With Love, from Cold World(63)

“What kind of thing?”

“And I’m sorry if I made you share your ideas for Cold World,” she said, ignoring his question. “I won’t steal them or use them against you or whatever. I play fair.”

He ran his hand through his hair, exasperated by her even mentioning the presentations. Did she think he gave a fuck about Cold World right then? “You seem fixated on fairness,” he said. “But honestly, it doesn’t feel like you’re treating me all that fairly right now.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Stop saying that,” he burst out. “You said your first instinct was to come talk to me, so do that. Tell me. What do you want?”

Ever since Kiki had interrupted them, Lauren had been retreating further and further away. Not just in distance, although that, too. He could tell by the way her face shuttered, by the fact that she was barely looking him in the eye. He’d wanted to jolt her back, somehow get through to her, and that question seemed to break through whatever barrier she’d put up. She turned on him, her eyes blazing.

“I want to be more like you,” she said. “Okay? I really do. I wish I could hang out with people and not constantly worry that I’ll say or do the wrong thing and mess it all up. I wish I could be brave enough to dye my hair or get a tattoo. I wish I could have casual sex and enjoy it for what it is. I wish I could be carefree, and easy, and not a giant wet blanket all the time, but that’s just not how I’m built.”

A sucker punch to the gut would’ve been easier to brace against. At least the impact would’ve been concentrated, and over quickly. “Well,” he said. “If it’s not fun, don’t do it, right? That’s always been my motto.”

If she caught his sarcasm, her expression didn’t flicker. She stared at him wordlessly as he opened the door, glancing out to make sure the coast was fairly clear. The last thing he needed right now was a run-in with any of his housemates, especially Kiki.

“I’ll walk you out to your car,” he said.

She stood in the middle of his room for a moment, her fingers playing with the hem of her shirt, and he wondered what he would do if she wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t have the heart not to hear her out if she had more to say, didn’t trust himself to resist anything physical. The truth was that he didn’t want her to go. But he also couldn’t have her stay if that was how she saw him, how she saw whatever burgeoning thing had been growing between them.

Finally she moved, passing him carefully in the doorway to avoid even the slightest touch. “You don’t have to,” she said. “I’m just parked by the mailbox.”

He ignored her, opening the front door to step out into the slight chill of the night. A cold front was coming through, which normally would’ve made Asa happy, excited at the prospect of a possible cold Christmas, if not the white one they never got in Florida. But it was hard for him to enjoy it as he watched Lauren climb into her car and drive away.





Chapter


Seventeen

It was five o’clock on a Friday night, which meant all the little tables near the hot chocolate stand were taken. Lauren shouldn’t have been surprised—especially this close to Christmas—but it still complicated her plans a bit. Eddie’s caregiver, Jolene, was supposed to be bringing him by in the next few minutes, and Lauren had told her and the caseworker to meet up by the tables. It had seemed like a logical place at the time, but now that Lauren saw how impossible it would be to find a table to sit together, she was seeing the issues with the plan.

She spotted Marcus, sitting by himself nursing a hot chocolate, and decided to see when he might be leaving.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said, approaching the table a little hesitantly. She didn’t know Marcus very well, although he’d always seemed nice enough. “But are you going to be using this table for a while? It’s fine if you are, but I wondered—”

“Oh,” he said, getting up and jostling his drink in the process. He set down a few books he’d been holding, adjusting the crooked lid back on his cup. “No, no, take it. I was about to head home.”

Lauren smiled, trying to make a conscious effort to be friendly. She and Marcus had technically worked together for a year, although their jobs had no overlap. But the last week especially had made Lauren reflect on how isolated she was at work—she’d been avoiding Kiki since the incident in Asa’s room, and she couldn’t tell if she’d been avoiding Asa, too, or if that was coming from him. Either way, she’d barely seen him around Cold World since it had happened.

“I didn’t know you read romance,” she said, pointing at the books. The top one was called Big Duke Energy and had an illustration of a muscular man tossing his head back as if in the throes of passion, his long hair streaming behind him.

Immediately, Lauren could tell it had been the wrong thing to say. Marcus looked beyond mortified, his face turning a shade of red that rivaled the poinsettias lined up in the lobby.

“These aren’t mine,” he said. “I mean, they’re a gift. For Sonia. For Secret Santa.”

“She’ll love them,” Lauren said. She didn’t know Sonia that well, either—god, she was sensing a really depressing pattern here—but she knew that the woman almost always had a book with a similarly salacious cover whenever she was on her lunch break. “That’s really thoughtful.”