With Love, from Cold World(107)

Asa swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I never meant to reject you.”

She gave an adorably self-deprecating eye roll. “I know that now. Kiki called me a clown.”

Kiki had called him one of those, too. “I never meant that I didn’t want to be with you. It was just hard for me, keeping it a secret. I want to be able to talk about you, to touch you in public, to go out together without worrying someone is going to see us. I want to make you coffee in the break room or say shit like Let me check with Lauren and see if we have plans or take a picture with you and make it my lock screen.”

“Asa, I —”

“Not flavored coffee,” he said. “I’m aware, believe me. I’ll rinse out the Keurig and everything.”

She pressed her finger to his mouth. “I trust you with my coffee,” she said. “I was just trying to say that you not being comfortable with a secret relationship makes total sense, especially after what you dealt with from your family. I’m sorry I didn’t see that.”

“Well,” he said. “Yeah. That’s part of it. But also—you’re important to me, Lauren. I understand your concerns about keeping things professional, but I don’t know how long I can hide that.”

“I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry I said all that stuff about your job. I was way out of line. I just think you’re so talented, and—”

He shook his head, not wanting to hear her go too far down that road of beating herself up about something he’d needed to hear. “You weren’t wrong,” he said. “I felt comfortable at Cold World. I didn’t want anything to change. But ultimately, that’s not what’s best for me. It’s time to move on.”

“Oh!” she said, biting her lip. “Then maybe this is an awkward time to tell you . . . Dolores actually cornered me yesterday. Apparently there’s some grant she thinks could help save Cold World? She wanted our help in putting the application together.”

“Lauren,” he said, bracing his hands on either side of her head against the door. “I really don’t give a fuck about Cold World right now.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I got off track.”

He could tell she was affected by his proximity, the way her chest rose and fell, the way the pulse at the hollow in her throat fluttered. “May I?”

She nodded, even though he didn’t know that she knew what she was agreeing to, and he dipped his head to kiss the line of her jaw. “So let’s get back on track. You were saying?”

“Just that I want to be with you,” she said, sighing as his hand settled at her waist, his mouth next to her ear. “And I don’t want to hide it anymore.”

“Thank god,” he said, giving her earlobe a tug with his teeth. “Because I don’t think I can keep my hands to myself in public.”

As if prompted, she placed her hand over his at her waist, holding it more firmly there. She pulled back a bit, as much as she could with the door there, and looked him in the eye. “I love you,” she said. “I really do love you, Asa Williamson. I don’t quite know when I started, but I know I haven’t stopped.”

“Well, I know right when I started,” he said. “It was somewhere around that first Christmas party, when you said you wanted to cancel Secret Santa.”

He’d bent his head to kiss her and felt her smile against his mouth. “It was not.”

“Don’t argue with me about my own experience.”

“But you didn’t act like you even liked me until . . . I don’t know, but it was definitely after that.”

“What can I say, I’m a clown.”

She full-out laughed then, and the sound was so pure and wonderful, Asa had to lean his forehead against hers, just grateful to be holding her again at all. Through the door, he could hear the haunting tones of a slow, sad song, and it took him a second to place it.

“Lauren?”

“Mmm.”

“Did you just . . . find a playlist where all the songs had ‘party’ in the title?”

Her eyelids flew open, and she looked up at him. “That’s exactly what I did. Why?”

He pushed away from the door, reaching down to take her hand. “Let’s just say ‘When the Party’s Over’ by Billie Eilish is a good song to play only when, you know, the party’s over. We better get back out there before it takes a turn.”

“Do we have to?”

He pulled her closer until he could press a kiss to her hair. “I love you, Lauren. Which is why I want you to have the best New Year’s Eve party possible. And then I love you so much I want every single person out of here five seconds after midnight. Deal?”

She smiled up at him. “Deal.”

He opened the door, letting her through first even though she didn’t drop his hand. “See?” he said. “I told you we’d work well together.”





Epilogue


Almost One Year Later


“If there’s a single scratch on it, I swear to god—” John was saying as he retrieved his guitar from the back seat, Elliot standing nearby with their hands in the air, already proclaiming their innocence.

“What good is a case if it can’t protect your guitar on a simple car ride?” Elliot pointed out. “You’re telling me you used to go on tour with this thing? Better invest in some bubble wrap before that concert cruise.”