With Love, from Cold World(3)
“It makes no sense,” she said. “If you think about it, if everyone buys a twenty-dollar Secret Santa gift, and then they get a twenty-dollar gift card, doesn’t it all come out a wash? If the gift cards are going to mean something, why not cancel Secret Santa?”
“Bold move,” he said. “Running on a platform of cancel Secret Santa. How long have you worked here again?”
She’d felt her face heat. “Three days.”
He’d pointed a cookie at her. “Love your initiative, though,” he said. “Keep at it and by March we can get all the toilet paper down to one ply.”
He held the cookie in his mouth and walked away, still facing her, one hand holding his plate and the other holding up crossed fingers as though he were actually hopeful. The most infuriating thing was that his tone hadn’t even sounded sarcastic. It wasn’t until a full minute after he’d walked away that it hit Lauren that there’d been a spark in his eyes as he’d left, and it hadn’t been kindness. And a week later, she’d received her generous hundred-dollar gift card from Dolores along with everyone else, and a token coffee mug from Kiki as a belated Secret Santa present.
“This is a regift because my aunt gets me a new one every year,” Kiki had said. “So don’t feel bad that you didn’t get anything for anyone.”
“The holidays are kinda . . . intense around here, huh?”
Kiki shrugged. “Dolores thinks that we work so hard to make all our guests’ holidays special, so we deserve something special, too. She’s a little eccentric, but she’s a sweet boss. You’ll get used to it.”
“Ah.” Lauren ran one finger along the rim of the mug. It was white, printed with a rainbow and flowers and an aspirational quote that encouraged her to BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED! “It’s nice,” she said hesitantly. “That she arranges the Secret Santa thing and goes out of her way to get everyone in on it.”
“Oh, that’s all Asa,” Kiki had said. At Lauren’s questioning expression, she gestured to her shoulders, as if telling a stylist where to cut her own bleached strands. “Long hair? Tall? Tattoos? When it comes to Christmas, he doesn’t play. Secret Santa was totally his idea.”
The guy she’d vented to at the party. Great.
From that moment on, Lauren had always felt on the wrong foot with Asa, especially during the holiday season. Especially during the holiday parties. She didn’t even want to think about what had happened at last year’s.
Now, he was still watching her as she took her first sip of coffee from that same BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED! mug. There was a slight aftertaste to it that made her grimace, and she could’ve sworn she saw that corner of his mouth twitch. She’d been wondering why he seemed intent on hanging around, why he was paying her such close attention. As the aftertaste crystallized on her tongue—definitely something with vanilla—the pieces fell into place.
“You made your coffee before mine, didn’t you.”
He held up his mug in a cheers. “Not just a prop,” he said.
She took another tentative sip, her mouth turning down with the full impact of the flavor. “French vanilla.”
He’d done it on purpose. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did—the flavor from the K-cup before always bled into the next one, and Lauren couldn’t stand flavored coffee. This whole time he’d been helping her with the machine, he’d really just been setting her up.
She dumped the coffee down the drain, rinsing out her mug before grabbing another K-cup to try again.
“Whoa,” Asa said, his eyebrows raised. “You better not let our accounts person see that kind of waste. She’ll take the coffee machine away from us.”
Lauren was about to say something immature and not even face-savingly clever, but luckily Kiki walked in at that moment and rescued her from herself.
“Hey,” she said, looking from one to the other. “Dolores was asking about you guys. The meeting is starting in five minutes.”
Lauren could vaguely make out noises in the front lobby now, the shuffling and footsteps that indicated more people were arriving. She’d been so wrapped up in this break room melodrama over the coffeemaker that she hadn’t even noticed. Between that and her complete blanking on the meeting in the first place, what was wrong with her? Maybe it was more than just her worrying about her new volunteer role. Maybe it was the grad school application she’d sent off to get her master’s degree in accounting, which she’d told herself she wasn’t sweating. Maybe it was just the holidays, which she’d never liked.
Asa gave her a final salute with his mug, then turned back to Kiki. “Where are we sitting?”
“Top bleacher, next to Saulo.”
At least now the Keurig machine was working perfectly for her. Lauren filled up her mug, making a face at Kiki while she did so.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m running a little behind this morning. I guess I’m . . . distracted.”
“Is it about the visit tonight?”
Kiki was the only person Lauren had told about finishing her guardian ad litem training and her appointment to meet the kid she’d been assigned to for the first time. She probably would’ve kept even that information to herself, except she’d had to take an afternoon off to get fingerprinted. Since Lauren never took time off work, Kiki had been worried and texted her. Lauren hadn’t even thought Kiki was on shift that day, but it was kind of nice. To have someone notice, and care.