Finding Joy

by Adriana Herrera

  I was very proud of myself for not shivering when his breath fluttered against my ear. His closeness making me forget my moment of jealousy.

  Once I’d gotten it together and was mostly sure a moan wouldn’t come out of my mouth, I pointed at the clay pot that looked like a giant version of one of those oil and vinegar bottles. In the most controlled voice I could manage I asked Elias, “What’s this called? My mom has a few of them at home, but I forgot the name.

  Again he looked delighted at my awareness of all things Ethiopian. “It’s a gebena. She’ll set it on the coals to brew and we will have bunna in a few minutes.”

  The roasting beans already smelled delicious and I inhaled deeply. “This is great. It was on my list of things to do.”

  He dipped his head and pointed to the corn kernels our server was pouring out. “It comes with popcorn.”

  I nodded in appreciation. “As if the coffee wasn’t already perfect on its own, you guys had to make it next-level by adding a delicious snack.”

  He let out one of those startled laughs that happened when I was being particularly farenji-like. “You are very easy to please when it comes to coffee.”

  I moaned when I got another strong whiff of the roasting beans. “This place is going to ruin me. Coffee will never be the same again.”

  Tsehay, who had been doing something on her phone, popped back into the conversation at my coffee addiction confession. “I’m sorry, but it is true. You have tasted the best now, so everything else will pale in comparison.”

  For some reason, I stared at Elias while she said that, and my thoughts veered to tasting something decidedly not coffee-related.

  Get it together, Desta Joy.

  “So,” I said, desperate for a distraction. “That was a really awkward situation at lunch.”

  Tsehay and Elias shared another look that once again made me wonder if there was more to their relationship. Tsehay was the one to answer, though. “Sam’s been on other projects. We’re used to him being…abrupt.”

  I smiled at her valiant effort at diplomacy. “He was a jackass, and thankfully you guys were there to intervene.”

  They both looked down, clearly refraining from expressing an opinion. I’d been around enough to know how these things went. Sometimes being candid with the expats could backfire spectacularly, and Elias and Tsehay didn’t know me well enough to trust I wouldn’t end up telling on them to their boss. After a few more seconds of awkward silence, Elias looked at me, and I could tell he was trying to read what my silence meant, like he was warring with the impulse to trust me.

  He exhaled before he spoke, but he seemed determined to say exactly what was on his mind. He ran a hand over his chin, thoughtful as always. “There are people who come to our country and they’ve already made up their mind that they know better than us.” He twisted his mouth in an expression of distaste, and I could see the same fire there as when he’d spoken to Sam earlier. This was not a man to let people walk all over him. He knew his place in the world, even if assholes like Sam could never wise up to it. “Some people can’t be reasoned with. Sam thinks that because he does work in this part of the world, that somehow shields him from having to be a decent person. To see us like his equals.”

  He lifted a shoulder then, as if he were too tired to care. “He’s not the first, won’t be the last.”

  Tsehay shook her head, and when she spoke her voice was low, careful. “The problem with Sam is that he can be vindictive if he feels like he’s been slighted.” She looked at Elias, her expression serious, but she didn’t say more as they exchanged looks.

  I was still puzzled about their relationship, but decided that whatever it was, I needed to calm the fuck down.

  “I just want you both to know that this stays between us. I would never mention this to anyone,” I said, while I waited for my coffee to cool. I regretted having brought this up at all. I was ruining the mood, but both Tsehay and Elias seemed to relax.

  After a moment of drinking our coffee in a semi-tense silence, Tsehay smiled and moved closer to me. “So did you have a special someone back home? Do you want help picking out some gifts?”

  Her tone was casual and friendly, but still I straightened my back and tried to figure out from her expression if there was a hidden agenda behind that question. Did she have suspicions about me? Did she notice anything with me and Elias?

  I glanced at him sitting on the other side of Tsehay, and his expression was completely blank. Nothing to show me if he’d heard what she said. The only thing giving him away was the way he was tapping the side of the small cup. A little nervous gesture that tempted me to find out what would happen if I actually told the truth.

  I turned to Tsehay again, sure by now that she’d figured out I didn’t have a good answer to her question. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been asked this before. I was well into my marrying years in most of the countries I worked in, so getting asked about my wife or kids happened on pretty much every work trip. I usually answered with something vague or said I was too busy with work for romance, but this time I just didn’t feel like doing that.

  I put my coffee cup back on the small table and turned so that I was looking right at Tsehay. “Nope.” I counted, one, two, three breaths, my heart doing its best to beat right out of my chest, and just said it. “I had a boyfriend, but we broke up before coming on this trip.”

  Elias’s cup rattled as he put it back, making me jump, but his face was not unkind. More like he was flustered by the answer.

