Читать книгу Dating By Numbers - Jennifer Lohmann - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

THE CONFERENCE ROOM her meeting was in was always either too hot or too cold—usually too hot. Jason said he’d done everything possible to regulate the room’s temperature, including adding the slight film that covered the floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the walking trail that connected many of the buildings in this part of the park. As she shrugged out of her suit jacket, she remembered that once, when she’d been complaining about this conference room, he’d told her to convince the VP to have blinds put in. “There’s only so much you can do for temperature control in a room that’s all windows and has no trees outside to provide shade. Especially in a building this old.”

Since this was the conference room closest to her office and where she usually had meetings, she’d taken his suggestions to heart, saying things like, “Wow, the sun is making the screen hard to see. Wouldn’t it be great to have roller blinds or something to provide a little better sun block?” whenever the right people were in meetings.

Jason had laughed when she’d told him of her strategy.

“Last time we met,” the grant writer, Roberto, was saying from his chair at the front of the room, “we said that we’d have the implementation and evaluation measures for parts one through four ready for the final document.” The mouse moved across the screen to the empty spot under “Implementation.”

Marsie wasn’t the only person who expected Roberto to keep talking, because the room was silent.

“Well,” Roberto said, “does anyone know why this area is still blank?”

Because the application isn’t due yet. Marsie didn’t say that. This grant was her baby, and she was pushing behind the scenes as much as she knew how. But she also knew that time pressure got work done faster than meetings and pointed silences.

The procrastination had driven her bonkers the first couple of grants she’d worked on. It still drove her bonkers, but she’d learned it was part of everyone else’s process, and letting it drive her to drink wasn’t a good use of her time or energy. So she’d gotten her portions done ahead of schedule and had been relying on relaxing breathing to help her wait for everyone else to work at their pace.

Roberto knew it, too. These meetings were a play, and they all had their parts.

“Marsie,” Roberto said, turning his attention to her and away from the rest of the people sitting around the conference table.

She looked over to the grant writer. “Yes?”

“Let’s talk about your budget.”

“Great,” she said. “I actually have some questions about your comments.”

God, it was boiling in this room. Her suit jacket was off, and she didn’t have anything else she could remove. My kingdom for a cold drink, she thought as Roberto scrolled down to her budget and started poking holes.

* * *

“HEY.” MARSIE LOOKED up from the grant application she was editing to see Jason leaning against the door frame, a cup of coffee in one hand and a bag of something in the other. She smiled at him, pleased when he smiled back.

“You look like you were studying hard. Should I say I’m sorry for interrupting?”

She shook her head. “I needed the interruption. All the lines are starting to run together. And I’m getting a headache.”

“How was your meeting?” he asked, taking a couple steps into her office. She shoved the papers across her desk, and he moved closer.

“Part of the headache. The grant application is due in two months. The meeting was a reminder of how far behind we are.”

“Two months sounds like a long time.” Marsie’s shoulders, which she hadn’t realized were tense, relaxed as he sat in one of her chairs.

“It should be enough, but we don’t have the data we need, I keep getting told my budget is wrong and...you don’t need to hear the rest.” She waved away the litany of complaints. “Anyway, it doesn’t feel like nearly enough time or that people are working nearly as hard as they should be.”

She shrugged. “But that’s always how these things feel.”

She should have waited until after this application was finally in before signing up for online dating. Except waiting was what got her into this predicament in the first place. Not enough time.

When she’d been thirty, she’d felt like she had all the time in the world. Silly thirty-year-old Marsie.

He looked at his phone. “It’s one thirty. Have you gotten lunch?”

She flopped her back against her chair. “I don’t know if I’ll get lunch.” Then her stomach growled, both embarrassing her and giving away how much she needed food.

He lifted his brows.

“I’ve got a protein bar in my desk. I’ll be fine.”

“A protein bar isn’t lunch. It’s barely a snack.”

“It’s not lunch or a snack. It’s desperation, but it tastes vaguely like a brownie, so it’s okay.”

He laughed. “Right. Well, here,” he said, leaning over the arm of the chair and digging around in the bag at his feet.

Curious, Marsie sat up a little taller. She knew she wasn’t able to hide the surprise on her face when he set a small salad in a to-go container on her desk, then followed it with a roll, a pat of butter, a fork and a little container of dressing. “What’s this?” she asked stupidly.

“Salad.”

“Is it for me?” She felt like her brain was running two beats behind. She hated that feeling.

“Technically, it was for me. But a brownie protein bar is an oxymoron, not lunch.”

“It’s a small salad,” she said, still not able to stop the idiocy from coming out of her mouth. He was giving her salad?

