Jennifer Lohmann - Dating By Numbers

Jason had laughed when she’d told him of her strategy.

“Last time we met,” the grant writer, Roberto, was saying from his chair at the front of the room, “we said that we’d have the implementation and evaluation measures for parts one through four ready for the final document.” The mouse moved across the screen to the empty spot under “Implementation.”

Marsie wasn’t the only person who expected Roberto to keep talking, because the room was silent.

“Well,” Roberto said, “does anyone know why this area is still blank?”

Because the application isn’t due yet. Marsie didn’t say that. This grant was her baby, and she was pushing behind the scenes as much as she knew how. But she also knew that time pressure got work done faster than meetings and pointed silences.

The procrastination had driven her bonkers the first couple of grants she’d worked on. It still drove her bonkers, but she’d learned it was part of everyone else’s process, and letting it drive her to drink wasn’t a good use of her time or energy. So she’d gotten her portions done ahead of schedule and had been relying on relaxing breathing to help her wait for everyone else to work at their pace.

Roberto knew it, too. These meetings were a play, and they all had their parts.

“Marsie,” Roberto said, turning his attention to her and away from the rest of the people sitting around the conference table.

She looked over to the grant writer. “Yes?”

“Let’s talk about your budget.”

“Great,” she said. “I actually have some questions about your comments.”

God, it was boiling in this room. Her suit jacket was off, and she didn’t have anything else she could remove. My kingdom for a cold drink, she thought as Roberto scrolled down to her budget and started poking holes.

* * *

“HEY.” MARSIE LOOKED up from the grant application she was editing to see Jason leaning against the door frame, a cup of coffee in one hand and a bag of something in the other. She smiled at him, pleased when he smiled back.

“You look like you were studying hard. Should I say I’m sorry for interrupting?”

She shook her head. “I needed the interruption. All the lines are starting to run together. And I’m getting a headache.”

“How was your meeting?” he asked, taking a couple steps into her office. She shoved the papers across her desk, and he moved closer.

“Part of the headache. The grant application is due in two months. The meeting was a reminder of how far behind we are.”

“Two months sounds like a long time.” Marsie’s shoulders, which she hadn’t realized were tense, relaxed as he sat in one of her chairs.

“It should be enough, but we don’t have the data we need, I keep getting told my budget is wrong and...you don’t need to hear the rest.” She waved away the litany of complaints. “Anyway, it doesn’t feel like nearly enough time or that people are working nearly as hard as they should be.”

She shrugged. “But that’s always how these things feel.”

She should have waited until after this application was finally in before signing up for online dating. Except waiting was what got her into this predicament in the first place. Not enough time.

When she’d been thirty, she’d felt like she had all the time in the world. Silly thirty-year-old Marsie.

He looked at his phone. “It’s one thirty. Have you gotten lunch?”

She flopped her back against her chair. “I don’t know if I’ll get lunch.” Then her stomach growled, both embarrassing her and giving away how much she needed food.

He lifted his brows.

“I’ve got a protein bar in my desk. I’ll be fine.”

“A protein bar isn’t lunch. It’s barely a snack.”

“It’s not lunch or a snack. It’s desperation, but it tastes vaguely like a brownie, so it’s okay.”

He laughed. “Right. Well, here,” he said, leaning over the arm of the chair and digging around in the bag at his feet.

Curious, Marsie sat up a little taller. She knew she wasn’t able to hide the surprise on her face when he set a small salad in a to-go container on her desk, then followed it with a roll, a pat of butter, a fork and a little container of dressing. “What’s this?” she asked stupidly.

“Salad.”

“Is it for me?” She felt like her brain was running two beats behind. She hated that feeling.

“Technically, it was for me. But a brownie protein bar is an oxymoron, not lunch.”

“It’s a small salad,” she said, still not able to stop the idiocy from coming out of her mouth. He was giving her salad?

He gave her a long, searching look, probably trying to decide how she ever managed to get a PhD in anything. Then he shook his head, reached down again and pulled out a sandwich. “Ham and cheese,” he said as he set it on her desk. “You can have this instead if you want. But not both. I need lunch, too.” He was smiling, so she didn’t think he was angry. “I’ve got a bottle of Coke in the bag, as well.”

“Coffee and coke?” she asked with a raised brow.

“A man’s got to get his addictions covered somehow. You can have the coffee if you want, but I like mine different than you like yours.”

“The Coke is good.” She’d left her meeting with the hounds of work on her tail and had forgotten that all she’d wanted the whole time had been a cold drink. Now that Jason offered it, a cold Coke sounded like the best thing in the world. More important than either a salad or a sandwich.

The bag rustled, then a sweaty bottle of soda appeared on her desk. She reached out for the salad, too, slow in her lingering disbelief. “And the salad is good, too. I don’t know what surprised me more, that you have a salad for lunch or that you’re giving it to me.”

He shrugged and set his sandwich on her desk. “I’m giving you a salad because a protein bar isn’t food.”

“I’m still going to eat it.” She pulled the salad across the desk toward her. The salad was a much better lunch than her nonbrownie. She often forgot to eat lunch, and her workday was almost always worse off for it.

“You can call it a crispy brownie and I’ll call it dessert and we’ll both pretend.”

She chuckled. “Okay. Want to split my dessert?”

“Ugh. No.” He shook his head. “I had a salad for my lunch because I’m not twenty-five anymore, and I need the vegetables more than I need the potato chips.” He unwrapped the waxed paper around his sandwich, and Marsie realized she must be hungrier than she’d imagined, because his sandwich looked delicious and she didn’t like ham and cheese.

“Well, thank you.” She cracked the plastic container open and poured dressing on the greens. The dressing was white. It could be Caesar or ranch or blue cheese. She didn’t know and she didn’t care. It wasn’t food that had been sitting in her desk drawer for months. “This was sweet of you. Want something to drink other than coffee, since you gave me your Coke?”

“Whatcha got?”

“Warm Diet Coke,” she said, which was apparently enough to stop him as he was lifting his lunch to his mouth.

“Warm?” he said.

“Warm,” she confirmed. “I love Diet Coke. Though it’s not as good when warm. So I keep cans under my desk. In an emergency, it’s there for me to drink, but the fact that it’s not cold keeps me from drinking it on days like today, when I would falsify data in exchange for a cold drink.”

“I’m glad it didn’t come to that.” He took a bite of his sandwich, chewing while she stabbed at her salad with a fork. She was taking a bite when he swallowed. “I guess that makes some amount of sense.”

“Only some?”

The warm soda fizzed when he popped the can open. “Some. I’m still going to drink it, but it makes about as much sense as me justifying an extra beer at the bar on Friday nights because I had salad for lunch.”