She drops the tote on the couch. A laptop. A notebook. A folder with something in it. She’s brought work.
I don’t comment.
Christ, that ass in those jeans.
“You eat?” I say.
“Granola bar at four.”
“That’s not eating.”
“It’s adjacent to eating.”
I make pasta. Nothing fancy — water, salt, the box, the jar. She sits at the counter with her laptop open and starts editing something I can’t see. Asks me a question about a player’s stats halfway through and I answer it without asking what it’s for.
The back of her neck is right there. Hair up. The little space between her hairline and the collar of her shirt. I can feel it in my teeth.
I stir the pasta, and think about the Reapers’ top line. It works enough.
We eat at the counter. She closes the laptop to eat. Opens it again the second her plate is empty.
“What are you working on?”
“Military families piece. The one I mentioned. Some nonprofit thing.”
“Going well?”
“It will be when I stop reading the same paragraph six times.”
“You hungry for anything else?”
“I’m good.”
“Coffee?”
“It’s nine PM, Jax.”
“Decaf.”
“You don’t have decaf.”
“I have decaf.”
She looks up at me.
“You bought decaf.”
“I bought decaf.”
She doesn’t say anything to that. Goes back to her laptop. The tips of her ears are pink.
I make her a decaf and stand at the other side of the counter and watch her not look at me and think about what it would take to get her to look up.
Not much, probably.
I’m not going to…not yet.
Phone goes off on the counter.