous years, but since he’d never seen her even close to tipsy, he doubted it. But she was already turning back to the conversation between Daniel and his mother, despite the fact that they were making no effort to even try to include Lauren. Asa would’ve expected that kind of rudeness from Daniel, but he was surprised at Dolores. It wasn’t like her, especially at a holiday party where she normally went overboard trying to ensure that the employees enjoyed themselves.
He and Kiki headed to the makeshift bar that had been set up in the corner that inevitably attracted a bunch of discarded jackets, piled up while people were skating and forgotten more often than you might think. Their lost and found looked like a Burlington Coat Factory had exploded. But for tonight, the caterers had set up a counter with a limited selection of beverages, and Asa ordered a beer and a cup of punch before turning to Kiki.
“I’ll have punch, too,” she said, and he added another cup to the order.
“I’m sorry,” the bartender said, giving him a polite smile, “but I’m only allowed to give one drink per person with valid ID.”
“Just two punches, then,” Asa said, sliding his driver’s license across the counter with a five-dollar bill as a tip. “Thanks.”
Kiki put her ID on the counter, too, and the bartender glanced at both before pouring the drinks.
“Can’t believe we’re getting carded!” Kiki said, sipping hers as they walked away. “What a time to be alive.”
“I’m sure they have to for liability reasons.” It was such a thing that Lauren would’ve said, had she been standing there, that Asa glanced back over in her direction. She was still standing with Dolores and Daniel, one arm at her side, the other crossed over her body to grasp her elbow. They still were deep in whatever debate they were having, and she looked uncomfortable but made no motion to leave.
“Okay,” Kiki said, “as your housemate and friend and a person with sight I demand to know. What is going on?”
Asa didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question. “Lauren won that date with Daniel,” he said. “It looks like they’re on it.”
“Then why are you getting her a drink,” Kiki said. “And why did I catch you with your hands all over—”
Asa shot her a glare, and she mimed a sarcastic zipping of her lips, which he could’ve pointed out she’d already pretended to do earlier and thrown out the key. Obviously he should’ve shaken her down for any spares.
“We’re friends,” he said. “I think.”
“I didn’t even know you liked each other. I thought you found each other annoying.”
Asa supposed that must’ve been true at some point, although it was so hard to remember. It had only been a few weeks, and already he had a hard time not thinking of Lauren the way he did now—someone who’d start a snowball fight at work, who used random number generator lists to get through her day, who’d listened to his most painful memories with so much compassion that he felt like he could tell her anything.
But of course he couldn’t. Because at this point, his biggest secret was probably just how much he did like her. The problem was that he couldn’t quite figure out how she felt. She was attracted to him—that part couldn’t just be in his head. But then there’d been her whole rant about not being capable of casual sex. Was that all she thought it was?
Asa took an automatic sip of the punch in his hand, making a face when he realized that yes, it was as strong as he remembered. It also wasn’t his. “Fuck,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
Kiki rolled her eyes. “I assume you and Lauren have swapped spit before, so it’s not like—” She broke off as Lauren came up to join them. “Hey! We were just talking about you. About your drink. Asa accidentally had some.”
“Oh,” Lauren said, her fingers brushing his as she accepted the plastic cup from him. “That’s okay.”
She took a tentative sip, then immediately started coughing. “Wow. It’s so . . . sweet.”
“It’s deadly,” Kiki said, tapping her cup against Lauren’s in a quick cheers. “Someone take my phone away, because after one of these I can’t be held responsible for anything I text Marj.”
Kiki started explaining to Lauren what she’d already told Asa, about how Marj had bailed on the holiday party at the last minute. Lauren made sympathetic noises in the right places, and it wasn’t long before they were huddled together and giggling over something on Kiki’s phone. Asa left to grab the beer he’d wanted, and by the time he got back, Lauren had somehow gotten monopolized by Daniel again, who was leading her away from Kiki and back over to Dolores.
After that, it was hard to keep track of where Lauren was at the party, because she seemed to move every five minutes. She was sitting on the bleachers next to Elliot, intent in conversation. She was laughing, trying to land a jingle bell in a cup for a chance to win a gift card. She was getting another drink. The band started playing “Last Christmas,” and she was dancing with Kiki.
There was something so endearing about the way Lauren danced. She seemed self-conscious at first, unsure of what to do with her arms. All her moves were in her shoulders, which she shimmied to the beat, doing a cute little head bang when the drums kicked in louder. He found himself smiling, raising his beer to John when his housemate looked up from his guitar solo. It was obvious he was playing the Jimmy Eat World version, but that was okay. Asa could be magnanimous.
By the time Dolores gathered everyone around the bleachers for the gift exchange, Asa was all keyed up. When she handed him his Santa hat, he almost didn’t know what to do with it.
“You’re still handing out, yes?” she asked.
Of course. As he’d done every year. Almost everyone ended up announcing themself when their gift was opened, but in the true spirit of the “secret” part, Asa distributed all the presents to their marked recipients to preserve anonymity. He grabbed one at random, reading Saulo’s name before tossing it to him.
“Hey,” Saulo said, catching the wrapped present. “This could’ve been that crystal snowman I had my eye on in the gift shop.”
But the package was clearly something soft, and Saulo made an exaggerated face of surprise when he opened up a pair of socks with pug faces all over them. “Just like my Chappie!” he said. “Okay, who got this?”
Sonia raised her hand. “I saw them and couldn’t resist.”
Most gifts were pretty spot-on, although Asa couldn’t help but notice that Marcus looked confused when he opened up his shrink-wrapped square of a gift.