  Tsehay, on the other hand, squeezed my forearm hard and winked at me. “You don’t want to tell anyone else that.” She waved a finger between Elias and herself. “And we won’t, either.”

  I nodded, but didn’t know what else to say, and it seemed it wasn’t necessary. From then on I just focused on the dancers as Tsehay and Elias offered explanations about the different tribal styles and dress. It was all so fascinating I almost—but not quite—missed the long looks Elias sent my way after my big revelation.

  Chapter 7

  The rest of the weekend went on without a hitch. Saturday we went swimming at one of the lakes, and Sunday I spent most of the day sleeping and telling myself all the reasons why going to look for Elias was a terrible, no good, dangerous idea.

  But by Monday morning I was itching to see him. I should’ve anticipated that Sam was going to serve us with some bullshit first thing.

  I was making my way through the restaurant, heading for breakfast, when I saw Tsehay and Sam in a heated discussion. There was obviously something wrong because Sam was red in the face and kept swinging his hands as he talked. I braced myself for whatever foolery this was. Knowing Sam and the way he ran his mouth, I anticipated having our whole day turned upside down by whatever he had done.

  I got to them just as Elias was coming in from the side door of the restaurant that led to the parking lot. He’d probably been preparing the supplies for the day out, but I had a feeling his meticulous schedule was about to get disrupted.

  “What do you mean I can’t go out today?” Sam’s voice boomed throughout the restaurant, making the diners at the other tables turn their heads in our direction.

  “Sam, get it together,” I warned through gritted teeth as I literally raised a hand to push him back. “Give Tsehay some room.” He’d been crowding her like the asshole he was, but he moved, looking startled when he realized how close he was to her.

  I was about to start asking what the hell was going on, but Elias beat me to it and his tone sounded as strained as mine. “What happened?” He was looking at Tsehay, and I suspected it was because if he paid too much attention to Sam, like me, he’d be tempted to pop him on the mouth.

  Tsehay looked angry, an expression that didn’t seem to go with her usual easygoing personality. I could tell she was trying to come up with an explanation, and the fact that Sam’s lips were currently sealed told me he was responsible for whatever had caused the argument.

  She sighed and turned to l
ook at me. “Mr. Dawit has requested a different team leader for his woreda.”

  “What did you do?” I growled as the oaf in question reddened.

  Sam tried to posture, but something in my face must have told him I was not in the mood, and clearly neither were Elias or Tsehay. “I ran into him yesterday and asked him some questions, and I guess he didn’t like my tone.”

  I dug my fingers into my eyes as I heard matching groans coming from the others. “So you cornered a government official on his day off to ask him questions after we’d already told you to let us handle the communication with him?” I was barely keeping my patience in check.

  “I don’t get what the big deal is.”

  I was about to explain, but Elias jumped in, looking like he was done holding his tongue with Sam. “The big deal is that you’ve already disrespected Mr. Dawit.” His tone was placid enough, and his voice was not a decibel above proper inside voice, but no one could not mistake the edge in it. “If you cannot mind the social rules and the ways that our people conduct themselves when working with officials, then you are going to impact this project’s development.”

  This man was very close to losing his patience. My whole body woke up and took notice because take-charge Elias was hot as fuck.

  Sam’s face went from flushed to mottled with an angry red, and I could almost hear the gears in his idiotic head turning. He opened his mouth, but before he did something that he could never take back, I intervened. “There is nothing to say, Sam. You fucked up and now you have to sit this one out.”

  He balked at that, but I wasn’t standing by and letting Sam sabotage this entire project because he couldn’t keep his fool mouth shut. I ignored him and turned again to Tsehay and Elias. “How far behind will we get if we only send out two teams this week?” Another yelp came from Sam’s direction, but I didn’t bother looking his way as I waited for an answer.

  “It will throw off the schedule completely,” Tsehay answered, and the furrow in her brow told me I didn’t need to point out that kind of setback would be catastrophic for our already-tight deadline.

  Elias nodded, already tapping something on his tablet. “We timed it so we’d be done here and at the new sites just as they were gearing up for their quarterly health checks with the families. We can’t get delayed.”

  “That’s right. Dammit,” I said, this time turning to glare at Sam. “You need to figure out how to make amends with Mr. Davit so you can get back to work. For now we need to stay on task. What do you suggest, Elias?”

  He gave me a funny look like he didn’t expect me to ask him what to do, but as far as I could tell, he and Tsehay were the ones that knew what we needed to do to stay on our timeline.

  Tsehay spoke while he mulled the question over. “Eli can lead Sam’s team.”

  Before the man in question could even contemplate complaining, I shut him up. “Don’t.” I wasn’t even sure what I was objecting to, but at least Sam knew enough not to piss me off again.

