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“And once I go, you’ll forget for the next two hours. Eat.” He knew me too well.
I set up my food on the corner of my desk and took a bite. The spicy-sweet of General Tsao’s chicken washed over my tongue, and my stomach grumbled in appreciation. I shoved another forkful into my mouth quickly.
“How’s development going?” Chase asked.
I stared at him, eyebrows raised and mouth full of food.
He laughed. “Sorry.”
“No you’re not,” I said around my food. I chewed, swallowed, and washed it down with a swig of Coke. He’d even brought me the bottled kind with real sugar. He was too good to me. “Latest bug is that things are freezing right before... things.” I wasn’t supposed to share that detail.
“The big plot twist, right? If I beg and look pretty, will you tell me?”
I never had before, though it was silly to keep it from Chase. Tell no one meant tell no one. “Nope. But I’ll give you a hint. It does have to do with the big confession of love.”
“You sure you guys didn’t write it that way? To freeze right before the good stuff, I mean,” he teased.
I twisted my mouth in mock frustration. “You sound like Luke.”
“You take that back.” There was no power in his retort. “In fact, I bet when he said it, he did so in some sort of bad accent.”
“It was a perfect accent.” My reply came out more defensive than I intended, and I took another bite of food, letting the heat from the spice distract me so my mind didn’t pick the situation apart.
“I accept that.”
“If you want me to eat, you tell me about your day, so I can,” I said.
Chase looked up for a moment. before focusing on me again. “Staff meeting this morning. Yoshi was in office.”
My oh? came out muffled. Yoshi was VP of Sales and Marketing, which meant he was Chase and Jax’s boss. Everyone had a story about him, in a good way. He was quirky, like so many of us, but he was as kind and genuine as anyone.
“Jax is supposed to be drilling down on a new merchandising contract, and none of us knows Yoshi is going to be there. He walks in five minutes into things, and everyone stops. He must have some sort of announcement or something important to share, right?”
I shrugged in agreement. Usually when a big boss crashed a meeting that was the case.
“He doesn’t want a seat at the table,” Chase said. “Instead he sits in one of the chairs against the wall, and sets a Taco Bell bag next to him. Everyone’s staring and waiting for him to say something, and he’s digging into a Chalupa. He looks up, mouth full, and says, Don’t let me interrupt.”
“I bet Jax appreciated that,” I said sarcastically. Jax had been negotiating this contract for months.
Chase grinned. “He cranked the cheer and enthusiasm to eleven.”
“Extra irritated,” I said in understanding.
“So Jax falls back into it. He’s explaining how we’re going to do a Console Power Magazine tie-in, and Yoshi asks, What does this look like? He’s holding up a burrito.”
There was a punchline in here, and knowing Yoshi, it would be a pun. I preferred the stories second hand, because Chase had better timing, and I loved watching him—well—do anything. “And Jax said a burrito?”
Chase nodded. “Yoshi can’t stop smirking. He says, A baby donkey.”
A little burro? I groaned at the bad pun, but I was also laughing. “Worst one this week.”
“Worst one I’ve told you about. I save you from the really bad ones.”
“You’re such a gentleman.”
He tapped me playfully on the nose. “I absolutely am. I’m going to let you work, now that you’ve eaten. See you tomorrow?”
“See you tomorrow.”
