“Because you’re—” The words came out in a rush, like she’d been holding them back.
Here we go.I braced myself.
“—a complete and utter jackass.”
I nodded, letting the accusation hang in the air between us. “Actually, it’s Donkey.”
She blinked, thrown by the non sequitur. “What?”
“My nickname. At the station. It’s Donkey, not jackass.” I took a sip of coffee as she processed this information.
“Why?” She frowned in suspicion, like she thought this might be some elaborate setup for a joke at her expense.
I hesitated, which was apparently blood in the water because she leaned forward a little, those green eyes narrowing with the focus of a predator who’d just spotted prey.
“Seriously.” Her voice took on that demanding tone I was beginning to recognize. “Why Donkey?”
“I’ll tell you at our next meeting.”
Her jaw dropped open in what looked like genuine outrage. Then it snapped shut with an audible click. She pointed her fork at me like it was a weapon, a piece of pancake still speared on the end. “No. Absolutely not. You don’t get to dangle information like some kind of—of—holiday carrot to manipulate me into more meetings.”
“You’re curious.”
“I am not curious.”
“You are.” I couldn’t help the grin that tugged at my lips.
“I’m strategizing,” she insisted, her cheeks flushing pink. “I am gathering intelligence on my co-chair so I can anticipate and minimize potential disasters.”
“I like the version where you’re curious about me better.”
She glared at me with enough heat to melt snow. “Next meeting. Wednesday morning. Same time. Bring a real schedule with actual timelines and vendor contacts. Not… this.” She gestured at the pancakes like they had betrayed her.
“You liked the pancakes.”
“That was a purely biological response to sugar and carbohydrates,” she snapped, pushing her plate away like she couldn’t risk being in proximity to another bite. “Not enjoyment. Certainly not appreciation.”
She stood too fast, her chair scraping against the truck’s floor. In her haste, she almost knocked her messenger bag off the counter. She crouched to rescue it, muttering what sounded like creative curse words under her breath, and when she roseagain, she had another perfect little smear of syrup on her thumb.
I didn’t say anything.
I didn’t have to.
She noticed it herself, lifting her hand to examine the sticky sweetness. She paused?—
—glanced at me?—
—then back at her thumb?—
With a tiny, defeated sigh that sounded like surrender, she lifted her thumb to her mouth and licked it clean.
My brain short-circuited. Every coherent thought I’d ever had just evaporated.
She straightened, grabbed her bag with more force than necessary, and headed for the door. “Next meeting,” she said, her voice too bright and too tight, like she was desperately trying to pretend the last thirty seconds hadn’t happened. “Same time. Bring actual notes.”
“Bring an appetite,” I murmured before my brain could engage the filter between my thoughts and my mouth.
She froze for half a second—long enough for me to see her shoulders tense—then practically fled through the door like she needed to physically escape the confined space before she did something we’d both regret.
