After he put his phone down, Josh leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a long moment. Losing out on a date was a dumb reason to contemplate quitting his job, and yet…
He pushed it aside and got back to work.
And then, like a miracle, a few hours later, Paige appeared at his doorway.
“Are you a mirage?” he asked.
She looked around his office. “Although there is a decided lack of color here, this hardly looks like a desert.”
“Why are you here?”
She held up two plastic bags. “I brought dinner. Have you eaten?”
“Uh, no. I forgot, in fact.” His stomach grumbled. “A beautiful woman bringing me food must be some kind of dream. I must have fallen asleep on my keyboard.”
“I’m very real. I’ll pinch you, if it helps.”
Josh knew he would like that too much. He shook his head. “How did you even get in here?”
“Security is really loose in this building. I just had to tell the guy in the lobby that I was coming to see you and he let me right in. Then I was really charming to a receptionist on the seventh floor, and she told me where your office was. A perk of being blond is that no one ever thinks I’m a terrorist.”
“Very privileged of you.”
“I’m acknowledging it.”
“So what did you bring?” Josh started clearing part of his desk so she could put the bags down.
“Well, we were going to get Italian, so I got some takeout from the restaurant. But I don’t know what you like, so there’s a variety here. Chicken piccata, spaghetti carbonara, ravioli marinara, and some tiramisu for dessert. Plus a couple of diet sodas.”
“It all sounds delicious. You are my hero.”
Paige started setting plastic takeout containers on the desk. “We could be classy and use the paper plates I got, but we could also just eat out of the containers.”
“We’ve already exchanged bodily fluids. I’m not worried about cooties.”
Paige laughed and pulled over a chair. “Seriously, is this okay? I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything.”
“Yeah, this is fine. My boss left about forty-five minutes ago. I still have a few hours of work to go, though, so I’m happy to take a break now.”
“Don’t you want to, I don’t know. Go home? Sleep?”
“I’ll sleep when I’m forty.” He took the lid off one of the containers. “Oh, that smells divine.”
“That looks like the chicken.” She put a soda can next to his hand. “I know Diet Coke is not exactly a fine chianti like we probably would have had at the restaurant, but you do still have to work.”
“Really, I’m grateful for all of this. Thank you.”
“No problem. The atmosphere at this establishment leaves a little to be desired, but I still get to spend time with you. Although, seriously, has no one here heard of color? Everything is so gray.”
“You’ll have to help me pick out some art for the walls. I haven’t gotten to it yet.”
Josh dug into the chicken piccata and wondered how it was that he was sitting here with Paige, who had brought him dinner. He still couldn’t believe it.
She moaned around her fork. “The carbonara is amazing. The place by my apartment does a pretty good carbonara, but this is much better.”
“Don’t make noises like that or I’ll have to sweep everything off my desk and have you right here. And that would seriously set me back for the night.”
Paige laughed. “Well, we wouldn’t want that. And I gotta say, eating out of plastic containers in an office is maybe a little more boring a date than I would have asked for, and yet I’m not bored.”
