She huffed out a sigh. “Thank God we’re not dating for real because you’d drive me so crazy that I’d have to stick my head in the oven or something.”
“Like you know how to work an oven.”
When we had dinner the other night Chris’s mother had regaled us with stories about all the times she’d tried to teach her daughter how to cook, only to give up.
“I’ll have you know I like to cook. Sometimes.”
Based on the look on her face, even she didn’t believe that lie.
I raised an eyebrow. “When’s the last time you cooked something that wasn’t eggs, toast, or oatmeal?”
“I made pancakes with you, remember?”
Oh I remembered. Then we ate them in bed naked before having each other for dessert. It was only four days ago but it already felt like one of those memories that popped up at the most inconvenient time.
“I made the pancakes, you stirred the batter and asked me why I was spending so much time heating up the griddle.”
“Oh my God are we really going to argue about pancakes?” she asked impatiently.
“If you’re such a good cook, why don’t you make me dinner sometime?” I dared.
“You think I can’t?”
“Totally,” I shot back. “I bet you can’t cook anything that doesn’t come out of a box.”
“Fine, come to dinner tomorrow night at six and I’ll cook you something box-free to show you how wrong you are.”
“Fine. But you can’t just pick up something from the hot bar at Whole Foods and pretend like you cooked it.”
“I don’t make enough money to shop at Whole Foods.”
“Okay. Bye.” I stomped out of the room, then stuck my head back in. “I don’t know where you live.”
She sighed impatiently. “I’ll text you my address later.”
I rushed back out of the conference room, nearly running into our QA Manager Rochelle. She nodded at Chris, who was still in the room watching through the window.
“Hey, how’s your partner?”
“Chris is not my partner,” I said firmly. “We don’t even like each other, there’s no way we could have a relationship. The very idea is ridiculous.”
I had the sudden urge to sew my mouth shut.
Rochelle tilted her head, giving me a quizzical look. “I thought you two were partnered on that big grant application?”
That’s when I remembered that she’d given us some information for the application and knew that we were working on. Now I’d gone and made things weird.
“Oh yeah, sorry I already forgot about that grant.”
“Gina said you just turned it in.” Rochelle was looking at me like she was starting to grow concerned about my mental health.
“Well you know me, I like to move on when I finish a project. No sense being worried about the past when there’s so much to do in the future.”
Chris walked out of the conference room, and I met her eyes over Rochelle’s shoulder. She looked like she was trying not to laugh at me.
I took a few steps back and inched away towards the lobby.
“Anyway, I need to get back to the shelter. We’re enrolling a new family today and I have no idea what they’re going to need. I’ll see you guys later. I mean, I’ll see you when I see you. I know none of us have plans for anything. So I’ve gotta go. To the shelter. Bye now.”
