Her mouth fell open. “Buns? What does that mean?”
“Your nickname.”
She gasped and covered the seat of her jeans. “Did I sit in something?”
“Buns doesn’t have to mean butt. It can mean hotdog buns, hamburger buns, sticky buns.”
“Man buns,” she offered, her eyes glimmering. “Oh, I know. This is because I tried to wear my hair in a bun the other day.”
“I remember that.” She’d come to work in glasses with her hair spooled on top of her head looking like she’d walked out of the sexy geekette spread Derek had been trying to get us to run since her PowerPoint. I reached up and fingered some strands of her hair. “Little pieces kept falling out . . .”
“I was running late that day, and I ran out of time to . . .” She seemed to lose her train of thought as I twirled the hair around my index finger. “Have you guys been calling me that the whole time?”
“It’s not a bad thing. It could also mean honeybuns.” Honeybuns? Christ, I was cheesy and nearly on the edge of my seat, but I couldn’t seem to tear myself away. I released the tendril. “Or my personal favorite—cinnamon buns.”
“Your fascination with cinnamon borders on troubling.”
Tell me about it. Dunkin’ Donuts made a mean cinnamon bun, but it was the sprinkles dusted on her nose that had my attention.
“Cinnamon doesn’t annoy me. Being likened to a cinnamon bun does.”
I’d never called her one, and damn if her response hadn’t been cute, especially with her pouting over it the way she was now.
“You’re not seriously going to call me that in public?” she asked.
Of course I wouldn’t. Justin would string me up if he ever heard me wax poetic over a pastry. I kept my voice low. “We can keep it between us if you like.”
“But you hate nicknames.”
“Says who?”
“Justin.”
I sniffed, easing back a bit. “He only thinks that because my sister complains that I refuse to call my niece caramela instead of Carmen.”
“Why won’t you?”
“Because she’s not a piece of candy.”
“So how come you can’t see the rest of us that way?”
The exposé had blasted me for referring to women as food. I was about to tell Georgina she shouldn’t believe everything she read—obviously, I didn’t actually disregard her as some empty-calorie breakfast treat. But I had called her that when I wouldn’t do the same to my niece, so maybe she had a point. “Does it make you uncomfortable?” I asked.
“To be seen as a lowly cinnamon bun?”
“Nothing lowly about it.” I leaned in. “Don’t tell anyone, but most days, I prefer buns over donuts.”
She sighed. “It doesn’t bother me, because I don’t think it’s coming from a malicious place. But you can see how some women might find it belittling.”
I’d wanted to best Georgina, challenge her, run her out of the job—but I never wanted to make her feel small. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I guess I can see that.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Are you only agreeing to get me off your back?”
“No.” If it wasn’t her job to be on my back, having her there wouldn’t have sounded too bad. I didn’t relish the idea of admitting I’d been wrong, but I got where she was coming from. “I hate nicknames because I grew up with them,” I explained. “As a twin, and with a Hispanic surname, sometimes they were cutesy and other times derogatory. So I do understand.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, sliding her fingers under the edge of the hat. “I wouldn’t have thought Quinn would give you any trouble.”
It’d given me plenty of trouble all right. “It’s Quintanilla,” I said. “When my sister and I entered middle school, my mom chopped it off. Kids made fun of it. Teachers couldn’t pronounce it. She worried it would hold us back.”
“I . . . I had no idea.”
“Nobody does.” I looked her over. I’d shared something with Georgina, someone who could possibly end me, that only my immediate friends and family knew. “It isn’t public knowledge.”
She hid her hand in the sleeve of her shirt and asked, “Why are you telling me this?”
It was a valid question without an answer. Nor could I explain why I’d gone overboard just to tag along on this date with her. I searched her eyes, and though the idea of Georgina scared me in more ways than one—both what she meant for my career and the fact that she’d brought out a side of me I didn’t like—I wasn’t afraid of the person I saw right then. We were even closer now. Had I moved, or had she? She wore the same alarmed look that’d crossed her face near the end of our walk in the park. Fear that I might kiss her? Or anticipation? The old Sebastian might’ve taken what he wanted, consequences be damned, but I was trying to be better. For my mom. For my job. “I don’t know why I told you that,” I said, except I did. I trusted the Georgina in front of me. It was George at the office who made me wary.
“Your sister’s name is Libby, right?” she asked. “She still lives in Massachusetts?”
I pulled back in surprise. “Yeah.”
“You light up when you talk about them. And Boston too. Do you think about moving back there?”
Maybe I lit up over my family, but not the city itself. Since Mom’s death, Boston remained a dark cloud over my memories. “No,” I said. “Except to visit my sister’s family in the suburbs, I’ll never go back to the city.”
She tilted her head. “Never?”
A couple guys passed us on the way to the counter and said, “Nice Red Sucks hat.” One sniffed at Georgina. “Go back to Boston.”
As the guy turned his back, Georgina paled. She took off the hat and glanced up at me. “I’m a Yankees fan.”
“I know. Why are you telling me?” This was what I didn’t understand. At the office her first day, she’d practically told us, a group of men she barely knew, to love it or shove it about her devotion to the Yankees. Yet, she struggled to do the same to some drunk chowderhead. I crossed my arms. “You want to say something, say it.”
“What if they get mad?”
“Not while I’m standing here.”
She put the hat back on and spoke a little louder. “I’m a Yankees fan.”
The guy turned back. “Not with that shit on your head. A true fan wouldn’t be caught dead in that.”
“For your information, the hat is so I don’t get a sunburn. I’m a born-and-bred Yankees girl, but I’ll wear what I want.”
“Whatever,” he muttered as his friend paid the cashier. “Poser bitch.”
I stepped around Georgina. “What the fuck did you say?”
“It’s okay,” Georgina said, grasping my bicep as if she could hold me back. “I take bitch as a compliment, especially from this turd.”
Turd? I gaped at her, unsure whether to laugh at her attempt at an insult or pound this idiot.
“Ignore him, he’s drunk,” the guy’s friend said as they got their beers. “We don’t want trouble.”
I stared them down until they were out of sight. Georgina deflated beside me with a soft sigh and I glanced back at her. Her back went straight as if I’d caught her doing something wrong. “We showed them, huh?” she said.
I studied her a moment. “That took a lot of effort for you, didn’t it?”
She attempted a casual shrug, but I couldn’t help noticing her chokehold on the beer. “Nobody likes confrontation.”
“Yet, if I’d called you a bitch, you would’ve put me six feet under.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. “Come again?” I asked. “You nearly took me out at the café for far less.”
“I hadn’t had my coffee yet. Should we go back?” She picked up her bag from the table.
I took it, set it back down, and guided her onto a stool by her shoulders. She wasn’t getting off that easily. “You and I are going to have a little chat, Georgina.”