Anyone But Nick (Anyone But... #3) - Penelope Bloom Page 0,8
aluminum can crunching? Papers brushing together? But there was a chewing noise too.
I slowly pushed the door open and looked inside.
Miranda was sitting on the ground with a bag of pretzel sticks in one hand and a chocolate candy bar in the other. She took a violent bite of the candy, then tipped the bag of pretzels back and practically inhaled a few. Once she was done chewing the pretzels, she put the bag to her mouth and started hyperventilating into it. She had to stop and cough after a few seconds, probably from inhaling pretzel salt at a high velocity.
I was about to slowly back out of the room when her face turned red. She had been coughing, but now she was just leaning forward and clutching soundlessly at her throat.
I hurried to her side, slid my arms around her from the back, and pressed my fist into her just below her breasts. She coughed again, and something half-chewed launched out of her mouth and stuck to the back of a chair.
For a few seconds, neither of us did anything except wait for the glob of half-chewed food to slide down from the chair and fall to the floor. Once it fell, I realized I was still crouched behind her with my arms around her. I could even feel the weight and warmth of her breasts just above my hands.
I was the first to recover from the shock, so I stood back up, brushed off my knees, and offered her a hand up. She took it uncertainly and then stood, brushing pretzel crumbs from her skirt.
“Hey,” I said. “You’re not the first person to show up for a big interview and choke.”
Miranda looked like she wanted to do anything in the world but laugh. Her lips quivered, and she finally smiled and shook her head. “Thank you. For saving me.”
“I’m just sorry I was too late to save those poor pretzels and the chocolate bar. I could’ve sworn you were only in here for a minute before I came in. Are you training for an eating competition?”
This time, she didn’t appear to have any trouble not smiling. “I missed breakfast.”
“I’m not surprised. I’d miss my food, too, if I could inhale it that quickly.”
“If you’re done making fun of me, I have an interview in a few minutes, and I need to get ready.”
“See you in a few, then.”
“What?” she asked.
I bit back the smile that wanted to come. “Nothing. Good luck.”
Once we’d left the conference room, Miranda fast-walked toward the bathroom.
I took a few seconds to process what had happened. I’d just seen Miranda Collins double-fisting junk food. This was the same Miranda who only ever ate salads and drank water. The same one who exercised religiously and was the poster girl for perfection. A pang of concern ran through me when I realized she might have taken the breakup harder than anyone thought. I almost called after her to apologize but decided against it.
The most confusing part had been the way I could practically feel the air crackling between us when we talked. I just wanted to find out if that had been the electrical charge of an imminent explosion, or the potential for a chemical reaction. I guessed maybe there wasn’t much of a difference between the two.
Either way, I had a feeling that opportunity I’d been waiting for was getting ready to present itself. It seemed like it might be time to tackle the Mount Everest of challenges, after all. The question was whether either of us would survive the process.
Chapter 3
MIRANDA
Damn it.
My throat still stung from whatever I’d inhaled during my little freak-out. No, it wasn’t a freak-out. It was a calculated, rational decision to lower my heart rate and calm my breathing before a big interview. Hadn’t I read something about salt and sugar being beneficial to proper brain function?
Probably not.
I needed to face the facts. I was far from being in control, no matter how hard I wanted to pretend otherwise. I still couldn’t believe that Nick King, of all people, had to be the one to walk in and catch me choking on pretzels and chocolate. Why couldn’t it have been a janitor?
The postsnack guilt was already creeping in on my walk to the restrooms, but I often thought of my little junk food frenzies as a sanity-retention mechanism. In less fancy terms, I’d go crazy if I couldn’t at least let loose in private every once in a while.