Jeremy swatted his hand away. “Tell me again why I’m friends with you two.”
“Because you don’t have a choice,” Jill said smugly.
Jeremy laughed, and some of the tension he’d felt analyzing his cover design all morning started to seep out of him. “Get out of here, you crazy kids.” He shooed them away and watched the couple head to the elevator.
“Did I hear something about cookies?” Sofiya sidled up next to him.
Now was the perfect time to score some extra points with his boss. He moved his hand over the boxes like Vanna White. “What would you like? Santa, snowflake, or tree?”
“Let’s go with—” she considered each option, then pointed—“a snowflake.”
He grabbed a napkin and handed Sofiya a cookie. “I wish I could take the credit, but I know my limitations, and baking exceeds those.”
She chuckled lightly. “Knowing one’s limitations is an asset as long as a person is willing to try to expand those limitations and not get boxed in by them. However, I am also not an accomplished baker.” She took a delicate bite. A noise of appreciation hummed in her throat. “This is good.” She dabbed at her lips with the napkin, swallowed, then smiled.
Jeremy froze. Why were Sofiya’s teeth blue? He watched her lift the snowflake cookie—thebluesnowflake cookie—to her lips. Watched her teeth sink into the icing.
He punched back a groan. His brilliant idea of professional Christmas cookies had backfired and stained his boss’s teeth.The boss he desperately needed to impress. He didn’t want to tell her, but letting her go through her day with blue teeth would make things even worse.
“Sofiya,” he started.
“Jeremy,” Keri interrupted. She looked almost gleeful as she pulled Derek and Annabelle behind her, their hands covering their mouths. “I hate to be the one to break it to you—”
Then why couldn’t she contain her smile?
“Actually, that’s not true. I’m getting immense satisfaction right now.” She grinned wider. “Your cookies have painted everyone’s mouths crazy colors.”
She poked Derek, who lowered his hand and bared his teeth. Too bad Halloween had already passed. All he’d need was sharper canines, and he’d have made a perfect vampire; his mouth looked like he’d been drinking blood.
Sofiya gasped and covered her own mouth with a hand before scurrying off to the bathroom. She came out a few seconds later, her cheeks almost matching Derek’s teeth.
“It won’t come off with water, and I have a Zoom meeting in ten minutes.”
“I have toothpaste,” said a small voice behind him.
He turned to see Mackenzie holding up a travel-sized tube of Colgate.
“You’re a lifesaver.” Sofiya grabbed the toothpaste before retreating to the bathroom once more. Annabelle followed her.
How had this happened? Well, obviously a baker had been too generous with the food coloring. Even he could deduce that. But he’d planned on the cookies being made by a professional so he could avoid disasters like this. He’d gone the extra step to make sure everything would go smoothly, and insteadthishad happened.
Yes, he’d wanted his Christmas efforts to be memorable, but for their success, not their failure.
He closed the lids on the boxes and carried them to his workstation. He’d take them home to Nathan and Natalie. They’dget a kick out of their mouths changing color if the amount of times they stuck out their tongues after eating popsicles was any indication.
He tried to bury himself in his cover design, but the Aquiline Two font treatment on the title didn’t have enough power to distract him from the pair of women emerging from the restroom. Sofiya handed Mackenzie her tube of toothpaste with a smile. A regular, white-toothed smile.
At least he hadn’t ruined his boss’s meeting.
He dragged his focus back to the computer screen. Maybe if he created a light source in the right-hand corner and then cast shadows...
Mackenzie rounded the long table and swiveled her chair to sit. Not having individual offices or even cubicles, it was easy to get distracted by the movement and actions of their coworkers. Although he’d never had that particular problem before.
Mackenzie rotated her chair and reached for her headphones. How would she wear them with all her hair on top of her head? She tried to slide the headset on, but it kept snagging on her hair pile. Finally, she set the headphones back down, reached up, and dug around in her hair. A second later, it all came tumbling down her back like a flash flood, stealing Jeremy’s breath right out of his chest.
She slid the headphones on and poised her fingers over her keyboard as if she hadn’t just done something ... well, he didn’t know what, but she’d certainly donesomething. One minute he’d been obsessing over the stupid cookies, and the next had transported him back to the same thought wave he’d been riding that morning. That he wanted nothing more than for Mackenzie to talk to him. More than two words.
But silently teasing hadn’t worked. So, what, then? What would get this beguiling woman to come out from behind her wall of reservation?