He gave her a long, searching look, probably trying to decide how she ever managed to get a PhD in anything. Then he shook his head, reached down again and pulled out a sandwich. “Ham and cheese,” he said as he set it on her desk. “You can have this instead if you want. But not both. I need lunch, too.” He was smiling, so she didn’t think he was angry. “I’ve got a bottle of Coke in the bag, as well.”

“Coffee and coke?” she asked with a raised brow.

“A man’s got to get his addictions covered somehow. You can have the coffee if you want, but I like mine different than you like yours.”

“The Coke is good.” She’d left her meeting with the hounds of work on her tail and had forgotten that all she’d wanted the whole time had been a cold drink. Now that Jason offered it, a cold Coke sounded like the best thing in the world. More important than either a salad or a sandwich.

The bag rustled, then a sweaty bottle of soda appeared on her desk. She reached out for the salad, too, slow in her lingering disbelief. “And the salad is good, too. I don’t know what surprised me more, that you have a salad for lunch or that you’re giving it to me.”

He shrugged and set his sandwich on her desk. “I’m giving you a salad because a protein bar isn’t food.”

“I’m still going to eat it.” She pulled the salad across the desk toward her. The salad was a much better lunch than her nonbrownie. She often forgot to eat lunch, and her workday was almost always worse off for it.

“You can call it a crispy brownie and I’ll call it dessert and we’ll both pretend.”

She chuckled. “Okay. Want to split my dessert?”

“Ugh. No.” He shook his head. “I had a salad for my lunch because I’m not twenty-five anymore, and I need the vegetables more than I need the potato chips.” He unwrapped the waxed paper around his sandwich, and Marsie realized she must be hungrier than she’d imagined, because his sandwich looked delicious and she didn’t like ham and cheese.

“Well, thank you.” She cracked the plastic container open and poured dressing on the greens. The dressing was white. It could be Caesar or ranch or blue cheese. She didn’t know and she didn’t care. It wasn’t food that had been sitting in her desk drawer for months. “This was sweet of you. Want something to drink other than coffee, since you gave me your Coke?”

“Whatcha got?”

“Warm Diet Coke,” she said, which was apparently enough to stop him as he was lifting his lunch to his mouth.

“Warm?” he said.

“Warm,” she confirmed. “I love Diet Coke. Though it’s not as good when warm. So I keep cans under my desk. In an emergency, it’s there for me to drink, but the fact that it’s not cold keeps me from drinking it on days like today, when I would falsify data in exchange for a cold drink.”

“I’m glad it didn’t come to that.” He took a bite of his sandwich, chewing while she stabbed at her salad with a fork. She was taking a bite when he swallowed. “I guess that makes some amount of sense.”

“Only some?”

The warm soda fizzed when he popped the can open. “Some. I’m still going to drink it, but it makes about as much sense as me justifying an extra beer at the bar on Friday nights because I had salad for lunch.”

“Oh,” she said, laughing as she picked up another forkful of salad. “So that’s the real story behind the salad. It’s not about the chips, it’s about the beer.”

“Well,” he said, hedging. His trim beard hid a small dimple when he smiled. She’d never been close enough to notice before. “It’s really about both. To be honest, the salad allows me to justify all sorts of things.”

“Yeah? Like what?” she asked, still charmed by the small dimple.

“Like this Diet Coke.” His brows were raised as he lifted the can to his lips and took a sip. “Hey, this isn’t so bad actually. I think I like it better warm. It’s better than warm water, which is what I was going to drink along with my coffee, since you took my Coke.”

“Where were you going to eat your lunch? Obviously not here.”

“Wish I was there instead?” One of the things she had always liked about Jason was that she could hear the teasing in his voice. She rarely had to wonder if he was serious. It made all their interactions easier for her.

But she still said, “Of course not.” Teasing voices didn’t mean there weren’t hurt feelings. She knew all about faking that everything was okay. “Curious, is all.”

“I was going to eat in my car, spiking my blood with caffeine from Coke and coffee, and listening to my audiobook. But this is better.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Thank you for the salad. I appreciate it.”

“There’s a cafeteria in the basement, you know, for when you don’t have lunch. We’ve gone to get coffee there.”

“I know.” She pushed the last of her salad greens around to get them coated in dressing, then speared them up on her fork.

“What’s your reason for not going down to get a salad or sandwich? I’m hoping it’s as fun as your reason for keeping warm Diet Coke in your office.”

Fun. People almost never used that word to describe her, and Jason using it made her smiley inside. “It’s not. Fun, I mean. Or convoluted, which is the other way to describe my soda reasoning. But when it gets to be early afternoon and I’ve not eaten lunch yet and I have a pile of work on my desk, it seems easier to keep working than to quit and feed myself. After all, dinner’s getting closer.”

“Well, I’m a three-squares-a-day kind of guy. Usually I pack my lunch. You’re lucky.”

