It came out sounding more bitter than he’d intended, which was exactly why he shouldn’t be trying to joke at that moment. He felt completely depleted of any humor.
Lauren blinked at him, like she was trying to figure out how to respond. “I mean—of course. If we didn’t work together, there would be no reason to hide it.”
“But as long as we’re both still here . . .” he finished for her. “You realize everyone probably knows, right?”
She flushed. “I don’t think—”
“Dolores knows.”
“She might suspect, but—”
He gave her a look.
“Okay,” Lauren said, flustered now. “Okay, so maybe she knows. But that’s still different from us being obvious about it at work. It’s more professional if we don’t act like we’re together. It doesn’t have to change anything about—”
That fucking word again. It made Asa literally tug at his hair, frustrated beyond words at how much she didn’t seem to get it. “Everything has changed, Lauren,” he said. “Everything. We just got out of a meeting where our boss told us she was going to recommend us for vice president of finance and middle management at some new version of Cold World, which you know won’t look anything like what it is now, maybe that version will have some dumbfuck HR contract we’d have to sign about not dating colleagues, who knows, but all I know is I can’t do it. I can’t do this anymore.”
He meant he couldn’t hide, that he couldn’t take it if she was going to still shut him out even after all they’d shared and been through. He didn’t mean that he didn’t want to be in the relationship anymore. But he could tell from the stricken look on her face that that was exactly how it had sounded. And before he could say more, fix it, he saw the way the look fell away until her face was a blank mask. No, not fell—was pushed away. A return to Robot Lauren.
“That’s fine,” she said.
“Lauren—”
“No,” she said, giving a little laugh that splintered in his heart. “No, that’s fine. I get it. It’s been a lot to take in. It’s probably better if we don’t—”
“Lauren, listen to me—”
She pushed herself up to standing, brushing her hands on her skirt. She seemed about to leave, then had second thoughts and turned back around. “You say middle management like it’s the worst thing that could ever happen to you,” she said. “And maybe it is, that’s fair—but Asa, you have to do something. You can’t just guard the Snow Globe for the rest of your life.”
He got to his feet, too, breathing harder than that simple exertion should’ve required. This had been what he’d always been afraid of, deep down—and to hear her say it was like a punch to the gut. He’d known she was too good for him. He’d just lived on the prayer that maybe she wouldn’t notice.
“I like my job,” he said. “What’s wrong with guarding the Snow Globe?”
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s not that the job is beneath you. It’s that it doesn’t challenge you, and at some point you’re just standing still when you should be moving forward. Do something with your art, go back to school, I don’t even know! Just do something.”
She said all that like it was so easy. “Maybe some of us don’t want more school,” he said. “Despite what the student loan industrial complex wants you to believe, that’s not always the answer, you know.”
He’d meant it more about him, but he could see how it was a poorly timed comment, coming on the heels of her revelation about going back to grad school.
“Fine,” she snapped. “Don’t go back to school. At the end of the day, it’s none of my business what you do. I wouldn’t have said anything, except that I lo—” She took a deep breath, seemed to catch herself. “I care about you a lot. I want to see you happy.”
Wow. Downgraded off love already. Asa had never wished for anything harder than he wished for a time machine right at that moment, when he could go back to the beginning of this conversation—the beginning of this day, even—and do everything all over. He had so much he wanted to say but his throat was too tight to say any of it, which was why maybe he landed on the most asinine and blatantly false thing he could think to say.
“I am happy.”
She gave him a brittle smile, her eyes bright. “Well,” she said. “Good. If it’s not fun, don’t do it, right?”