“You can load your ten favorite songs on it,” Dolores said, beaming. “And keep it in your pocket to listen to them whenever you want. And it comes with a lanyard in case you want to wear it around your neck.”
“Cool,” Marcus said, instead of So like a minuscule fraction of what my phone already does. It was a Christmas miracle of maturity, coming from him.
Asa grabbed the next present, sloppily wrapped in Charlie Brown wrapping paper, his name written on the tag. “Oh,” he said, grinning. “Looks like it’s mine.”
He slid his finger along the taped seam, and he was just thinking that Lauren hadn’t taken as much of his wrapping tutorial to heart when he flipped it over to see what it was.
“Well?” Kiki demanded, trying to crane her neck to see.
The packaging advertised: Will Make Five Different Fart Noises! The button next to Squeezed Fart could be pushed through an opening in the plastic, next to a sticker that said Try Me! Asa pushed it and actually recoiled from the deep, wet sound that emanated from the gadget.
Well. He didn’t know what he had expected.
“It’s a Fart Maker!” Marcus called out. “They’re hilarious. You can prank all your friends with it. I figured you could get Kiki and, uh, all the other people who are . . . at this party . . . so now know about it. Okay, I didn’t think that part through, but the possibilities are endless.”
Asa glanced up, his gaze connecting immediately with Lauren’s. If he’d thought there’d been some kind of mistake, that Kiki had misunderstood Lauren having him for Secret Santa, the truth was written all over her face. She swallowed, looking down at her drink in her hand, then away.
“Thanks, man,” Asa said, pressing the button one more time for effect before sliding the gadget into his pocket. “And the next one goes to . . . Kiki!”
Saulo had gotten Kiki a gift card to a local coffee shop, always a safe choice. Dolores opened Kiki’s vintage-y flamingo ornament and seemed genuinely thrilled. Sonia gushed over a stack of romance novels from Lauren, which meant that Lauren must’ve traded names with Marcus sometime after Asa had done the same thing. He wondered about the exact timeline—whether Lauren had made the decision after the moment in his room, or after they’d gone ice skating with Eddie. Not that it mattered. The end result was the same.
And now they had reached the last present, and people were already starting to disperse while Lauren looked around, obviously trying to figure out where hers was. He had no idea what to do. The thought of giving her the gift he’d made, watching her open it in front of him, made his insides twist. It was too much, especially for someone who’d actively arranged it so she didn’t have to exchange gifts with him. At the same time, he couldn’t stand to see that look on her face, the disappointment behind the smile she gave to Kiki.
He could tell her he just forgot, and then find something little to give her next week at work. It’d be relatively easy to get her a gift card for a takeout place near work, or a pound of ground coffee. Something impersonal that he knew she’d like.
But then Kiki was pointing down at him, waving her cup until pink punch sloshed over the side. “Asa, you idiot, you didn’t bring Lauren’s present in! It’s still in John’s trunk!”
The next time he added anyone to a lease, he was adding provisions like Knock and actually wait for an invitation before entering a room and Keep your mouth shut about presents if the gift giver himself hasn’t mentioned them first.
“Yeah,” he said, trying to figure a way out of this one. “The only—”
Lauren set her cup down on the bleachers, skipping down them so fast she ran right into Asa. He caught her by the shoulders, the loose waves of her hair tickling his fingertips as she angled her head back to look up at him.
“I’ll come with you,” she said, breathless. “I could use some fresh air.”
He dropped his hands, shoving them into his pockets, where he immediately set off the Fart Maker.
“Not that kind of air,” she laughed, nudging him with her elbow.
The first chance he got, he was throwing the stupid thing away. “All right,” he said gruffly. “Give me a second to get John’s keys from him.”
Once Asa had the keys and no more excuses, he led Lauren out into the cold night air. The afternoon had been deceptively nice when the sun was out, but now that it was dark with nothing but a sliver of moon in the sky, the temperature had dropped considerably. Lauren hugged her arms around herself, and he wished he had a jacket to offer her.
“John’s such a good guitar player,” she said. “Guitarist? What’s the right word? Are they both right?”
He wouldn’t say Lauren was drunk yet, but from the flush on her cheeks and the fast, slightly louder than normal way she was talking, she was definitely a little past tipsy. “He used to be in another band,” he said. “They had that song, ‘If Only’? It was a while ago, but it still plays on the radio sometimes.”
“Oh my god,” Lauren said, stopping in her tracks. “I thought there was something familiar about him. I loved that song! And the singer—what was her name, it started with an M . . .”
“Micah,” Asa said. He hadn’t followed the band, but he’d looked them up after John had moved in. Once, he’d even mentioned Micah to John, but that was all it had taken to teach him not to do it again. The internet had several theories about why the band had broken up, but whatever the reason, it was clearly something John hadn’t wanted to get into. Now he played in a glorified bar band and kept to himself, and Asa respected those boundaries.
“Yes!” She shook her head, shivering a little. “God, that’s really cool. Imagine doing something like that. My biggest dream is to be an accountant.”
“Well, that’s cool, too. And you’re doing it.”
She kicked a bottle cap on the ground. “Not really. I’m a bookkeeper. Which is fine, but I want to go into business for myself. Get my CPA license, do the big-picture stuff for a bunch of different companies and people, not just the smaller-picture stuff for one.” She bent down to pick up the bottle cap, sticking it in her pocket. “I hate litter. And I’m rambling. And I’m boring myself, and probably you. Sorry!”
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.”