“Yes.” She closed the lid of her salad container and picked up the roll. “Want to share?”

“No, that’s all yours.”

“Thanks.” She didn’t have a knife, so she used the back of a fork to spread the butter around.

He was throwing away his trash when a flash on her phone screen distracted them both. He probably recognized the icon, and she didn’t want to deal with it right now, or hear his questions, so she slapped her hand on the phone and flipped it over, screen side down.

“I know what that is,” he said. “You don’t have to hide it.”

“It’s not important,” she lied. The paucity of responses she got in online dating meant that every small response took on a magnitude that far outweighed its actual importance. She knew it, and still that icon called to her. Look at me! I might be the one!

“I’d want to look at it,” he said, not moving from his spot near her desk. They were both staring at the Hello Kitty on the back of her phone.

“It’s either a message agreeing to meet me for drinks tonight, or it’s not. It’s a binary answer, so nothing to get too worked up over.” As soon has Jason left her office, she would flip that phone over and learn which it was. But right now, she used her hands to put the last of the roll in her mouth. Giving them something to do other than flip the phone over.

“It’s not really binary,” he said, probably just needling her. “Maybe the fellow is offering you drinks tomorrow night. Or dinner. Or meeting for coffee on Sunday.”

“Coffee this Sunday would be okay. That’s open on my schedule. No drinks tomorrow night. And I don’t know the man well enough to commit the time necessary for dinner. I have a grant application to finish and not a lot of time left to do so.”

“Wait.” Realization dawned on his face. “Do you have times set aside when you’ll go on dates and, if it’s not one of those times, you won’t go?”

“I’m busy. I assume the men are busy, too. I’m respectful of their time, and I hope they’re respectful of mine.”

“Respect isn’t an exciting way to start a relationship. Shouldn’t you want your heart to flutter or tingle or whatever romantic nonsense it is that people talk about?”

She tilted her head to get a different view of him as he was sitting back down in the chair. He’d talked about online dating being fun, how it was about getting to meet new people. It had never occurred to her that he might be looking for love at first sight or some sort of off the charts chemistry. Who besides her parents did that in real life?

And look where that had gotten her parents.

“Tingles would be nice, but respect is a better start. No matter how much you want in someone’s pants, the morning after will be awkward without respect.”

Something she said must have surprised him, because he blinked a couple times, then barked out a laugh. “Mornings after are generally awkward. And, if we’re being frank, being in someone’s pants doesn’t necessarily mean a morning after.”

It was her turn to laugh and she giggled. “This is not a work-related or even lunch-related conversation.”

“No,” he said with a big smile, “but it has everything to do with the guy who messaged you, and he’s who I’m really curious about.”

“Ha,” she said, perhaps even with a smile. “There’s no way I’m going to talk about Waterski25. It’s not happening.”

“What’s your profile name?”

“No,” she said, unable to stop herself from smiling.

“I’ll tell you what mine is.”

“No.” She was still smiling.

“Do you have a good profile picture? Did you fill out the ‘last read’ section down at the bottom? Where did you say that you hang out?”

“No, no and no.” Her voice sounded girlish and flirty, even to her own ears, but she was having fun and didn’t know how to sound serious again, not with Jason teasing her.

“No, you don’t have a good profile picture?”

“Oh, get out of here.” Her chair rolled as she pushed a hand against his hip. “We each have lots of work to do, and I hope to have a date tonight.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” he said, backing away. “Next time, I’m bringing doughnuts and you’re showing me your profile picture.”

“I’ll take the doughnuts, but no way on the profile picture. And no questions about my online dating profile.”

“Come on. I’ll answer any of your questions about online dating. We can compare notes.”

“Get outta here.” She waved him away. And, with a flick of his hand at his forehead, Jason went.

He really did have a cute butt. And the cargo pants he always wore hugged that cute butt nicely.

She shouldn’t be looking at his cute butt. He didn’t fit her algorithm. She didn’t have to look at his profile to know that.

* * *

JASON WAS SMILING as he walked out of Marsie’s office. If someone had told him yesterday that prim and starchy Marsie Penny would use the words “someone’s pants” while at work, he would have asked when pot had become legal in North Carolina. Right now, he just wished he was still in her office, flirting and joking, rather than walking out to put together a bookshelf in some guy’s office.

At least he knew she had long fingers. He’d felt every inch of her hand when she’d put her palm against him and gave him a slight push. Elegant fingers, just like she was elegant in every other aspect.

He shook his hand. He never thought he’d describe a woman’s hand as elegant, but here he was. Unfortunately, his heart hadn’t fluttered. He had a date tomorrow night, and the few chats he and Willow had exchanged weren’t nearly as interesting as his talks with Marsie.

Maybe Willow would be more interesting in person. Her picture was cute, which was a good start for a heart flutter.