Page 31 of With Love, from Cold World
“Look,” Kiki said, apparently reading Lauren’s troubled expression in the mirror. “Asa is fickle. Not about his friends—he’s loyal to a fault. But in relationships? I don’t think I’ve known him to date someone for longer than two months. And it’s not like he has sterling judgment. He hooked up with one chick who stole money right out of his wallet. And the guy he dated last year kept talking about how brilliantAmerican Psychowas. Talk about a huge red flag. So if he gives you any shit for wanting to be with Daniel, ignore him. I doubtDaniel’s read a book in his life, but at least he’s not anAmerican Psychostan.”
Lauren gave a halfhearted laugh. Kiki’s words should ease at least the worry that Asa had room to judge her for being shallow, or foolish, for treating this chance with Daniel as a real possibility. But they didn’t. If anything, they only made her feel more unsettled. That wordficklehad wormed its way into her stomach and flipped over. She didn’t like the idea of Asa dating other people.
And Lauren found she really didn’t like the idea of these other people potentially treating him badly, stealing from him or being... whatever kind of asshole Kiki seemed to believe would loveAmerican Psycho.
Lauren’s longest relationship had ended just over two years ago, and he hadn’t been terrible. He just hadn’t been...the one, either. She honestly couldn’t remember who’d broken up with who, because it had felt so inevitable by the time they’d had the big conversation about it. Lauren had moved into the apartment she had now, applied at Cold World, and only dated a few people here and there in the years since.
She tried to think of the last time she’d had sex. There’d been a guy she’d seen more than once, and they’d gone back to his place after their third date. In the end, she couldn’t go through with it—it just hadn’t felt right, sleeping with someone she didn’t know that well yet. They’d made out a little and then she’d gone home. He’d never called her again, a fact which had piqued her on principle but not really broken her heart.
Not that she was going tohave sexwith Daniel tonight. God, the idea was absurd, Kiki’s “special underwear” advice or no.
“Doyoulike Daniel?” Lauren asked.
Kiki’s gaze slid away from hers. “I’m probably a bad person to ask,” she said. “I don’t like many men, my housemates excluded. But Daniel seems... fine. He owns his own condo, I think. That’s pretty cool.”
Lauren immediately thought of how much it was probably mortgaged, and how high the condo fees could be, but then shut down that train of thought. She didn’t know why she was like this—always looking for the negative side, always nitpicking things. She knew in her heart that Daniel probably wouldn’t give her the time of day if he didn’t want the report from her. It still wasn’t going to stop her from trying to just enjoy herself tonight.
Shit, the report. Lauren glanced at her watch and saw that it was close to Cold World’s closing time. She’d probably lost the opportunity to make any adjustments to her report for Daniel, but at least she should have time to print it if she left now.
“Again,” she said to Kiki. “Thank you so much for the makeover. I’m sorry I didn’t bring my contacts so we could get the full movie experience.”
Kiki waved her hand. “Laney Boggs looked hotter before, and I’ll die on that hill. And you pull off the red way better.”
That sounded like gibberish to Lauren, but she took it for the compliment it was. She folded up her old clothes, clutching them to her chest as she left, saying goodbye to Elliot and John, who was making cheese toast in the kitchen.
“If you hang out another fifteen minutes,” John said, “Asa should be home.”
“Oh, I’m not—” Lauren stopped in the act of explaining. It would be too much to get out, and would make it seem likeshe was protesting too much. She glanced at the refrigerator automatically, wondering if her juvenile little note would still be there. It wasn’t.
Well, she hadn’t expected Asa to want it up for long. There was something else in its place, an invitation with dancing sock monkeys on it, but she didn’t have time to look closer. She made her apologies to John for having to run out and left.
She drove as fast as she could without breaking any traffic laws, but still when she got to Cold World the sign had been turned off, and the parking lot was empty.
“Shit,” she muttered to herself. “Shit, shit, shit.”
She was never there at closing time, but she’d hoped that it would take longer to finish up the cleaning and setting everything to rights. Maybe Marcus was on duty, and he was doing his early mop again. It would be just her luck.
Except Asa had also worked the closing shift, and she hadn’t seen him arrive back at the house. So if they’d closed, it would have to be extremely recent. She parked her car and got out, circling around the back of the building to the fenced area where the dumpsters were. Sure enough, there was a single door propped open an inch. She slid through it, hesitating only a second before removing the brick that had held it open and letting it softly close shut. Even if the open door wasn’t immediately visible to anyone passing by, it couldn’t be a good idea to just leave it open like that.
She’d print three copies of the report and be out of there just in time to drive to the other side of town where Dolores lived.
Chapter
Ten
Asa lifted one earbud out of his ear, tilting his head to listen. He could’ve sworn he heard something, but maybe he was being paranoid. It wasn’t every day that he stayed late at Cold World with a clandestine mission, after all.
Just to be safe, he carefully set down the faux snow machine he’d been carrying on the hallway floor, stepping over it to check on the back door.
Which was now closed.Fuck.He had no idea how that would’ve happened—he’d made sure the brick he wedged to keep it open was heavy enough.
He’d had a feeling that this plan wasn’t the brightest idea he ever had. He should’ve listened to that instinct. But he’d been thinking about what Lauren had said a few days ago, about how much cooler the Snow Globe would be if it could snow from the ceiling, and he’d suddenly gotten an idea of how he might be able to get the machine to work.
He’d been thinking about Lauren.
God, she was frustrating. She treatedhimlike he was a freeloader, while the whole time Daniel was asking her to run secret reports for whatever Drakkar Noir–drenched idea he’dcome up with. She toldhimto stop, when the only thing he’d been trying to do was look out for her. She was so prickly.
If he managed to get this snow machine working, she’d have to admitthatwas impressive at least. While she and Daniel had been cooking up whatever pie-in-the-sky scheme they were going to present to Dolores, he would’ve actually found a way to make it snow better in the Snow Globe. It would be... what was the word she’d used?
