“I thought you didn’t do payroll,” Daniel muttered petulantly.
“We’ll work it out,” Dolores cut in, clearly losing interest now that she’d said her piece. “If you have any questions, find me.”
And with that, she spun around, her full skirt printed with little teal flamingos swaying as she walked away. The three of them stayed on the bench for a moment, as though they were all too shell-shocked to move. Then, just as Asa was about to speak, Daniel turned to Lauren.
“I think we should work together,” he said, giving her a smile that he probably practiced in the mirror when he was rehearsing charming. “I’m a big-ideas kind of guy, but you, you’re—”
“Detail-oriented?” Lauren said.
He snapped, pointing at her. “Exactly.”
She seemed pleased by the compliment, which was a joke because she’d essentially given it to herself. Asa thought about inserting himself into the conversation, to remind them that there was another person in this little game, but he could also think of nothing he wanted to do less than work side-by-side with Daniel Alvarez. Even working with Lauren would be better than that. Anyway, there was no way she was falling for this shit. Daniel clearly just wanted someone to shovel all the work onto.
But maybe Asa underestimated the situation, because suddenly Daniel was staring at Lauren like she was his phone. “You free tonight?” he asked. “We could discuss over dinner.”
Had Daniel just asked Lauren out?
From her expression, yes. Suddenly, it was like she believed in Christmas after all. Her whole face lit up, her eyes shining even as her mouth started to lift in a smile . . .
And then dropped as she bit her lip. “I can’t tonight,” she said. “I have something. Maybe tomorrow?”
Daniel lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “I’ll be thinking up a few ideas to pitch,” he said. “If I need your help with the numbers on any of them, I’ll let you know.”
Daniel stood and, without a backward glance, started toward the door, pulling his phone out of his pocket and pressing it to his ear as he disappeared through the front lobby. Asa bet he was calling in a takeout order.
When he turned back to Lauren, she looked crestfallen. He couldn’t blame her—Daniel could be a dick, and there was literally no reason why he should flip from hot to cold on Lauren just because she said she couldn’t make dinner. She might have a cash register for a heart, but that should suit Daniel just fine, since he probably stuffed his pillowcases with stock sheets. And she wasn’t bad to look at.
Okay, objectively, Lauren was beautiful. Maybe her glasses kept Daniel from seeing it, like she was a character in a teen rom-com. Her hair was dark and shiny, hanging just past her shoulders and sweeping across her forehead in bangs that Asa happened to know from overhearing her talk to Kiki that she regretted and was trying to grow out. It made her reach up to push them out of her eyes all the time, a gesture that Asa tried not to find endearing. Earlier, when he’d seen her put her hand in her mouth and suck, he’d felt a jolt of awareness so unexpected he’d almost fallen off the bleacher.
His gaze dropped to her hand now, and he frowned. “You should put some cool water on that,” he said.
“What?”
“Your skin’s all red.” He let out a huff of a laugh at her confused expression. “When you were so stricken by Daniel’s macho charisma that you spilled coffee on yourself?”
“I . . . wasn’t.”
“Hey,” Asa said, holding up his hands. “No shame in that game. I mean, except that it shows you have incredibly shallow taste. I’ve dated some douchey dudes, but even I can tell you to watch out for the ones who only make eye contact when they want something.”
It was a test. Asa didn’t know if Lauren already knew he was bisexual, from talking to Kiki, or if now she’d assume he was gay. And he didn’t know why it mattered, suddenly, but he’d dropped it into the conversation just to see how she would react.
“When I’m desperate enough to want dating advice from you,” Lauren said acidly, “I’ll be sure to let you know.”
He had a retort about just how desperate she seemed every time she got around Daniel, but it died on his lips. Maybe it was because he’d basically just come out to her, and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she’d taken it in stride, volleying back one of her usual insults without missing a beat.
Or maybe it was the memory of the way her face had brightened in that brief moment after Daniel had asked her out, that naked hope that had made her eyes spark. She didn’t look like that very often. Asa hadn’t even noticed, like living through years of gray skies, until one day the sun came out.
She stood up, still clutching her coffee mug in her clenched hand, and after a beat, Asa stood, too, and followed.
“We should work together,” he said.
“No.”
Two maintenance workers were crouched down in front of the bank of vending machines in the back hallway from the ice rink to the lobby, and he cut in front of Lauren as they went down to single file to get through the narrow space.
“You heard Dolores,” he said. “She doesn’t want half-baked ideas.”
“Mine won’t be half-baked.”
“But Dolores is right—I know this place.” He’d turned to face her, and she almost ran right into him. He put a hand out, as if to steady her, then dropped it back to his side. “Like we sell more boiled peanuts on the weekends than we do hot pretzels, but more pretzels during the week. Seriously. It’s a phenomenon.”
“So publish in a peer-reviewed journal,” Lauren said, moving impatiently to try to get past him. “I don’t think that bit of trivia is going to revolutionize Cold World.”
He mirrored her action, stepping back into her path.
“Can’t hurt.”
She put one hand on her hip, glaring up at him until he moved aside to let her through. “I know stuff, too,” she said as she strode off ahead. For someone a head shorter than him, she walked fast. He picked up his pace to stay close enough where he could hear her supposed superior knowledge. This should be priceless.
“Oh yeah?”
“Do you know how much money we’ve made from switching from plastic bags to reusable totes people buy in the gift shop? And it’s better for the environment.”
“Ah,” Asa said. “But do you know how many dads I see walking around, trying to juggle handfuls of stuff their families bought while getting the full Cold World experience? Bet they’d leave better reviews if they’d had a nice, free bag to put that stuff in.”