“Oh no,” she cut my words off.
And at the same time, a head popped up in my field of vision.
“Hi, Rosie, Lina. How are you ladies doing?”
As of right now, not too well anymore, I wanted to tell him.
“Hello, Gerald,” I muttered instead.
Neither of us bothered to answer his question.
Not that he cared, apparently, because he stayed rooted in place.
“So, how was the vacay, Lina?”
The vacay. It hadn’t even been a holiday—I had just taken three days off, for Christ’s sake—but there was no point in correcting him.
Turning in my chair and facing him with what I hoped wasn’t a grimace, I braced myself for a few tortuous minutes of small talk. “Wonderful, thank you.”
He gave me a knowing nod, followed by a blatant smirk. I frowned.
“Big day tomorrow with Open Day, huh?” He leaned a hand on our table, the buttons of his shirt struggling under the change in position.
Why did he have to stuff himself in clothing two sizes smaller? Someone should tell him. He didn’t deserve the courtesy, but the world didn’t deserve this kind of sight either.
“You have an outfit picked out and all? I know you girls take your time, deciding.”
My teeth grated together with the sheer effort of not turning the table over and flipping him off. “Yes,” I answered through my teeth. “Now, if you don’t mind, we were having lu—”
“Did you have trouble putting everything together?” Gerald asked, not caring about my brush-off.
I thought I’d heard Rosie mutter something that sounded a lot like jerk under her breath.
Damn, she’s ragey today.
“A little. But it’s all sorted now,” I told him with a neutral expression.
“I bet you managed to find some help.”
That last word—help—the way he had said it, accompanied by a twitch of his eyebrows, sounded as if it meant much more than it was supposed to.
I felt the blood rushing out of my face, a chilly sensation slowly advancing in its place. “Yeah, I did.”
I hadn’t thought to hide that Aaron had helped me; there wasn’t a point, but of course, that had happened before Spain. Now, there was something between us. Something new and wonderful and so very fragile.
“Yes, I just bet,” Gerald commented casually. “I guess it’s as easy as batting your eyelashes and asking nicely, right?”
Cold—glacial, icy cold—started seeping in all across my body. I shuddered.
“Things are easy for girls who ask nicely.”
My spine stiffened. Nicely. “Excuse me?”
Gerald laughed, waving his hand. “Oh, I’m just chatting, honey.”
“Lina.” My voice was frosty, but how could it not be? The chill had penetrated, made its way into my bones. Don’t let him get to you, I told myself, begged of myself. “Not honey. My name is Lina.” I watched his eyes roll. And it bugged me. It fucking angered me like it had never before. “I’ve always been very polite to you, Gerald.” My tone dripped with fury now, so much that I almost couldn’t listen to the petrifying fear beneath it. Threatening to come out. “So, I’m going to invite you to leave our table.” I didn’t want to hear whatever he had to say. If I did, everything would quiver, shake so violently that it would break. “I don’t have time for you and your sexist crap.”
His cackle traveled across the whole room, and heads turned in our direction. “Oh, honey.”