by Susannah Nix
“Most of these tests are redundant and you know it.” His jaw was set and there was a vein standing out in his neck. He looked so frustrated and annoyed, she couldn’t bear it—not now that she knew what he looked like when he was telling her he thought she was amazing.
She grabbed the borrowed mug she’d been using and stalked over to the coffee maker. “Redundancies exist for a reason. Every single one of these tests is part of the process because someone missed something one time and they realized they needed to test for it before going into production.”
“Fine,” Adam said behind her. “We’ll play it safe.”
She poured a cup of silty black coffee. “Eighty-five percent certain is still a fifteen percent chance of catastrophic fucking failure. The potential benefit isn’t worth the risk.”
“I said fine.”
She turned around. “You did?”
“Call Gavin, if that’s what you want. Tell him we need another day.”
“Really?”
Adam shrugged. “I’m not stopping you.”
“Okay.”
He watched dispassionately as she picked her phone up off the desk and called Gavin, who answered on the first ring.
“Olivia? What’s the word?”
“We need another twenty-four hours for testing.”
The was a beat of silence on Gavin’s end. “Is Cortinas there?”
“Yeah, he’s standing right here.” Adam’s eyes hadn’t left her the whole time she’d been talking.
“I wanna talk to him,” Gavin said. “Hand him the phone.”
He could have asked her to put Adam on speaker so the three of them could all talk together, but he hadn’t. He wanted to talk to Adam without her being part of the conversation.
Olivia held the phone out. “Gavin wants to talk to you.”
Adam took it from her and paced a few steps away, turning his back on her. “Hey, Gavin.”
She could hear the faint murmur of Gavin’s voice on the other end, but not well enough to make out what he was saying. She could imagine it though. He was second-guessing her. Double-checking to make sure Adam was in agreement with her assessment of the situation.
Which he wasn’t.
All Adam had to do to get his way was say the word, and Gavin would do whatever he recommended. Olivia’s opinion wouldn’t count for anything, just like it hadn’t counted for anything in the meeting with the CIO on Monday. Not when rock star Adam Cortinas was there to give them exactly what they wanted. So what if they hadn’t finished half the testing? No one wanted to hear things like that. They wanted to hear good news.
Once again, Olivia had been forced into the role of Cassandra with her gloom and doom predictions. Her warnings would go unheeded, and when things blew up in their faces later, you could bet they’d find a way to lay the blame at her feet.
Adam answered Gavin in mumbled monosyllables that didn’t tell her much. “I know,” she heard him say, followed by more of Gavin’s murmured voice. “Yes… No…” There was a long pause on Adam’s end while Gavin spoke again, and then, “No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”
There it was. He was totally throwing her under the bus.
Olivia sank down in front of her laptop.
“I understand completely,” Adam said behind her. “Sure… Yep. You got it… Will do. Okay. Bye.”
Adam came over and laid her phone down on the desk in front of her. He was standing behind her, so close his stomach brushed against her hair. “We’ve got another day for testing,” he said. “Gavin’s smoothing it over with the CIO.”
“Wait—really?” She swiveled her chair around and Adam backed out of the path of her knees as they spun toward him.
“Yes.” Furrows sprouted across his brow. “What did you think he’d say? No?”
“No, I just…” She stopped, unable to force the rest of the words out, because they suddenly seemed unfair. Worse than that, they were unkind. Adam hadn’t thrown her under any buses, and based on the look on his face, he never would have. She probably should have known that.
“You thought I wouldn’t back you up.” His posture could have been an illustration next to the word defensive in the dictionary—arms crossed, spine ramrod straight, glaring down at her. But it was what she saw in his eyes that made her feel sick. He looked hurt.
“Well…” She couldn’t lie to him, but she also didn’t want to admit that it was true.
She didn’t have to. He’d already sussed it out.
She stood up and took a step toward him. Her gut twisted when he edged backward in response. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“For not trusting you.”
“Why should you?” There was a flatness in his expression that made her feel sick.
She reached for his hand, and to her relief he didn’t back away this time. He let her fingers twine around his, but he didn’t squeeze back. That was okay. She could do enough squeezing for the both of them.
The door to the control shack flew open and Kurt stomped in, scuffing his muddy boots on the mat in front of the door.
Adam pulled his hand out of hers and went to sit down in front of his laptop.
“Whew, it’s mucky out there,” Kurt announced. “All this rain’s washed away half our gravel. Gonna need to get a crew out here to fill in the low spots.”
Olivia sat back down and stared at her laptop screen. She could feel Adam behind her, putting off waves of unhappiness that burned the surface of her skin like a heat lamp.
Kurt went into his office, humming tunelessly to himself, and sat down at the desk facing out at them.
For the rest of the afternoon, Adam barely talked to her unless it was about the work they were doing. When he did, he was matter-of-fact and impersonal, like he was putting distance between them. He was treating her the way he used to when they’d worked together in the office, before they were friends. Before they were something more than friends.
