Her gaze followed the extension cord stretched across the space. He expected a lecture on safety, but eventually she just said, “Maybe it’s the outlet.”
“Ha,” he said, giving the word a sarcastic bite. “Yeah. I found the one outlet in Cold World that doesn’t actually have any electricity running through it.”
“The wiring is old,” she said. “An electrician is supposed to come out in January. Dolores is worried some of it won’t pass next year’s inspection.”
“Well, the more likely explanation is that I’m just a fuckup. That’s what you think anyway, right?”
This type of reaction wasn’t like him. He tried to let things roll off his back, tried to take life as one big joke. There was no point in getting worked up about what people thought of you, or petty bullshit drama. It was what allowed him to have an easy relationship with everyone he knew—his coworkers, his housemates. Everyone but his parents, and that wasn’t something he gave much thought to. Letting those thoughts intrude was a surefire way to get him out of whatever flow state he tried to achieve with his life.
“Have you eaten?” he asked suddenly. A stupid question, probably, given that she’d been expecting to eat dinner with Daniel and Dolores and their family. But he didn’t want to give her time to respond to his last comment, didn’t want to risk getting into an actual conversation about all the ways he’d let people down.
She paused, and for a minute he didn’t think she’d let him off the hook that easily. She still seemed unsettled, small in her giant cardigan, framed by the slushy snow beneath her feet and the blue door to the Snow Globe at her back. But eventually she shrugged and said, “I was going to grab something from the vending machines.”
“Nah,” he said. “We can do better than that. Follow me.”
* * *
? ? ?
Since cold world was housed in a converted warehouse, there weren’t any windows except for the glass doors that provided the main entrance. It would’ve almost been easy to forget that they were there so late at night, except that it was eerie to walk around the dimly lit space, the only sound the hum of the air conditioning and the dull thud of their own footsteps. Asa led Lauren to the hot chocolate stand near the entrance of Wonderland Walk, ducking under the counter to see what was available in the mini refrigerators stored below.
“We can’t eat that stuff,” Lauren said. “It’s inventory.”
“I’m not completely lawless,” Asa said, rummaging through the wrapped sandwiches until he found two of the best one—a basic ham and cheese that was nonetheless way better than the caprese, which tasted like vomit even when warmed up. “I’m planning to pay for them.”
“The register’s already been cashed out.”
Asa pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocking it before opening a new note to type in. “Two sandwiches, seven ninety-eight apiece. Do you want me to pop yours in the microwave?”
“Closer to eight fifty after sales tax,” Lauren said, eyeing the sandwich he’d placed on the counter with a dubious expression. “For ham and cheese? That’s an expensive sandwich.”
“Cold World knows if you’re desperate enough to need real food at a place like this, you’re going to pay a hefty premium.” He set two bottled waters next to the sandwiches on the counter, and made a show of typing the totals for both into his phone. “And here’s us, the most desperate of all.”
There was a small seating area just inside the entrance to Wonderland Walk, with a few white-painted wrought iron tables and chairs, barely big enough to fit two people each. On a normal, semibusy day, it was impossible to get seating there, since families would push tables together and hang out for a while. But now, with no one around, Asa pulled out a chair to one of the tables, gesturing for Lauren to take a seat.
She hesitated a minute before accepting the proffered chair. “Thank you—” she started, then did a double take when he took a seat at the next table over. “Wait, aren’t you going to—”
“You made it very clear earlier today that you wanted me to stop coming around,” he said, unwrapping his sandwich from its plastic. “Unless you’re willing to set off the alarm and summon Dolores, I can’t control our current predicament. But I figured your direction to stop did not include me sitting across a dollhouse tea table from you.”
Besides which, sitting at the same table would make this feel an awful lot like a date. He’d offered to pay for the food. She was all dressed up, a detail he was too conscious of, even as he reminded himself of the person she’d actually dressed up for in the first place. Daniel. Who might be arriving at any minute to rescue Lauren from this situation, if she had anything to do with it.