Chapter Text
“What do you think?” Artem slides a printed spreadsheet over to Zella. He’s trying his best not to sound shaky, but he’s apparently exchanged the shakiness for salt-and-pepper nervousness.
Zella lowers her laptop screen to see better. “What’s this?”
“A proposed menu for your lunches this week.”
Her eyebrows shoot up as she pulls the sheet of paper closer. “Lasagna, vegetable stir-fried noodles, fried rice with sweet and sour pork…” She stops reading and meets his eyes. “Are you serious?”
“Um.” Inwardly, he tells himself to cross out the um. It’s just Zella, after all. “Yes. Is there a problem?” An allergy that she hadn’t mentioned before, maybe? A strong dislike for lasagna? He tries to stop his mind from going too far before she’s even answered.
“No, it’s just…” She makes a vague gesture. “I can’t believe you’ve put so much effort into this. I know we’re partners, but…” She slides the spreadsheet back. “Isn’t this too much? I mean, you’re putting so much time and money and work into this.”
Too much? Artem looks back at the spreadsheet. “No, these dishes don’t take too much work. Not if I make them the night before. And there are always leftovers, anyway.”
She arches a brow, an unfortunate habit Artem recognizes as his.
“At least try it out for one week,” Artem says.
She holds his gaze for another moment, then sighs. “Fine.”
“Fine?” He doesn’t know why her assent is as surprising as it is — especially since she’d already given it before.
Zella shrugs. “But let it be known that I see right through that devious plan of yours. A week of your cooking and I know I won’t be able to say no.”
Artem allows himself a soft smile. He’s never been called devious before, but he’ll take it if it means she says yes. “Yeah, you got me. That’s the plan.”
She chuckles at that, then lifts her laptop screen, signaling the end of the discussion. “You know I’d still be okay with regular PB&J, right? Or instant noodles from the pantry?”
“Maybe,” Artem says. He nudges a pile of papers away from the edge of her desk before they get the chance to fall off. “But in the greater interests of your long-term health and wellbeing, perhaps not.”
When he departs from her office, he leaves her the spreadsheet for future reference.
Zella doesn’t know exactly what she’d expected, but Artem is nothing if not strategic. He starts bringing her lunch the day after she had received the spreadsheet — less than twenty-four hours, if she’s counting.
The first day, she walks into her office to find a note on her desk, written in familiar print.
I left lunch in the fridge. —Artem
Pretty straightforward, she thinks. She wouldn’t have expected anything less. Zella puts down her things, then checks her watch — there are still a few minutes before work starts. She takes a moment to reference the spreadsheet menu she’d pinned up yesterday, on the green bulletin board behind her. Then she makes her way to the staff kitchen, where the espresso machine, pantry, and fridge are.
She isn’t sure what kind of container she’s looking for, but her question is answered the moment she opens the fridge. There, at eye level — and her eye level exactly — is a glass container with her name on it and a sticky note stuck on top. She takes the container out so she can read the note, which has been notably left unsigned.
I don’t know how you prefer your portions, so there’s extra just in case.
Carefully, Zella peels off the sticky note so she can paste it on her spreadsheet menu later. She opens the container to find two neatly cut squares of lasagna. They are efficiently wrapped in baking paper, and another note is stuck on top.
Microwave for 40-60 seconds.
Zella smiles. It seems he hasn’t missed a single detail.
Before she returns the container to the fridge, Zella rubs her name on the plastic lid, written in what appears to be either a whiteboard or permanent marker. When the ink doesn’t come off, she concludes it is the former.
Maybe it’s a little silly of Artem to write her name on one of his own containers, but at least none of the office staff will be able to mistake it for their own. And besides, Zella muses, it’s nothing a dab of acetone can’t fix.
She sets the container down on the shelf where she had found it and shuts the fridge. She’s filled with the sudden urge to count down the hours until lunch.
Zella walks into Artem’s office during their coffee break. She places one of his sticky notes on his desk in front of him — the one with the reheating instructions. Artem recognizes his own writing right away.
“Cute,” she says.
“Better than devious,” Artem says, although the compliment threatens to send a warm rush of happiness into his dented Strongbox of Feelings.
She grins. “Who says cute and devious can’t coexist?”
“Who indeed,” Artem says, vaguely thinking, did she just call me cute and devious? Trying to refocus, he takes the note and pastes it on the side of his desk so it doesn’t distract him from his files. “Did you want to ask me something?”
“I did.” Zella jerks her thumb in the direction of the door. “Is there a reason you’re staying in here during your break?”
