He opened the bag and handed me a white square takeout box. “You are now the only one who knows my secret, so if it gets out, I’m coming for you.”
“What is this?” I asked, holding up the box.
He shrugged. “I told the guy to give me his two-person special. I have no idea what’s in here.”
My eyes widened. “You’d do that at a Chinese restaurant? Their menu is bigger than the Bible.” Before I could open my box, something else hit me. “Wait. Two person?”
Duke had been about to take a drink from his can of Coke but stopped just before his lips touched, a hint of a smile playing across his mouth. “Did I say two person?”
“Duke Webber. You are my boss. And might I add, very newly single.”
“Technically, you just said you were my boss now. You can do whatever you want with me.”
I pushed his arm while he laughed, grabbing another box from the bag at our feet. He motioned toward my food. “What’d you get?”
Giving him a side-eye, I opened the flaps and inspected the contents. “Looks like beef and broccoli.”
“Ugh. That’s yours.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I’ll eat the beef, but my mom is the only person who can get me to eat broccoli. And she’s not here.”
He handed me a fork before he opened his box. “Fried rice.” Leaning down, he rummaged through the rest of the plastic sack. “Jackpot. Sweet-and-sour chicken.”
Before I knew what he was doing, he leaned down and grabbed the leg of my chair, dragging me back until I sat next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “So we can share,” he said almost shyly when I looked at him in question.
For the next few minutes, we looked out over our kingdom of lights, snatching bites from each other’s containers and feasting on the most delicious and filling meal I’d had in weeks. Through all my financial troubles of late, I’d been surviving on peanut butter and jelly. If I felt super fancy, sometimes I’d boil some noodles and throw on a jar of spaghetti sauce. Though, most nights, it was a bowl of cereal before dropping off to bed.
This had all the makings of a rom-com moment, but I kept reminding myself that this was not a date. Not a date. Even though the press of his shoulder against mine began to consume my thoughts. A person moves their arms a surprising amount when they’re watching the sunset and eating dinner. Too much, really. Every time he settled back in his chair, the heat from his arm brushing against mine would send a jolt of awareness throughout my entire body. I casually inched away and attempted to redirect my thoughts.
“Why do you hide out here?”
He shrugged. “It’s a good place to clear my head. I work with my best friends every day. It’s good for me to step out now and then.”
I leaned closer to jab a piece of his chicken and pop it into my mouth, the crunchy, gooey sweetness doing a delicious number on my taste buds.
“It seems like you all get along well.”
He nodded. “We do, for the most part.”
I played with the oversized chunks of broccoli in front of me. “For the most part,” I mimicked. “That’s an interesting phrase.”
A crooked smile parted his lips. “It’s true.”
The honk of a car horn from somewhere down below sounded, bringing me back to myself, and I was about to make my exit when he spoke.
“We get along well with all the day-to-day stuff. We have things divided out really well. The bigger we get, I’m sure we’ll have to re-adjust. But we all have different ideas for the business. Where to take it. How big we want it to grow. If we should sell it eventually. Things like that.”
“Sell it?” I asked. “Who wants to do that?”
He paused. “Ryan’s got a few other business ideas he wants to spend time on. He’s been working with a snowboard company to manufacture a new style of board. He’s thinking of selling his portion of the business to pursue that.”
“What does Mike think?”
“He’s in it for the long haul, but he wants me by his side.”
“What do you think?”