They stayed at the plant testing until eleven that night, when they finally threw in the towel. The test they’d just started would have to run for at least six hours, so there was no point sitting around watching the progress bar inch along.
So far their testing hadn’t turned up any major issues. There was still another day’s worth to do, but they had a whole other day to do it, and it felt like they’d be able to make the midnight deadline exactly the way Olivia liked—with time to spare.
If only she were half as confident about Adam.
“Is everything okay?” she asked him on the drive back to the motel.
He seemed startled by the sound of her voice, like he’d forgotten she was in the car. Or maybe he’d just forgotten they could talk about something other than telemetry data.
“Yeah.” He shifted in his seat and ran a hand through his hair. He’d been doing a lot of that today, and it was beautifully tousled. It made her want to put her fingers in it and sculpt it like Floam. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.” His hand squeezed the steering wheel and the tendons in his wrist flexed.
She longed to uncurl his fingers from the wheel and massage the tension out of them, but even aside from probably causing them to drive off the road, she wasn’t convinced he’d welcome her touch. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t just say you were fine if you weren’t?”
He threw a glance at her and his expression softened incrementally. “Yes to the first question and no to the second.”
Her brain was clearly failing from her own exhaustion, because it took longer than it should have to parse his response and assign the right answer to the right question. Once she did, she puffed out a breath. “Okay.”
He switched hands on the steering wheel and laid his arm across the console, palm up in invitation.
She grabbed onto it greedily, like Violet Beauregarde snatching a piece of Wonka’s gum. An electric tingle traveled up her arm from where their palms fit together, and her whole body
sighed with relief.
She’d never gotten such a rush from the simple act of holding hands. She could actually feel herself being revived by the connection. Some sort of magical Adam energy was pouring into her body, lighting her up like a neon sign. It was as if his skin was an electronic charging pad that juiced up her battery when it came into contact with hers.
Even as some of her uncertainty eased away, she felt a fresh stab of fear. Never once had she felt anything like this before. Not with anyone.
She’d been craving Adam’s touch all day the way a junkie craved her next hit of heroin. His skin was like a drug that brought euphoric highs—or crushing lows when he took it away.
And that terrified her, because he could take it away again.
Their future was far from certain. She had no idea if they were really compatible. They hadn’t exactly worked like a seamless team today. And he’d said he never again wanted to get involved with someone at work, yet that was exactly what he’d done. Would he start having regrets when they got back to the office? Was he already having them now?
Even while he was holding her hand, she could tell from the faint frown between his brows that he was thinking. Maybe even about how to let her down easy and untangle himself from this thing that neither of them had expected or even wanted to happen.
And maybe that was for the best.
Chapter Eighteen
When they got back to the motel, Olivia unlocked the door and Adam followed her inside. The room had been cleaned in their absence, the bed made and the wet towels replaced.
Sitting in the middle of the small round table where Olivia set her purse was a room key and a note from Linda:
Room 27 is all yours if you want it.
As Olivia stared down at the note, Adam came over to see what she was looking at. He didn’t react as he read it, but the words seemed to hang in the air between them.
If you want it.
That was the question, wasn’t it? Did he want to go to his own room? Did she want him to? But even as her mind asked the question, she knew the answer. She wanted Adam to stay.
Maybe they would be better off ending this before it went any further, but she didn’t care. She wanted it. Right now, standing here in this room with Adam where they’d been so happy, she wasn’t ready to let go of him.
But she needed him to want to stay. She wasn’t going to beg or pressure him. He had to choose her freely.
He walked into the bathroom, and when he came back out, he was holding his razor and toothbrush. Which pretty clearly answered the question. He’d made his choice, and it wasn’t her.
“I’m really beat,” he said with this awful, apologetic look on his face. “It’s probably best if I sleep in my own room tonight.”
“Sure,” she said, even though it wasn’t what she wanted to say. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t best for her. That more than anything she wanted him to stay, even if it was only for one more night.
She didn’t tell him those things though, because he’d made up his mind already and she didn’t want to seem pathetic. If she told him how she felt, he’d only feel sorry for her. Even worse—he might stay one more night as a favor. He might feel like he had to, as some sort of consolation prize. The last thing she wanted from him was a pity fuck.
“We’ve got another long day ahead of us tomorrow,” he added, in case she wasn’t convinced. “We’ll both be better off with a full night’s sleep.”
“Yep.” She was being so agreeable. No one had ever agreed with anything more, even if it was breaking her heart a little to do it.
She watched as he moved around the room, packing up the rest of his things, and all she could feel was numb. It wasn’t the least bit cold in the room, but her feet and her fingers were blocks of ice, sending frozen tendrils to her spine and up into her hypothalamus.
She’d known, on some level, that it would probably come to this. The fantasy had been nice while it lasted, but it wasn’t like they could stay here forever in their bubble. She hadn’t ever really believed they could go on like this, what with their jobs and reality waiting for them on the other side of the door.
But she’d hoped. She’d let herself hope, and look what that had gotten her.
Adam finished packing and zipped up his suitcase. He was all ready to go, and because she was helpful—so helpful and so agreeable—Olivia went to hold the door open for him.
He rolled his suitcase over and stopped in front of her. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, but he was so big and tall and standing so close, he took up her whole field of vision. So instead she looked down at the floor with a mumbled goodnight.
But he didn’t leave. He stayed right where he was.
Then his hand—oh god, his hand was touching her face. He cupped her cheek, and his fingers slid into her hair to tip her face up to his, and he gazed down at her with eyes so black and bottomless they could swallow her whole.
He looked like he wanted to kiss her.
An ember of longing flared to life in her chest. The part of her that still clung to hope couldn’t help thinking he’d changed his mind. It sure seemed like he’d changed his mind. He even tilted his head and started to lean in.
But then he just…didn’t.
His hand dropped to his side and he took a step back. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Another step back, and he was on the other side of the threshold now. “Make sure you bolt the door behind me.”
All she could do was nod as he rolled his suitcase away.
The next morning came like a boot to the head. Olivia had hardly gotten any sleep—or at least it felt that way. It was one of those nights where you toss and turn and toss and turn, and it feels like you never really fall asleep, but you must, because when your alarm goes off in the morning you’re so deeply asleep it hits you like a freight train.
She took too long in the shower, standing under the hot spray waiting fruitlessly to feel human again. So when seven o’clock rolled around—the time she’d agreed to meet Adam for breakfast in the lobby—she still hadn’t put on her makeup.
Fuck it, she thought as she hastily twisted her hair into a bun. I’ll wear my real face today.
Who was going to see her or care? Only Adam, who definitely didn’t care, and maybe a couple guys at the plant she’d never see again. She could face the world without makeup for this one day of her life.
Adam was already there when she pushed through the door to the lobby. He turned away from the cereal bar at the sound of the door, and their eyes met across the room.
Jesus shit fuck Christ, those eyes of his.
Did he know what they did to her? How they took her breath away every single time he looked at her?
“I got you a coffee,” he said, pointing to a table where two styrofoam cups sat side by side, steaming.
She made a beeline for them, and gulped down half of one, not even caring that it scalded her throat.
Adam watched her, eyebrows lifted in an expression of amusement. “If it’d be easier, we can fix you up with a caffeine IV.”
He was weirdly chipper this morning. Apparently not sleeping with her put him in an excellent mood. Swell.
“Did you know that bananas are berries but strawberries aren’t?” he announced as she examined the fruit bowl at the breakfast bar.
“Are you kidding?” she mumbled, blinking at the banana in her hand. Somehow this information felt like a personal betrayal, as if bananas had been lying to her as part of some vast fruit conspiracy her whole life.
“Blackberries and raspberries—also not berries.”
She shoved the banana back in the bowl and went for an apple Danish instead. “I can’t even process that. I’m still too pissed off about bananas being berries.”
“You know what else is a berry? Watermelon.”
“What the fuck?”
“Also avocados.”
“Okay, now I know you’re just messing with me.” She grabbed a vanilla yogurt—because apparent
ly all berry yogurt was a lie—and took it and her Danish over to the table.
Adam followed her with his two yogurt cups and a tiny box of Frosted Flakes. “Botanically, a berry is defined as a fruit produced from the ovary of a single flower. Which includes grapes, tomatoes, and peppers, but not a lot of the fruits that we commonly consider berries.”
Olivia shotgunned the rest of her coffee. “I can’t believe you’re talking to me about plant ovaries at seven in the morning.”
“I thought you’d find it interesting.” He looked slightly hurt that she wasn’t more impressed by his fun facts about fruit, but she couldn’t very well explain that she was in a bad mood because she’d been awake half the night agonizing over the fact that he hadn’t wanted to sleep with her.
“I do find it interesting,” she told him, trying to sound conciliatory. “I just haven’t had enough coffee to have my entire fruit worldview upended.”
“Then I’d better get you some more,” he said, and took her coffee cup for a refill.
Damn him, why did he have to be so sweet? It was making this even harder on her.
But she’d made it over the hump. She’d faced Adam this morning and come through it with her dignity mostly intact. They could do this. They could interact and work together and be mostly normal.
Only as soon as they were alone in the car together, on the way to the plant, things got awkward again.
“Are you okay?” Adam asked, casting a worried glance her way.
“Yes,” she said, turning to look out the window. It wasn’t a lie. She was okay. She would be.
“Because it seems like something’s wrong,” he persisted.
It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t answer. They were passing a very nice pasture of cows, and she watched them graze on a patch of wildflowers.
“Is something wrong?” He really wasn’t going to let this go.
“I’d rather not talk about it,” she said to the window. There was no point in lying when he could clearly see that something was bothering her. Lying would only make him prod more.