Confusion strikes Artem for a second, but clears like clouds when he hears faint hints of laughter and cheering coming from outside.
“Kiki brought cupcakes from that new bakery that just opened,” Zella explains. “You know, for Devon’s birthday.”
Right, Devon from the first floor. Artem’s glad that he’s getting the recognition any of the law firm staff deserve. If it didn’t mean that the party would stop — fearing that he’d tell them all to return to work — Artem would go up and say hello.
“Cupcakes,” he echoes aloud, instead of saying any of that. “Cakes in cups. Cup-sized cakes.”
Zella’s lips twitch. “Well, the staff are always happy to see you.”
Doubtful, Artem thinks, considering how strict he can be sometimes, but he appreciates the sentiment.
“Come on out if you’re not too busy,” she tells him warmly.
She’s out the door by the time Artem has even formulated any kind of response for her. Giving up, he taps his tablet screen and returns to the PDF he had been studying.
But before he can read anything new, his peace is disturbed again. Celestine enters the room with a new set of case files for him. When she places them on Artem’s desk, her gaze lands on the sticky note. “Artem?”
Artem keeps his eyes trained on his tablet screen, still trying to locate the last line he’d read. “Hm?”
“I know you’re busy, but… microwaving a desk? Good grief.”
That makes him look up, only to see the mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Very funny, Celestine.”
“I know.” She surveys the papers on his desk, then nods approvingly and leaves him to his work.
Artem sets down his tablet. He flicks through the case files, skimming through them before setting them to one side.
Sorry, Zella, he thinks. Even if he had wanted to, it seems he isn’t going to have enough time for cupcakes today.
Artem works all the way through his break, only giving himself the last two minutes to make himself a cup of black coffee and fill up his water bottle. He’d even gone to the trouble of setting a timer on his phone, ensuring that he wouldn’t run into any distractions during the full 120 seconds.
Some of the files that Celestine had given him should go to Zella, and he’ll drop that off at her office later, maybe around lunchtime. When Artem returns to his office, he notes down all the varying deadlines in order of urgency on a separate sheet of paper, underlining the top two cases with a red gel pen.
He gets so absorbed with the rest of his work, and all the tasks on his to-do list, that it takes him nearly five extra seconds to realize his phone alarm has gone off to signify the beginning of lunch break.
Artem stops his alarm before someone walks in to ask if anything’s wrong. Then he finishes the email he was writing, reads over it, and clicks ‘send’. He shuts his laptop, picks up Zella’s half of the files, and heads out — hoping to catch her before she leaves her office.
Artem checks his watch as he brisk walks down the hall — he thinks he’ll be able to make it.
Sure enough, when he knocks on her door and enters the room, she’s just standing up from her seat. “Oh, hey,” Zella says. “Is that for me?”
“Mhm.” Artem sets the files down on top of another pre-existing stack of files. They threaten to tip over onto her desk, and he tries to balance them as best as he can. “From Celestine. You’ll find I’ve underlined the urgent cases in red.”
She picks up the files — even though he’s only just balanced them — and looks over them. “Neat. Thanks.” She puts them down again, then glances at him. “So… lunch?”
“Hm?”
“I was just going to head out and grab my lunch,” she says, gesturing at the door. “How about you?”
“I’m returning to my office?” He doesn’t know why he says it like it’s a question.
Zella ponders that for a moment. “Do you want to join me instead?” She pauses. “It’s fine if you really can’t, I’m just throwing out the offer and—”
“Okay,” Artem says. He’s managed to get a lot done this morning. Why not?
She blinks. “Whoa. Okay, then. I’ll… be right back.”
“I’ll come with you,” Artem says.
“Really?”
Artem makes a vague gesture. “We’re both going to the kitchen, anyway… it’s the same direction.”
“Oh,” she says. “Right.”
He opens the door for her to walk through, and she does. “You know the thing about lasagna,” Artem says, as he follows her out the doorway, “is that I would have preferred to heat it up with an oven.”
She turns to look at him. “As opposed to a microwave oven?”
“It’s not the same,” Artem says. “But as the only option available here, it’ll do fine.”
Their shoes tap on the hard floor in an off-beat rhythm, bobbing back and forth between crystal-like synchrony and soft discordance. The kitchen is on their floor, albeit a short walk away. Some of the staff are already there, making cups of coffee and discussing funny cat videos they’d watched the night before. They all greet Artem politely when he walks in.
