Page 44 of The Hang Up
“I know.” He squeezed his sister’s knee as his heart did the same in his chest. “I’m hopeful, too.”
“So back to your girlfriend?—”
“She’snotmy girlfriend,” Jason said, a little surprised by the vehemence in his own words. But Miriam had seemed pretty certain about the whole no-strings-attached thing, hadn’t she?
“This was fun, but I’m not looking for anything more, okay?” she’d told him that night as they’d said good-bye at her front door.
“Right,” Jason had said, wondering why the words stung even though he’d had the same damn thought not ten minutes before as they finished up the dishes. “So I’ll see you around.”
“Absolutely. Text me and let me know how the dinner event goes.”
The dinner, not the climb. He’d wondered if it was a deliberate choice, her unwillingness to hear anything about an activity that clearly made her nervous. Or maybe it was just logical that if he texted after the dinner, she’d know he’d survived both without incident.
Either way, the thought that she cared about him left him with a warm feeling in the center of his chest.
“You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?” Ellie nudged him with her elbow.
Jason frowned at his sister. “What, you’re telepathic now?”
“I can just tell. You get this funny little smile like someone’s diddling you under the dinner table.”
“Very nice,” he said. “And people think I’m the one who lacks class.”
“How’d that go, by the way? Your dinner the other night with all those executives.”
“Really well,” Jason admitted. “Miriam’s lessons helped me not to do anything embarrassing like eating with the wrong fork or tucking my napkin in the front of my shirt.”
“Sounds like she really helped you out.”
He didn’t take the bait, despite the suggestive note in her voice. Instead, he watched Henry, who’d given up on the spinny thing and was busy picking dandelions from the grassy patch beside the playground.
“So are you going to see her again?”
“Who?”
“You know who, you big dork.” Ellie slugged him in the shoulder again. “Miriam, of course.”
Yeah, all right. He’d known what she meant. Hearing her name—even from his sister’s lips—sent him smiling again like an idiot. Maybe Ellie had a point.
“We’re meeting with them again next week to go over some scaled-down ideas for the rebrand,” Jason said. “The board is still on the fence about how to proceed, in light of the current financial challenges.”
“You gave ’em hell, right? About their stupid idea to lay off all those people?”
“Yeah, I did.”
He definitely had, not that he’d made any headway. Besides spelling out his case in the board meeting this week, he’d mixed, mingled, and schmoozed like a pro at the dinner last weekend, trying to get his point across to the board members over canapés and crudités.
For all the good it had done.
“We’re considering all our options at this point,” Jack Wainswright had told him elusively, making Jason want to slam the guy’s head in a car door.
“So, do you think you’ll see Miriam again outside work?” Ellie asked, never one to let a subject drop.
“I don’t know. I texted her Sunday to let her know things went well with the dinner and the mountain climb. Sounded like she had a pretty busy week lined up.”
“Did you try asking her out?”
“No. It’s not like that, El.”
