She Ate My Lunch for Free Every Day—Until Six Tins of Luxury Caviar Arrived novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Fridge Committee

Cassidy convenes a fridge committee that votes the fridge communal, until Killian rules the bill valid. In the elevator Cassidy says Dennis would be ashamed of Althea.

The fridge committee met at three o'clock the next day, and Cassidy brought a laminated agenda.

It had three items.

Item one was the fridge, item two was the fridge, and item three was snacks.

Killian chaired because the office manager said a team lead should chair anything with food in it.

He sat at the head of the conference table with his chipped mug and did not look at me.

The whole floor had come, because the intern had put out cookies.

I put the green ledger on the table.

I had added tabs that morning, one for each month, so nobody could say it wasn't organized.

"Is that a binder?" asked one of the sales guys.

"It's evidence."

"Of what?"

"Lunch."

Cassidy raised her hand like someone in a classroom.

"I'd like to move that all unlabeled food in the fridge be communal," she said. "And that labeled food carry a name and a date."

The office manager nodded and wrote it down.

"My lunch is labeled," I said. "The bag says MY LUNCH. HANDS OFF."

"That's a mission statement, Althea," said Cassidy. "It doesn't have a date."

Somebody snorted into a cookie.

"Second," said the intern.

"All in favor?"

Eleven hands went up.

Mine was the only hand that stayed down, and Killian's stayed on his mug.

"The chair doesn't vote," he said.

"Motion carries," said Cassidy, and she looked very happy.

I opened the ledger.

"Item two," I said. "The bill."

"The committee governs the fridge," said Cassidy. "Not your feelings."

"They aren't feelings. They're forty-one pages."

I held up page one.

"Four hundred and eighty-one lunches," I said. "Twenty-four months, twenty-four tabs."

Nobody said anything.

"The October ones were the best ones," Cassidy said, almost to herself. "That was the month of the braised short rib."

"Cassidy."

"Sorry. Go on."

"She leaves a review every time," I said. "Stars, on a sticky note. I never asked for a single one."

"Reviews are a form of payment," said Cassidy.

"A star is not legal tender," said Killian.

Everybody turned around.

He had not said a word in that room for two years about anything that wasn't a deadline.

He set his mug down and looked at the agenda.

"Point of order," he said. "The committee decides what goes in the fridge. It doesn't decide what's owed."

"Thank you," I said.

"A bill is a request. Cassidy can pay it, or she can decline it in writing."

"In writing?" said Cassidy.

"Writing is how you decline a bill."

She looked at him for a moment, and I could not read it.

Then she took a yellow note off the intern's pad, wrote on it, and slid it down the table to me.

No. 5 stars for effort.

I opened the ledger and wrote: Invoice declined, in writing, one sticky note.

Then I wrote the date.

It was the first time in two years I had said the number out loud to anyone.

Under the new rule I had to relabel everything before five.

So I went to the fridge and wrote on each tin: ALTHEA B. TUESDAY. $240.

I wrote my bag the same way, and then I labeled my grapes, one at a time, because the rule said everything.

Cassidy had no food in that fridge at all.

She had sat on the committee that made it legal to eat everything except her own.

I went down in the elevator at five-thirty.

The doors were closing when a hand came in and stopped them.

Cassidy stepped in beside me with her bag and her lanyard and her smile.

The doors closed.

The elevator made the noise Otis kept warning me about.

"Nice binder," she said.

"Thank you."

"Really. The tabs."

"Thank you."

Her smile went out.

She did not look at me.

She looked at the numbers over the door.

"Dennis would be ashamed of you," she said.

I turned.

"What did I do to Dennis?"

The doors opened on the lobby.

She walked out past Otis at his desk, and she didn't answer.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend