“Oh, I should set up something like that,” Ros said, even if she knew she probably wouldn’t. “After all, it’s not like I couldn’t stand to miss a few meals.”
The minute the words were out of her mouth, she winced inwardly. It was the kind of thing that she was teaching herself not to say any more, but a lifetime of self-deprecating humor couldn’t be overcome by just a few years of body positivity. She was curvy through the hips, busty, and with a round smooth belly that made it hard to get jeans to fit right. It had taken most of her adult life to become okay with that. Tabbie might stridently declare that all bodies were beautiful, but Ros suspected that was easier to say at a size twelve than it was at a size twenty-two. She had a hard time thinking of herself as beautiful, but she had gotten pretty good at thinking of herself as okay.
Then sometimes she opened her mouth and said things she would smack the hell out of someone for saying about a friend, and well, it was all a work in progress, wasn’t it?
Ros waited to see whether Teagan would deny the evidence that was right in front of him and sayof course you’re not fat,or worse, emphatically agree with her and recommend this personal trainer he knew. Instead, he only frowned.
“No one should skip meals,” Teagan said. “It’s bad for us. At the very least, I always get sort of weird when I go too long without eating.”
“And there’s only so weird you can get when you may have to handle deadly loons and corral murderbirds that don’t want to be corralled?”
Teagan flashed her a grin, momentarily so handsome it took her breath away. The man could be in a commercial for the wholesome outdoors. Maybe the Department of Natural Resources could put him on an ad campaign to get people up to the Northwoods. She would certainly grab a tent and head north.
“Right! You know, some days I’m just filling out paperwork on migratory bird counts, and other days, I’m trying to get a buck in rut out of a baseball dugout. You really do need calories in you when you do that, and it’s best if your body isn’t screaming because it thinks you are going into a famine. Do you like granola bars?”
“Er, yes?”
“I keep them in the truck. It’s good to have them on hand so I don’t get too hungry when I’m doing my job. You could keep some in your desk, if you wanted. Take the edge off.”
“I don’t have to do anything as dangerous as deal with deer in rut. I’m just wrestling with missing receipts and ornery columns of numbers.”
“I understand that spreadsheets can be pretty wily if you take your eyes off of them,” Teagan said gravely. “You know, I lost a friend to a flock of vicious balance sheets.”
Ros snorted, because she thought she'd heard every dumb accountant joke out there, but that was a new one.
“I mean, you can’t turn your back on a balance sheet, everyone knows that, but I worry more about drowning in a flash cash flow…”
The waitress showed up while they were both snickering and imagining an increasingly unlikely accounting wildlife environment, and from the look on her face, they had gone well past the point when they were understandable to others.
Ros managed to compose herself enough to order the pot roast and the mashed potatoes, and Teagan got the pot roast and the coleslaw. She started to stop him, but her phone chirped, and she saw it was a message from Tabbie, She checked it, and then made a face.
“Everything okay?” asked Teagan after the waitress left.
“Tabbie is the best person in the world, but man, you do not want to get on her bad side.”
“What do you mean?”
In answer, she handed him her phone.
Hey hon! Hope all is going well in the frozen north! I met a guy on set who found this service that sends your ex a pound of glitter that explodes everywhere the moment they open it! If Richie wants to be a clown so bad, he should look the part, right? It’s only like thirty bucks, do you want me to get it for you?
“Wow, that’s a lot of glitter.”
“She really doesn’t have to be that mean, but her protective streak’s a mile wide. I think it gets away from her sometimes.”
“I think it’s a good thing. I’m glad you have someone watching your back.”
“Even if that means you get a face full of glitter some day?” Ros asked, and then she blushed, because she hadn’t meant to imply they’d be dating, let alone breaking up.
Teagan looked unperturbed.
“If Tabbie decides I need a face full of glitter, I probably deserve a face full of glitter.”
“Spoken like a man who’s never had to work with glitter.”
“Hey, untrue. I used to help out at this summer camp, and after crafts day, we all had glitter t-shirts whether we liked it or not…”
They talked about less fraught things for a bit, and then the food showed up, every bit as delicious as promised except for the coleslaw.