Page 13 of Back to You

Ethan: So what do you say about tomorrow?

Brandon: Sounds good.

He paused, then:

Brandon: You know we need to talk, right?

Ethan: Yeah. We will. But can we just have tomorrow first? I just want a day to be alone with you.

Damn sappy bastard.

Brandon: Okay. Late home tonight, I’m guessing?

Ethan: Yeah, sorry. I just want to clear my plate.

Brandon: Baby, that plate will never be clear. See you in the morning.

He shoved his phone back into his pocket and went about finishing dinner.

***

Ethan groaned at the knock on his door. He swore that if Cartwright interrupted him one more time, he was going to throw the biggest fit this firm had ever seen.

“Come in!”

Lake’s blond head popped around the door. “I brought you dinner.”

“Oh my God, I love you,” Ethan said, making grabby hands at the bag in Lake’s hand. “Can you stay and eat with me?”

“Half of that is for me. I remembered to get myself dinner! Aren’t you proud?”

“I am very proud, and you shouldn’t skip meals, Lake. It’s so bad for you.”

“So is working 80 hours a week, but that’s not stopping you,” Lake said merrily.

Ethan paused in divvying up the food. “Ouch?”

“What?”

Ethan just shook his head. There was no point in arguing with Lake.

“Fried chicken salad is for you, and there’s honey mustard in there. The sandwich is mine. Why do they call it a salad, do you think? Just because it has lettuce? It’s mostly fried chicken and cheese and croutons, I don’t think that’s much of a salad. Oh, I guess since it has tomatoes on it, that’s a vegetable. No wait, it’s a fruit! It just seems like a vegetable. That’s so wrong.”

Ethan nodded along, used to Lake’s bursts of information. He paused to regard his not-a-salad, and shrugged. He didn’t care what it was called, it was delicious.

“How goes the great ‘Ethan actually takes a day off’ plan?”

“It would be better if Cartwright would leave me alone to get things done,” Ethan grumbled, stabbing a piece of chicken. “It’s like he has an alarm set in here that lets him know when I’m being productive.”

“Ooo, maybe he does. That would be so sneaky. I think one of the guys in my department has something like that, but it only goes off when there’s free food around. If anyone brings donuts, you turn around and bam! There he is. One day someone brought in a whole birthday cake — he must have set a land-speed record, because there is a lot of ground to cover between his office and the break room.”

“I think there’s one of those in every office.”

“Anyway. You’re still on track to take tomorrow off, right? Have you told Brandon yet?”

“I did,” Ethan said, moodily stabbing more chicken.

“What did he say?”

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