“Are you still thinking tacos?” he asked, glancing back up at where the others were sunbathing on their towels. “Anything but crab.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Definitely not crab. But you go ahead and eat without me. I really should get back and finish up some stuff.”
She’d driven an hour to hang out for maybe thirty minutes. According to Kiki, tacos had been her lunch suggestion. She’d never even gotten down to her bathing suit, which Asa had to admit with a little zip of awareness was something he’d been looking forward to.
Not to ogle her or anything. Just because it would be interesting to see Lauren Fox in something that far removed from the cardigans and tights she wore for the over-refrigerated environment that was Cold World. Just because he couldn’t seem to stop himself staring at her legs, that dip right behind her knee. Just because from the ties that hung down from around her neck, he couldn’t tell if her bikini was more grass green or teal, if it had a pattern or was solid.
He hung back while she said goodbye to everyone. Kiki’s gaze darted to him, like What did you do?, but he just shook his head.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.
“You don’t have to,” Lauren said, gesturing toward the lot barely visible through the hill of beach grass behind them. “I’m just over there.”
But he let Kiki know he’d catch up with them at the taco truck and fell into step next to Lauren. She was normally a fast walker, but now she was moving at a more leisurely pace. It was probably just the effect of walking on sand, but he was glad to have a little more time to think about what he wanted to say.
“So I guess tomorrow it’s back on. Daniel is coming in for the budget meeting, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Which, again, your presence is not required at.”
“We’ll see.”
She rounded on him. He wished he could see her eyes, but they were covered by those ridiculous sunglasses. “If you care so much about this opportunity, why aren’t you at home working on your proposal? You can hang out at the beach all day with your friends, but it’s not going to get you any closer to beating me, if that’s what you want so bad.”
A sharp, jagged sensation lodged in his chest, like a sand bur had found its way there. “It’s not the worst thing in the world, to have friends. You should try it sometime.”
She flinched back like he’d hit her. “I have a full and complete life, thank you very much. Maybe it doesn’t look like anything to you, because it’s not flashy or oriented around my own personal pleasure, but it’s mine.”
His own pleasure? Asa could argue with that characterization. What he did at Cold World was a job, after all, even if it didn’t seem to be one she respected much. It paid his bills. It wasn’t like he sat around doing nothing all day. And even if he did, what business was it of hers?
They’d reached her car. He recognized it from the number of times he’d seen it in the Cold World lot, there before his on weekdays, conspicuously absent from its usual spot on weekends.
“So you have a cushy office job,” he said, “where you get to work regular hours and sneak in a little online shopping when you feel like it. That doesn’t make your life more legitimate than mine. And what do you have against pleasure, anyway? If I’m going on this random, bizarre trip around the sun over and over, the least I can do is figure out a way to have fun while I do it. What’s the problem with that?”
He really wanted to say What’s your problem with that? Back at the beach, he’d thought they were . . . well, if not connecting, then at least sharing a small moment.
“No problem,” she said, opening her car door. “I shouldn’t have—just forget I said anything. I’ll see you at work.”
There was a stack of DVD rentals on her front passenger seat—Captain America, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk. Normally, he would’ve teased her about the old-school discs, or about being such a deeply undercover Marvel fan. But whatever lightness he’d felt between them felt prickly and weird now. So instead he just shut her car door after her, raising his hand in a halfhearted wave as she started up her car and backed it out of the spot. Every time he thought he was getting closer to understanding Lauren, he realized he had no idea what made her tick at all.
Chapter
Nine
Lauren never did finish her closet clean-out project. Instead, she just shifted the pile of clothes to the other side of her bed and curled up next to it when it was time to go to sleep. It had actually felt oddly comforting, sleeping next to that pile. But the minute she had that thought, she had to strike it from her brain. It was too sad and pathetic to contemplate.