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“What can I do?”
“Nothing. Marsie, right now, I’m so angry that I can’t think straight and so hurt I can barely stand. I just want to be somewhere else. Anywhere but here, in your house, with those papers.”
“Can we talk later?” she pleaded. “I was willing to talk later.”
“Again, not the same circumstance.”
She sniffed again, and he reached over for the box of tissues to hand her. She took a handful. She needed them.
“No promises. I need to be somewhere else. Then I’ll see if I want to talk with you.”
She nodded and sniffed. Sniffed and nodded.
“The cookbook you want is on your desk. It was under those papers. Enjoy your chicken,” he said. Then he walked out.
Unable to see through the waterfall of tears. Marsie stumbled through her kitchen to the nearest chair, tissues in hand. Then she collapsed in a fit of tears, crying for herself, crying for Jason’s hurt and crying for math, which had failed her for the first time in her life.
* * *
JASON STOPPED AT Marsie’s front door, his hand on the knob, when he heard her burst into tears. Those weren’t the tears that had been running down her face when they’d been talking. Now she was crying the gulping, choking cries of someone who was truly grieving.
He looked back over his shoulder and considered walking back, gathering her into his arms and telling her all was forgiven and forgotten.
But it wasn’t. And forgiving wasn’t enough. Would she be able to forget that he hadn’t measured up?
Would he be able to forget the image of her, sitting at the messy desk, looking at his online dating profile and scoring him? Like he was any other dude.
He sighed and took a step off her stoop. It was the remembering that would kill them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ON MONDAY, JASON got to work late for the first time in his life. He had to park near the back of the lot and walk past all the cars. The beautiful weather of the weekend should have turned gray to match his black mood. But it didn’t. No personal storm clouds, either, not even when he walked past Marsie’s car.
Once in the door, he headed to his office and to reality. No coffee for him this morning. Too many memories associated with the cafeteria for right now.
Maybe he’d become a tea drinker.
Or give up hot beverages entirely and turn into one of those people who carried around thirty-six-ounce bottles of Coke everywhere he went.
His desk was as messy as he usually left it, except for a small space cleared of papers with a small, insulated bag sitting on the wood and a cup next to it.
The cup held barely warm coffee. He was much later to work than anyone could have expected. And he didn’t have to lift the lid to know that the coffee had been made to his preferences of milk and sugar.
Marsie wouldn’t miss a detail like that.
Details were her specialty and her downfall.
He opened the bag and set aside the note, not quite ready for it. He popped open the first small container. Roasted Brussels sprouts. The second small container had carrots. He picked one up and tasted it. Carrots with honey and butter.
He knew what the large container at the bottom would hold without having to open in. Of course, he couldn’t stop himself from opening it anyway. Chicken, surrounded by something bread-looking that Marsie had described as tasting like a cracker, but a cracker cooked with chicken.
Before packing everything back up, he took a deep sniff. It smelled good. Of course it would smell good. Of course Marsie would be a good cook. She was precise and careful. The chicken would probably taste exactly like the author of the cookbook intended it to. Perfectly prescribed. Just as the doctor ordered.
Once all the food was packed up, he picked up the note.
Jason,
The chicken is better when shared.
I’m sorry.
Marsie
No deviation from the path that she’d laid out for herself. She’d even fucking cooked the chicken she’d planned to cook with him. Probably because she’d planned to cook it, and once Marsie made a plan, she didn’t stray from it.
He tossed the note aside with a sigh. The problem wasn’t that he didn’t understand why Marsie had scored him. The problem was that he didn’t want her to look back at her life and this fork in the road and think, Man, I should have stayed with the original plan.