Artem waits for Zella to heat up her lunch first — because the kitchen only has one microwave — before taking his turn. While he’s waiting for the microwave timer, Zella returns to the fridge and takes out a large paper box.
“By the way,” she says, presenting the box to him, “this is for you.”
Artem takes the box and opens it to find dry crumbs and stray dabs of frosting in various colors, but also a singular cupcake with blue frosting. “Oh.”
Zella smiles. “It’s from the rest of the team. We all decided to save you one.”
What was this, Appreciating Your Boss Hour? Artem glances up at the people around him, but they’ve all returned to their own conversations. He looks back at the cupcake, stunned. They'd remembered him?
Zella lowers her voice. “Full disclosure, Vyn’s recipe is better,” she says. “But it still tastes pretty good.”
For a moment, Artem is tempted to say something petty, like, the bakery’s technique is better than Vyn’s, but he can’t deny that Zella is right. Vyn does make a fantastic frosting.
Artem shuts the box, and the microwave beeps.
Zella clears her desk so they have space to eat, and Artem pulls a chair up to sit across from her. He hasn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, so he takes the first bite, just in case the sauce has magically lost its flavor overnight.
Verdict: it hasn’t.
As if by instinct, Zella reaches for her phone on the other end of the desk, but stops herself. She leaves it and turns back so she can try the lasagna.
“How is it?” Artem asks.
She takes her first bite, chews carefully, and swallows. “Good,” she says, and stabs her fork in for another bite. “I might even add, deviously so.”
Artem relaxes. “It’s a secret recipe,” he says. The pasta recipe was his mother’s, and the sauce had been created through a combination of multiple recipes, trial and error, and the usage of Celestine as a test subject.
Zella pauses. “You mean, a secret recipe with a secret ingredient?”
“You could put it that way.”
She takes another bite. “So… what’s the secret ingredient? Is it love?”
Maybe it was, but Artem prefers to define it as a good helping of minced garlic and chopped bell peppers. He chuckles. “If that’s what you want to think.”
Artem stays even after they’re both done with their lasagna. He offers Zella half of his cupcake, but she refuses.
“I’ve already had one,” she says. “This one’s rightfully yours.”
He nods and begins to peel off the wrapper while Zella leaves the room to rinse out her container — so he can bring it home later. The office is quiet without her, much like his own. If he pays attention, he can hear the ticking of the wall clock in the background, and the soft whirr of the air conditioner. He wonders what temperature she’s set it to.
His gaze lands on the bulletin board behind her desk, which has his spreadsheet menu pinned onto it. Zella has even fixed one of his sticky notes there. He’s not sure why, but it seems like a sweet gesture all the same. Still, perhaps he’ll be a bit more careful with his sticky notes from now on.
Artem swipes off some of the blue cupcake frosting with his finger and licks it.
It definitely isn’t as good as Vyn’s.
The cake itself is fine, though — industry standard, baked evenly. He breaks off the bottom half of the cupcake and presses it on top of the frosting, creating a frosting sandwich. He remembers reading about that being the correct way to eat a cupcake. Even if no one’s here to judge him for eating a cupcake the right way.
Some of the crumbs fall onto his shirt, but he’ll brush those off later.
As Artem slowly eats the cupcake, Zella’s phone lights up.
He glances at it instinctively, and he’s just close enough to see that the notification is from Luke. Artem can’t tell what the message says, however, nor is he going to attempt to.
It’s at that moment when Zella walks back into the office. “I left your container by the sink.” She notices the dying glow from her phone screen and picks it up. After skimming the text, she sets it down again.
“Something important?” Artem asks.
She shakes her head. “Just a normal text.” Zella spins her chair, then sits back down on it. “Good cupcake?”
Artem tips his head from side to side. “It’s… tolerable.” He pauses and rethinks that. “Maybe better than tolerable; that sounds nicer.” It didn’t really feel right to criticize a gift from the law firm staff. Especially if it was birthday-related.
That makes Zella smile. “I guess we’ve both been spoiled by Vyn.”
Artem leaves five minutes before their lunch break ends, picking up all the crumbs he’d missed and dropping them back into the cupcake box. He shuts the box and takes it with him to discard later. Before he walks through the doorway, he pauses and glances back at her. “Let me know if you need a ride home tonight?”
“Of course,” Zella answers. “Thanks for lunch.” She’d meant what she said when she had told him his cooking was good.
He smiles. “You’re very welcome.”
Zella waits for him to head out, then picks her phone up again, this time to respond to Luke’s message.