“Shitty.”
He blinked, quickly taking in the tension in her face and the droop of her lips. She turned and walked toward the complex. Even though he was concerned, he couldn’t help but admire her ass in the snug skirt. She stopped to pick up her mail, not bothering to look at it, and entered the condo.
Beck followed her in. “Why shitty, babe? What happened?”
“Let’s eat first.” She advanced into her kitchen.
Beck set the bag on the counter and turned to the cupboard where her plates were. He opened it and his eyes fell on the plastic child’s plate with the divisions to keep food from touching. The first time he’d seen that he’d laughed, but Hayden had been so mortified that he’d seen her secret plate, he’d hastened to reassure her that he thought it was cute. And it was. Everyone had their own little quirks.
He turned with two regular plates in his hand to see Hayden pulling containers out of the bag. “What is this?” she asked.
“Korean.” He set the plates on the counter. “Gyoza. Dakgangjeong. Yaki udon.”
She nodded, seeming distracted. He got the feeling she didn’t give a shit what kind of food he’d brought. They dished it out onto the plates.
“Want some water?” Beck stepped over to her fridge, comfortable in her kitchen.
“Yes. Please.”
He grabbed two bottles and they moved into the living room to eat on the couch, as they had so often.
He wanted to know more about what was obviously bothering her, but when they were settled, she said, “Tell me about your day.”
“Well. We finally sat down with Danny and Sid today to talk about our food.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. Sid is going to step things up a bit, try making some fresher things from scratch.”
She nodded absently, using chopsticks to lift a bite of the spicy Dakgangjeong.
“So we talked about changing the menu. He’s going to come up with some ideas.” Beck grimaced. “I’m not sure he’s really got the skills, but we all agree we should at least give him a shot.”
“I suppose.” She lifted her water bottle to her lips to drink. “What else did you do today?”
“Had a meeting at the Trident Foundation.” He dropped his gaze to his food. He hadn’t really talked much about the foundation to her.
“That’s the organization that you do the skydiving for, right?”
“Right. I do some other volunteer stuff for them as well.”
She seemed to be barely paying attention to what he was saying. She set down her half-eaten plate of food and picked up the water bottle again.
Beck talked more as he ate. Hayden played with her hair and rubbed her face. Finally, he said, “Okay, baby, enough fidgeting. What’s going on?”
She lifted her chin and licked her lips. “We didn’t get the funding grant from NHI.”
His stomach dropped. “Oh no. Well, shit.”
“Yeah.” She swallowed. “Exactly. Well, shit.” She sighed. “It’s pretty disappointing.”
“But you were doing another presentation today, right? How’d that go?”
“It went fine. But I thought the NHI one went fine too. We won’t know about this one for a few weeks.”
“Ah, hell. I knew something big was bugging you. C’mere, baby.” He set down his plate and reached for her.
She shook her head and pushed away from him. “No.”
He went very still and his eyebrows rose. “What’s wrong?”
She closed her eyes briefly, her lips tight. “We can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what? Eat Korean food?”
She looked like she was going to cry. “No! This.” She waved a hand back and forth between them. “Us.”
His head went kind of cloudy and he shook it. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” She gripped her plastic water bottle. “I mean we can’t see each other anymore.”
“Huh?” His jaw dropped. He sure as hell hadn’t expected this. “Why not?”
“Because I need to focus on work!” She met his gaze, anguish in her eyes. “I let everyone down by not getting that grant. Now we could be in trouble. I can’t let that happen again. I told you…you know what my goals are. You know how important this is to me. I can’t be running around having sex all over the place and…and…doing crazy things.”
“Crazy things? Baby, all we’ve done is had some fun. Everyone’s entitled to have fun sometimes. That doesn’t mean you’re not dedicated to your goals.”
“It takes time away from them. And with Aunt Gina needing help lately…I can’t do it anymore. I have to help look after them, and I have to commit to my research and my goals. So I can’t see you again.”