I cleared my throat. “What are you doing here?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he replied.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It wasn’t meant to be one.”
“Okay…Are you stalking me? That’s what this feels like.”
“No. When I saw that your car was still here, I knew you’d be working late, and I brought dinner on the off chance you’d still be here.”
“Wouldn’t you have felt silly if I wasn’t?”
“Thanks for saving me from an awkward moment with myself.” He grinned.
My stomach groaned painfully.
He chuckled and turned, walking out into the hallway and then into the empty, dimly lit lounge. He pulled out four foil packages, two rectangular in shape, two circular ones, and a bag of chips. I bit my lower lip. Tex-Mex was akin to kryptonite. The air burst with the aromas of seasoned meat, hot tortilla chips, cheese, and grilled peppers. I hardly knew a Texan who wouldn’t cave for the rich dishes that were a unique blend of Texan and Mexican tastes. There were just some things most of us were predisposed to like: barbeque, cobbler and pies, iced tea (always sweetened), bluebonnet season, festivals, and Tex-Mex.
He handed me a fork and pushed a soda toward me.
“Are you fattening me up?” I joked as the smell of spicy, cheesy enchiladas wafted up out of the newly opened container. My fork dove into the mass of red sauce, hungrily trying to pick up every element, including sour cream, pico de gallo, and guacamole. So warm and perfect on my tongue.
“Curves aren’t a bad thing.” He leaned across the table and watched me like I was parading around in see-through lingerie.
“Honey, I got plenty of curves,” I retorted and just about snapped my fingers. Then I went after the fried avocado taco smothered in cilantro-lime hot sauce.
“Yeah, I can see that.”
Heat washed over my face, but I didn’t react, much less look at him. When was the last time a guy made me feel remotely close to flustered?
I only ate a bite of the smoldering black beans in one of the round containers. No need to be bloated and gassy. But the queso blanco in the other container was too delicious to resist. I dipped a crispy, warm tortilla chip into it. Some of the cheese dripped onto my wrist and down my chin. I patted away the warm, gooey trail with a napkin, but honestly, I could’ve drunk queso straight out of the container.
“Are you not hungry?” he asked, one eyebrow cocked as he dissected a taco with a fork and knife and took a bite.
I gaped at him.
“What?”
“You eat tacos with a fork and knife?”
He shrugged.
“How dare you,” I whispered.
He laughed.
“With your hands.” I pointedly nodded to the taco.
He sat back and grinned. “You want me to do what with my hands?”
“Eat.”
I watched and waited as he lifted the taco to his mouth. On the second bite, the filling spilled out and dripped down his wrists. It was oddly gratifying. I laughed, but he merely shrugged, winked, and licked his fingers. It was just food, right? It wasn’t as if Jay licked seductively, or watched me watching him. It wasn’t anything remotely sexual. So why in the world was his tongue so mesmerizing?
Clearing my throat, I said, “How did you know I’d like Tex-Mex?”
“It was a guess. There was a pretty good chance that you liked it. Now I know for sure.”
“Well, thank you. Although you shouldn’t have gone to any trouble. But I’m never going to say no to queso.” I dipped another chip into the liquid cheese.
“Noted. And you’re welcome. It wasn’t any trouble. I was hungry, too. What are you doing working in the labs?”
“The majority of those who stayed on board aren’t working as hard. They don’t care.”
“It’s not solely your responsibility to keep bio going.”
“Who else will? I’m not going to fail because no one else cares. They might as well leave. Then we’d have a reason to fall short: not enough staff. But with so many still on payroll dropping the ball…If I accepted that, then I might as well not stay, either. It’s better to quit.”
“Then quit.”
“I’m not a quitter. Besides, I still need a paycheck, too.” I pushed around the last of the shredded lettuce next to my partially eaten enchilada.
“You’re supposed to manage them, file all the details. You can’t do this, work around the clock.”
I rubbed the soreness out of my shoulder. “I’ve only been doing it for a few days.”
“How long will you keep doing this, though?”
“Why do you care?” I jammed the plastic fork into the remaining bite of food.
He shrugged. “Friendly conversation. Is there anything I can help with?”
“Do you have a bio degree?”
“Nope.”
I twisted the straw in my soda, the plastic against plastic screeching in the sudden quiet, and glanced at his nice, cream button-up shirt. He’d left his suit jacket and tie elsewhere. The top buttons were undone, the collar open, offering a glimpse of a white tee underneath.
A wicked curl lifted my lips.
“Uh-oh. What do you want me to do?” he asked suspiciously.
“Oh…I need some stuff cleaned and prepped.”
“Grunt work?”
“Yep. Are you still interested?” Of course not. No snooty lawyer in expensive threads was interested in playing lowly lab assistant.
Instead of reminding me of how late it was, that he needed to be up early, or any number of viable excuses, Jay rolled up his sleeves and exposed wide, muscular forearms. His gaze never left mine. There was something extremely sexy about the way he did this.
I shook my head.
He quirked an eyebrow.
I smiled and stood. “That’s okay. I’ll have the morning crew clean up. It’s the least they can do.”
“It’ll slow them down even more.”
“Well, I can’t do their job and clean up the mess. That’s too much. Again, thanks for dinner.” I returned to the lab and slipped a coat back on. I flipped my hair over the collar and jumped when Jay appeared beside me.
His buttons were completely undone. He pulled off his dress shirt before I could protest. I didn’t really want him around me all night. He made it hard to think. I wanted alone time, not chat time.
He went to grab a lab coat, but I pointed at the short-sleeved ones at the end, the ones meant for grunt work so the sleeves didn’t get in the way. He put one on, buttoned it up, and followed me to the sinks, where I instructed him on how to wash equipment. He finished in no time, and after a quick inspection to make sure he had done it correctly, he moved up to filling bottles and then back down to cleaning when I finished my portion.
The entire time, he kept earbuds in. Once in a while, he hummed or sang, and I was rather impressed. Not just with the voice and rhythm, but his willingness to get dirty and his silent agreement to keep quiet and out of my way.
When Jay finished everything, unable to do one more thing without having lab experience, he pulled up a stool at the end of my table, leaned his elbow on the slab, and rested his chin in his hand. To watch me.
I glared at him through the corner of my eye. “What?”