With Love, from Cold World(81)
His arm was draped loosely over her hip, his bare leg wedged between her knees. He really did give off an insane amount of body heat.
“Asa?” she whispered, trying to gauge if he was awake. She cleared her throat and said his name louder, but he didn’t budge.
She thought about waking him up, or even just staying in the safe, cozy warmth of his embrace, but she really had to pee. It also wouldn’t hurt to have the chance to brush her teeth, freshen up a bit.
She slid out from under his arm and edged herself off the bed, turning to see if the movements had disturbed his sleep at all. He burrowed a little more into her pillow, the blue of his hair extra bright against the white sheets, his mouth slightly open as he breathed the slow, steady breathing of someone still in the deepest non-REM stage. She adjusted her lavender comforter until it was covering him more completely, less because she thought he’d get cold and more because it was just something she wanted to do.
By the time he finally emerged an hour later, she’d showered and dressed and was sitting at the table, nursing a cup of coffee and jotting plans for Cold World down in a notebook. Something had happened overnight and suddenly she was bursting with thoughts and ideas. She couldn’t wait to talk to Asa about them, but she figured if he was anything like her he’d need coffee first.
“Do you want me to pour you some?” she asked, holding up her mug.
He ran his hand through his hair, which was adorably flattened on one side and sticking up on the other. He was still wearing only boxer briefs and an undershirt, and even though he was more covered up than he’d been that day at the beach, her heart sped up a little at the sight of him. “That depends. Do you have cream and sugar, or do you keep your kitchen on some Soviet food rationing system?”
“Ha ha,” she said sarcastically. “I have milk and sugar, if that’ll suit your refined palate.”
“I’m good, actually,” he said. “I did use an extra toothbrush I found still in its packaging under your sink. I hope that was okay.”
“It was probably a BOGO deal. It’s fine.”
He crossed over to where she was sitting, squeezing her shoulder as he came behind her. She liked that casual touch more than she probably should, liked the way he left his hand there as he looked down at the notebook.
“What are you working on?”
“Did you know that in 1977, it snowed as far south as Miami?” She tapped her pen against the bulleted list in front of her. “Places near Orlando reported as much as two inches. The coldest recorded temperature in Florida was negative two degrees, in Tallahassee back in 1899.”
He pulled out the other chair to sit down, pulling the notebook closer so he could read what she’d written. “I see you still don’t have an answer for how cold it has to be to kill someone.”
“Because there are too many factors!” she protested before he looked up and she saw the grin that let her know he was teasing her again. “Besides, that’s too macabre for the interactive exhibit I’m thinking of. The idea is to try to get more families with toddlers or elementary school groups to come in, not to scare them away.”
“I like it,” he said, scanning her list. “Especially the part where kids can excavate little toys out of ice by experimenting with droppers of warm water and other stuff. I still have some of those little plastic penguins. We can get more figurines like that, and then the kids can just keep them.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” she said, “except I’m not sure about the choking hazard aspect. We’ll have to consider that one more.”
He raised his eyebrow at her use of the word “we,” and she took a deep breath, telling herself to just go for it. If he said no, no big deal, right? She wouldn’t even be able to blame him, after what a production she’d made of turning him down again and again.
“Would you want to work together?” she asked. “I mean, obviously you can still work on your mural idea, and in fact I was thinking that this could use some art to show how cute we could make it for the kids . . . I’d help you with any budgeting parts you needed assistance with, and I have a bunch of other thoughts on changes we could make to cut costs or increase revenue even more, like there’s a local peewee hockey team that needs a place to practice, and our rink isn’t regulation but we could make it work if they came in for an hour during the slow part of the day—”
“Lauren.” Asa cut her off, laughing. “I’d love to work with you on this. Seriously.”
“Yeah?”
He leaned over the notebook, angling his body so she couldn’t see what he was up to until he was done. When he slid it back to her, there was a doodle of a little bear wearing bell bottoms, shivering little lines around his shocked face as he stood under a palm tree covered in snow. Lauren’s surprised giggle came out more like a squawk, and he smiled.
“I might have to research late seventies fashion. Maybe more disco than hippie? I have no idea.”
She added a wobbly Afro to the bear, trying to give it more of a late seventies feel.
“Perfect,” he said, and when she went to stand up, he pulled her down onto his lap. His arms were wrapped around her waist, his chin on her shoulder when he said, “See? I told you we’d work well together.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”