Lauren put the brakes on that train of thought. She had no idea how she’d ended up in this shower fantasy all of a sudden.
Or maybe she did. She was so lonely that sleeping next to a pile of clothing felt comforting, that she was having inappropriate thoughts about a coworker she didn’t even know that she liked that much.
“You okay?” he asked.
She took a quick gulp of her coffee, wincing a little when it burned her tongue. “Of course,” she said. “Fine. Great. I just have a lot of work to do, so I should probably . . .”
She didn’t bother finishing that sentence before she turned and left. After the holiday season was over, she was going to figure out a way to try to meet more people. She’d try dating apps, she’d join a book club, she had no idea. She just clearly needed to get out of the house more.
It wasn’t lost on her that it was the exact point Asa had been making at the beach.
* * *
? ? ?
Lauren really did have a lot to do to prepare for her meeting with Daniel. She compiled all the annual numbers for income and expenses for Cold World, which was something she’d been working on as the end-of-year approached in general. But since this meeting was focused on Dolores’ challenge, she wanted to specifically highlight opportunities to raise income or lower expenses in a few particular areas.
She couldn’t help but wonder what idea Asa could’ve come up with—especially one supposedly inspired by her. She cast her mind on the various things they’d talked about in the past few days, trying to find a nugget of something he could’ve taken and run with. Had she unknowingly given away an idea that could’ve formed the basis for her own proposal?
But he wasn’t going to have the benefit of information like what she was compiling right now. For example, he wouldn’t have crunched the numbers on Wonderland Walk to know if they were making more on vendor rent than they might make if they just sold their own wares directly. He wouldn’t know why they didn’t work with Groupon yet and what it would take to make that profitable.
It did almost seem unfair, that she and Daniel would have this advantage. But it made sense for them to know the financial ins and outs of the company. Asa was . . . whatever he was. A jack-of-all-trades. He didn’t necessarily need to add this arrow to his quiver.
There was a light rap on her door, and she looked up to see Daniel in her doorway. “Come on in,” she said. “I was just printing out the last spreadsheet.”
“Actually,” he said, giving her his megawatt smile, “could we move this to my mother’s office? She’s out until after lunch.”
It would make things a lot less convenient, because Lauren had wanted to stay near her computer in case she had to look anything up or make an adjustment. But she’d printed two copies of everything, so she supposed there was no reason why they couldn’t meet in Dolores’ office. “Sure,” she said. “Let me just gather everything up.”
Even a week ago, she would’ve had a much harder time staying chill this close to Daniel. Having his attention on her—her!—would’ve scrambled her brain. She was proud of herself for maintaining her cool. What had Asa accused her of, when he’d called her out for sloshing coffee on herself? Being stricken by Daniel’s macho charisma?
Well, she was one hundred percent in control. If only he could see her now.
She reached the door to Dolores’ office first, but she had her hands full with the folders of paperwork, and anyway, it felt weird to open someone else’s office. She stepped to the side, but Daniel was busy typing something into his phone. He gave a nod down at the doorknob. “It’s open,” he said.
She shifted the folders to one arm so she could bend down to turn the knob, but she misjudged which side of the folder was the open side, and ended up sending a sheaf of papers floating to the ground. So much for being cool.
“You can put those on the desk,” Daniel said, stepping around her. “I had something I wanted to run by you first.”
She slid the last of the papers back in their folder, hoping they were still in the order she’d arranged them in. She wondered what he had to run by her—was it something work-related? Or was he maybe going to renew his invitation to dinner?
This time, she’d take him up on it.
He took Dolores’ seat behind her desk, steepling his fingers together in a way that really did make him look like his mother’s son. She took the same seat where she’d been sitting just a few days ago, getting in trouble with Asa for the snowball fight.