Page 63 of The Checklist
Mike laughed and moved off the wall. “Ah, yes. If we yell it to the whole restaurant, Chef will revise his assessment, and this will definitely not be a date.”
“That is not what I was doing.” Dylan put on her best innocent smile.
“You are about as sneaky as a Mack Truck.” Mike chuckled, pointing to the list of names. “I know we aren’t on a date because your list isn’t titledDylan and Mike’s Date List.”
“I just want to be efficient. Don’t want to waste our time,” Dylan said, leaning into the joke—she needed to practice flirting now that she was single anyway. Why not start here? “We can be on a date later tonight.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe you. I know how seriously you take list titles. Now you are just toying with me.”
“Me? Never.” Dylan tossed her hair over her shoulder, doing her best to lean into the idea of practice flirting. She smiled, catching the eye of the chef as he made his way over to them with a board of sashimi, looking like a tiny arc of two-by-two matching bites of goodness.
“It’s cool. Skip the chitchat. I don’t need to know how your day was.” Mike sighed before leaning in to take the board from the chef. “Thank you. This looks great.”
“Fine, we can eat first. Then list,” Dylan said, mixing a bit of wasabi in with her soy. Picking up something that looked like unagi, she added, “So how was your day?”
“It was great—thanks for asking!” Mike said, a sarcastic grin written on his face as he popped a bite of food into his mouth.
“You wound me.” Dylan placed her hand over her heart. “Really, how was your day? I promise I’m not asking so we can cut to the chase. I genuinely want to know.” She also wanted to know how his lips managed to maintain a whisper of a smile while he was chewing, but asking that felt intrusive.
“It actually was an enjoyable day,” Mike said, carefully affixing a bit of ginger to another bite. “I spoke with my boss, and they said they can add the sensory room to the program. I’m so excited I already started looking at construction crews.”
“Really?” Dylan asked, shifting uncomfortably on her stool. It was one thing to babble mindlessly about helping him; it was anotherwatching him stake his career on her dubious claims. Still, she had a list. It wasn’t as if his coworkers had promised him a spot onstage or anything. All he would have to do was say no one would take his calls and move on with his day. At least, she hoped it worked that way. “So what does that mean for you?”
“It means they will plan both table space and program space for the sensory room, assuming your list works out. I can’t say thank you enough for—” Mike paused, turning his ear toward the speaker nestled into a dark corner of the restaurant, pulling Dylan’s attention with it. “Sorry. It’s just ... is this D’Angelo?” His expression was bemused.
Listening, Dylan wrinkled her nose. “It totally is—2000s slow jams and sushi. Unexpected.”
“‘How Does It Feel’ is not exactly what I think of when I eat sushi.” Mike shook his head and picked up another bite as Chef wandered over with a new plate, this time with seaweed-wrapped rolls topped with scallops and a spicy sauce.
“Raw fish and sex music. Oh, baby, oh, baby.”
“Pretty romantic date,” Mike giggled into his water glass, causing Dylan to snort at her scallops. After taking a drink, Mike shielded his smile and mumbled, “Look at Chef.”
The mischievous grin had disappeared and been replaced by a dignified-looking chef, carefully wiping down counters as he sang every seductive word under his breath. Dylan turned her head to face Mike and hoped the chef couldn’t catch a clean look at her laughing.
“He is clearly a fan,” Dylan managed to choke out as Mike’s gaze jumped back and forth between her and Chef, his shoulders shaking from the effort of not laughing out loud. Dylan tried to glance at the chef again but couldn’t without losing it.
“Don’t look. It makes it worse if you look,” Mike said, angling his body away from the counter so he was facing her again. Tilting his head farther away from the chef, he added, “Distract me. How was your day?”
Still chuckling, Dylan tried angling her body farther away from the counter, making her parallel to Mike. “Honestly? The best part of my day may have been putting this list together.”
“I don’t believe that. Surely someone told a good joke or something.”
Dylan picked at another scallop. “The amount of time I spend actually doing my job versus putting out fires is like a one-to-seven ratio. I’m basically a month away from the dreaded quarterly-earnings report, and things still aren’t on solid ground.”
“What does your boss say about all of this?” Mike asked, leaning in on his forearm and snagging a bite for himself.
“Besideswhat the hell is going on?Not much.” Dylan shook her head. “And that is the weird part. Realistically, if quarterly earnings are posted in a month, that means we have about three weeks left to get stuff to the higher-ups for approval, and he still hasn’t darkened the doors.”
“Does he usually show up on your projects?”
Dylan’s laugh sounded more like a sigh of resignation. Picking up another bite, she said, “For little projects, no. But for something this high profile, Jared has made it abundantly clear that I am just the muscle. He is supposed to have final approval on any- and everything.”
“But someone has to have noticed he isn’t here. I mean, they can’t see him at his desk every day and think,Yeah, he is definitely doing a good job up in Seattle.”
Dylan scoffed, shaking her head. Mike asked her another question, and she started to relax, letting the natural flow of friends at dinner take over. At some point the chef brought over more food, and she found herself mellowing into the kind of food coma only an intimate corner, sushi, and the sultry sounds of slow jams could provide.
“Billie is doing well?”
