Two Men and a Baby - Isla Olsen Page 0,25

out for a steak?” I ask as I guide a spoonful of the pale green mush toward his mouth.

Josh chuckles. “I’m going to say no. But once he’s had time to get used to the pureed vegetables and fruit he’ll start on pureed meats, so close enough.”

I can’t help the way my face screws up in distaste. “That is so not close enough.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to go to the museum today,” he says, changing the subject.

I shrug. “We can go another week. Or, you know, you and I could go there on our own…without Chase.” I waggle my eyebrows at him to make sure he gets my point.

Josh merely rolls his eyes.

He’s saved from answering by the buzz of my apartment’s security door and I hand him Chase’s bowl and spoon so I can get up to answer it, finding Laura’s here to pick up Chase. Shit, it’s later than I realized.

“Hey, you going to let me up?”

“Umm—” My eyes run over Chase, who’s sitting in his highchair, his face covered with goop. I’m also about ninety percent sure his diaper’s dirty and I have no fucking clue where Monkey is. “Sure.”

“Why did you hesitate just now? What’s wrong?” Laura asks through the intercom, her voice full of suspicion.

“Nothing! He’s just not really ready to leave yet. Come on up, though—it’s cold outside.”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on just waiting here in the street,” Laura says and I can practically hear her eyes rolling.

“This is Josh,” I tell Laura once I let her inside.

“The baby expert?” she says wryly. “So he has you working full time now?”

“We were just hanging out,” Josh says with a smile, before returning his attention to feeding Chase.

Laura ends up staying for dinner, which is a little weird at first but also kind of cool. I’m enjoyng getting to know her better and I like that Josh has an opportunity now to do that too. And it turns out they actually have some stuff in common.

“Are you serious?” I hear Laura ask as I’m returning from the bathroom. “You actually think Sanderson-era WOT is better than Jordan-era WOT?”

“Absolutely,” Josh says, nodding enthusatically. “I’m not saying Jordan’s books were bad. The opposite—they were absolutely amazing. But come on, Sanderson came in and took a series that had spun wildly out of control and he managed to rein it all in and tie it up in a way that made sense. It was brilliant.”

Laura shakes her head in what looks like disappointment. “No way, the early books are by far the best.”

“Umm…what’s WOT?” I ask curiously.

“Wheel of Time,” they say in unison, still locked in a staring contest, as if the winner will determine which books are better.

“Well that’s stupid. WOT is way longer to say than Wheel of Time. What’s the point abbreviating it?”

I was kind of shocked when Esther approached me on Monday and told me she wanted me to come with her to the status meeting at Cox Property Group today. Considering I took two fake sick days last week and have organized to work from home half the week for the foreseeable future, I haven’t really been feeling like the most stellar employee. But according to Esther, my ideas have merit and she thinks a meeting with a big client like Spencer Cox will be a good experience for me. Also I think she just likes me more than anyone else on my design team.

“Okay, remember this is just a status meeting,” she says as we ride the elevator up to the thirty-eighth floor of Cox Property Group’s Fifth Avenue headquarters building. “We want to make sure we show the client enough to keep them interested, but we don’t want to be giving away all the details of next month’s major pitch.”

I nod, although I have to admit I’m a little nervous. This is my first big meeting like this and Esther knows it. I’ve been working in this field for four years now—a year as a graduate and then three years as a fully certified architect—but the firm I was with in Denver, while not exactly tiny, didn’t handle the kind of big name clients we’re getting here. It was more about designing shopping malls and banks than luxury hotels and botique apartment complexes.

When we step off the elevator, it’s into a pristinely designed lobby, with dark-wood panelled walls and soft carpet underfoot. There’s a reception desk just beyond the elevator bank, with another dark wood panelled wall behind it hiding