a forecast for the entire company. My mouth gaped when I skimmed his financial models. I’d never seen anyone work numbers the way he did. He was right, I really should have asked for his help on those Ian projects.
“Uh, sorry, I had to run to the bathroom. I got so caught up in work I forgot to go all day.” Nolan scooted by me and bent over the desk to save what he was working on, then shut down his computer. His brown curls fell forward, covering his eyes like a sheepdog. I resisted the urge to brush them out of his eyes.
“I’m impressed” was all I could muster. I really was speechless, completely in awe of his expert Excel skills. People always came to me for spreadsheet help. Now I knew who to go to when I got stumped.
“Are you making fun of me?” He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head.
Feigning hurt, I clutched my upper chest. “I’m serious!”
He offered a sad smile. “Well, it’s pretty obvious that inclusivity consulting wasn’t my forte.” Putting his bag strap on his shoulder, he said, “I took on some strategic planning projects with the finance team, which I love, but I’ve been working late some nights. By the way, where are we headed?”
I held out the Ian-issued gift card options. Johnny Rockets, Red Robin, or P.F. Chang’s.
He studied them harder than a normal person would. “P.F. Chang’s is close, just over there on Pine, so let’s go there.”
“I can’t. I shouldn’t have even included that in the options.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“It’s blasphemy, like Taco Bell for Mexican people. My Asian friends and I have an unspoken rule that we aren’t supposed to eat at PFC’s because it’s a fake Asian hodgepodge restaurant concocted by greedy corporate white people.”
He barked out a laugh. “I’ll bet you twenty dollars that you like the food.”
Twenty bucks was incentive enough for me to break trust with my Asian brethren. “You’re on.”
The rain pelted us from all directions the whole way there, only partially shielded by the giant golf umbrella he held high above us. The entire walk there, Nolan’s phone buzzed with texts, which he continually ignored.
“Sounds important,” I said as we turned down Pine Street.
He shook his head and frowned. “It’s just my parents. Both of them, tag-teaming me with messages. They want me to come visit them during fall break.”
“That sounds nice,” I murmured. “They want you home.” I couldn’t remember the last time my parents had begged me to come home to visit them.
“Nah, it’s more dubious than that. They want me to move back to North Carolina after grad school.”
I swallowed hard and kept quiet. Nothing could happen between us anyway. Not while I was his “boss.” Not with Asher ready to get me fired in a moment’s notice if I crossed the line.
A booth was ready as soon as we arrived, and the hostess walked us to a table near the window and handed us our menus. My stomach gurgled and made those yeti noises again. I hated to admit it, but each time the waiters passed us with trays of food, my mouth watered. Everything looked and smelled so tasty. We got our drink orders in and pored over the menu tome.
“Mmmm, pot stickers. And egg rolls. And stuffed wontons sound good,” I murmured.
He laughed. “That sounds very . . . deep fried. But delicious. Maybe we need some vegetables or salad or something.”
“You’re right. Vegetable tempura? Just kidding. Let’s do edamame. No salad.”
He raised an eyebrow. “No salads today, or like, ever?”
“Ever. I hate them, even the ones with fried chicken or bacon bits on top. Lettuce is no one’s favorite food. Or tomato. And combining them together to be the staple of any meal is an offensive culinary travesty.”
“I see you have strong feelings about this,” he joked.
“A salad is a giant, colorful bowl of disappointment. Well, except for taco salad. Taco salad is fake salad because it has cheese and sour cream on it. It’s basically nachos with lettuce confetti.”
He laughed. “Oh, man, too bad P.F. Chang’s doesn’t have nachos.”
Grinning, I raised a glass as soon as the server placed our drinks on the table. “To nachos.” We toasted and I gulped down wine number one pretty quickly. “Okay, time to be serious for a sec. I want to apologize for two things. One, for snapping at you when you were trying to be nice. And second, for assuming you got this job