Even if she hadn’t stepped over, she was walking a very fine line. On one side was a man who, against her better judgment, she wanted to get to know. On the other, her dream job. Was she playing with fire?

She wasn’t sure how far she could take a friendship with Andrew without risking her career, but she did know one thing.

She had to be more careful.

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

“You gonna kill me for inviting Lauren over?” Jeni asked after Lauren left.

Andrew regarded his sister, tilting his head. “Actually, no. You’ve proven quite useful. I think I’ll keep you around. Though, I have to ask—what are you trying to do?”

“If you don’t know, you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.”

Andrew ignored that. “Parks and Rec and pizza, though? Where the hell did you come up with that?”

Jeni shrugged. “Sounds like an awesome holiday to me. And I think Lauren agreed.”

“We’ll see,” Andrew said. He figured his chances of her actually coming were low.

Even so, seeing Lauren today was the highlight of what had otherwise been a shitty couple of weeks.

Last Monday, three days after his last chemo treatment and two days after his non-date with Lauren, Andrew had felt so awful he’d skipped his Ethics class. Even though Dan had brought him notes the next day, he still felt like it was a bad sign. That had been only the second of eight planned treatments.

Where would it go from here?

To make matters worse, last Thursday he’d woken up to find a disturbing amount of his hair still on the pillow and had immediately called Jeni. Good twin sister that she was, she’d maintained a perfectly businesslike demeanor as she’d shaved his head. She hadn’t laughed, she hadn’t wept all over him, she hadn’t cracked jokes. She’d strode in, gotten the job done, and left for work. They both knew it sucked, but it was part of the deal.

Supposedly, it would grow back.

He’d had eight days to get used to his new look before today’s chemo appointment, when he’d assumed he might see Lauren. She was probably used to seeing bald men and women…but that didn’t ease his self-consciousness. He’d experimented with baseball caps and hipster-style beanies, but typically went with the latter, even indoors. November in Kansas City boasted temperatures in the forties, and Andrew wasn’t prepared for how cold he would be without hair blanketing his head.

The hat he chose for today was dark gray, and as he sat in a similar-colored leather-encased chair in the chemo infusion center, he blended in quite well.