Page 40 of With Love, from Cold World
He glanced around her office, suddenly seizing on another idea. “Do you know where the storage space is?”
“In the scary back room?” Lauren asked. “It’s not like I have any reason to go there.”
“There’s a bin of leftover Christmas decorations...” He stopped himself short, getting to his feet. “Just follow me.”
He led her through the narrow hallway to the rear of the warehouse space, turning on his phone’s flashlight when they got to the back area. Even he had to admit it was alittlescary to be there when the building was so dark and silent. When they got to the storage space, he flicked the wall switch on to fill the room with light.
“See those?” He gestured toward the bin he’d been referencing, which had been left open, decorations draped carelessly over the sides when employees had rooted through it. He’d been one of those employees, tasked with helping to decorate the lobby area, so he couldn’t judge anyone too harshly for the way it had been left. “I’m going to set a timer on my phone for three minutes. That’s how long we have to gather materials and decorate your office. Whoever has the better display wins.”
“Who judgesbetter?”
“Me. You’ve gotta admit, I’m the expert here.”
“That seems biased. And what’s the prize?”
He grinned. “Bragging rights.”
“That’s hardly—”
He hit thestartbutton on his phone. “Go!”
She may have been about to protest, but that didn’t stop her from practically elbowing him out of the way to get to the bin. She scooped items into her arms with little care for what they were or how they might fit together, and when her arms were so full she couldn’t possibly grab anything else, she made a beeline for the door, dropping bits of tinsel and red velvet bows in her wake.
Asa was laughing too hard to be quite as effective in gathering his materials, but he managed to snag a string of lights, some ornaments, and a stuffed polar bear. By the time he gotto her office, she was already lining the top of her filing cabinet with a garland, adding more of the red velvet bows every few inches.
He got to work on the fake plant in the corner, stringing it with the lights and adding ornaments with big enough loops of string to fit around the plastic leaves. Just as the alarm went off, he nestled the polar bear into her garland display, and she threw a bunch of tinsel into the air. Pieces of it were still floating to the ground as he reached in his pocket to turn off the radar tone blaring from his phone.
“Jesus,” he said. “Haven’t you ever heardless is more?”
“I told you. I’m competitive.”
There was tinsel in her hair. He reached over to pluck it out, letting his fingers rest in the soft strands a few seconds longer than the action called for. “Apparently.”
She was still breathing harder than usual from all the energetic activity of their contest. Maybe that was why her lips were parted as she watched him twist the silver tinsel between his fingers, but all he could think was that he really,reallywanted to kiss her.
“So?” she prompted.
“Hmm?”
“Who won?”
He placed the tinsel delicately on the polar bear’s lap, like it was holding on to its own decoration to participate in the next contest. “I’m the clear winner, showing tasteful restraint with a nod to tradition in my decoration of a plastic Christmas ficus. But ultimatelyyou’rethe winner for every day you work inside such a festive office.”
“I knew it was rigged.”
He switched off the harsh fluorescent overhead light, so the office was lit instead by the Christmas lights on the fakeplant in the corner. He dropped down to sit on the carpet next to it, and after a moment Lauren sank down next to him, tucking her legs under her.
He unlocked his phone and handed it to her. “Your turn.”
“Number four,” she said, biting her lip. “Tell me a secret.”
He leaned his head back on the wall, closing his eyes. “My passcode is just my house number, with the first two digits repeated. So one-six-eight-two-one-six. Now you can get into my phone without me.”
“That’s not a secret.”
He cracked one eye open to look at her. “Do you go around telling people your personal security information?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. “But you know what I mean. It’s not like that numbermeansanything. It’s not the number of stuffed animals you slept with as a kid or the number of times you got blackout drunk and tried to jump off a roof.”
