“Maybe it’s like the old urban legend, and my face got stuck that way.”
“But only when a camera came out.”
“Defense mechanism.”
She giggled again, glancing down when she felt a buzz against her ankle. Her first thought, inexplicably, was that it was coming from Asa’s phone that she still held in her hand. But that device had been idle so long his lock screen was already back up—a group selfie of him with his three housemates, clearly taken at the same time as the one Kiki had sent her of all of them at the beach. She set his phone down on her desk and reached into her purse to check hers.
There was a text from Kiki from over an hour ago—how’s it going?!? with a string of fire and eggplant emojis. Then there was a text from Daniel that had just come in—You ok?
Well. That was kind of nice. She hadn’t told him the complete story about being stuck inside Cold World—she hadn’t wanted to look silly, or risk him telling Dolores and their dinner getting ruined anyway. So despite her bravado to Asa, she hadn’t really expected Daniel to follow up in any way and come to their rescue. But here he was, texting to make sure she was okay after she’d told him she wasn’t able to come to the dinner. She could easily reply with something like Not okay, actually—stuck inside Cold World! She could ask him to come. She could ask him to call with the alarm code.
Instead, she swiped to answer the text message, hesitating slightly before typing All good! Thanks! She added a smiley face at the last second, and sent it off.
“What’s up?” Asa asked.
“Nothing,” she said, feeling a little guilty as she slid her phone back in her purse. “It’s your turn.”
Chapter
Twelve
Not for a minute did Asa buy that the text Lauren had received had been about “nothing.” It was almost midnight, for one thing, and the only person he knew she was expecting any communication from was Daniel. But if he’d texted to say he couldn’t make it out, Asa wasn’t going to complain. He found that he didn’t want this party to break up. Not when it was just getting fun.
“Contest,” Asa said, after the random number generator showed him an eight. The arm-wrestling idea wasn’t half-bad—the prospect of holding hands with Lauren and sitting in such close proximity definitely had its appeal. But he had a pretty big advantage, and something told him Lauren didn’t like participating in competitions where she didn’t have a high chance of winning.
He glanced around her office, suddenly seizing on another idea. “Do you know where the storage space is?”
“In the scary back room?” Lauren asked. “It’s not like I have any reason to go there.”
“There’s a bin of leftover Christmas decorations . . .” He stopped himself short, getting to his feet. “Just follow me.”
He led her through the narrow hallway to the rear of the warehouse space, turning on his phone’s flashlight when they got to the back area. Even he had to admit it was a little scary to be there when the building was so dark and silent. When they got to the storage space, he flicked the wall switch on to fill the room with light.
“See those?” He gestured toward the bin he’d been referencing, which had been left open, decorations draped carelessly over the sides when employees had rooted through it. He’d been one of those employees, tasked with helping to decorate the lobby area, so he couldn’t judge anyone too harshly for the way it had been left. “I’m going to set a timer on my phone for three minutes. That’s how long we have to gather materials and decorate your office. Whoever has the better display wins.”
“Who judges better?”
“Me. You’ve gotta admit, I’m the expert here.”
“That seems biased. And what’s the prize?”
He grinned. “Bragging rights.”
“That’s hardly—”
He hit the start button on his phone. “Go!”
She may have been about to protest, but that didn’t stop her from practically elbowing him out of the way to get to the bin. She scooped items into her arms with little care for what they were or how they might fit together, and when her arms were so full she couldn’t possibly grab anything else, she made a beeline for the door, dropping bits of tinsel and red velvet bows in her wake.
Asa was laughing too hard to be quite as effective in gathering his materials, but he managed to snag a string of lights, some ornaments, and a stuffed polar bear. By the time he got to her office, she was already lining the top of her filing cabinet with a garland, adding more of the red velvet bows every few inches.