  “What do you think?” I asked Elias as he considered Tsehay’s suggestion. I was extremely aware of the fact that even though I knew this was probably the best solution, I was dreading not having Elias with me all day. That I’d been looking forward to listening the rest of Aristotle and Dante with him.

  “I can do that.” He dipped his head at my question, but something in his eyes made me wonder if he was bummed out too. I reminded myself that the only dummy in this equation was me, and Elias was probably more concerned about us being able to do our job.

  He looked at Sam, who was still fuming next to us, and clenched his jaw hard. “We can switch one of Sam’s workers with Yohannes, who has the nutrition background, since that’s something I’m not familiar with.”

  Sam scoffed like an asshole and I glared in his direction. Elias looked like he was ready give the man a piece of his mind. “You have to go and apologize to Mr. Dawit. He is a reasonable man, but you have publicly disrespected him. Tsehay and I were going to talk to him, but you made this mess. So you will have to fix it.”

  “What?” He had the gall to sound offended. “All I did was ask a couple of questions.”

  This time Elias straightened to his full height, and I could see why he always kept that easy and quick smile. He didn’t need to assert himself with posturing. This man was perfectly capable of owning a room when he wanted to.

  “Sam, does your mother work?”

  The question seemed to catch him off guard, and he actually stammered. “Yes, my mother works,” he said haughtily. “She’s a high school principal.”

  Elias smiled, but his eyes were still very unfriendly. “How would you feel if people came up to your mother at restaurants and on her way home from church on Sunday to tell her she doesn’t know how to do her job?”

  Tsehay made a sound that I was pretty sure was a suppressed laugh, and I had to bite my tongue not to chuckle. Sam spluttered, furious for getting called on his bullshit. “That’s not—”

  I cut him off because no one had time for this. “The hell it isn’t. What you did was disrespectful and Mr. Dawit has a right to an apology,” I told him, already walking away. Sam could get as red in the face as he wanted. That had to be said.

  Tsehay and Elias took their cues from me, and we all hurried out to where the teams were waiting by the vehicles. “I think this is a good plan,” I said as we got outside. “But let’s make sure we have a long debrief tonight.”

  As everyone rushed off, I stood rooted to the passenger side of my vehicle. I realized that even though I was ready for the work, there was pang of loss in my chest that I would spend the day without Elias. Like he could read my mind, his voice called from somewhere behind me.

  “Desta.” I tipped my head up to look at him, trying very hard to keep inside the things that wanted to come out of my mouth. “Don’t listen to Ari and Dante without me.”

  My gut turned liquid at the conspiratorial humor in this voice. “Okay.”

  He winked at me, and my extremities went numb while all the blood rushed up to my head. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  I was sure that had only sounded like a promise to me, but still I watched him go. His long limbs eating up the gravel as he went to his vehicle, that gorgeous ass encased in dark blue jeans. He always wore his work shirts tucked in, making him look neat and trim and edible. He was a beautiful man and he seemed so completely unaware of it, which just made my thirst for him that much more pronounced.

  “Are you really going to let them do this?”

  Fucking Sam.

  I sighed as I peeled my eyes off Elias’s powerful forearms pulling on the door of the Cruiser and turned my attention on Sam. “They didn’t do anything. You did. I suggest you apologize before you ruin the entire week for the team.”

  I didn’t bother waiting for an answer and got into the truck, which already had Sam’s usual driver sitting at the driver’s seat since Elias would be driving for that team.

  Our tiny convoy drove out of the gravel parking lot for the day in the field. I kept my eye on Elias’s truck until our own vehicle took a turn in the opposite direction. And when my eyes drifted to the clock on the dashboard, I barely managed to keep myself from counting the hours until I’d see him.

  Chapter 8

  I made myself go up to my room first.

  The day had its low moments, but it had been mostly good. My team, despite the last-minute changes, got the work done, and from the texts I’d gotten from Tsehay and Elias, it seemed like they also did fine. Not that I expected any different. Figured that Sam being out of the picture would make no difference.

  Except there had been one difference.

  I’d missed Elias.

  Throughout the day I’d constantly found myself turning to ask him about something I saw on the road or about the book I was reading. I’d missed his presence literally, his body next to me in the Land Cruiser. And the little things, like the way his eyebrows popped over the top of his sunglasses when I said somethin
g to make him laugh.

  I’d been doing that—collecting comments and things I thought he’d find funny. I liked seeing Elias smile. It’s not like he was stingy with them either; his face was open and bright for everyone. And people were drawn to him because of it. But there was one kind of smile that tugged at one side of his mouth and made the corners of his eyes crinkle. That one only happened when I was being a particular brand of smart-ass, which my fool head decided made it my smile. And I was hopelessly addicted to it. I’d been desperate to see it all day.

  I made it upstairs without interacting with anyone and rushed through getting ready for dinner. I tossed my dusty clothes in a corner and jumped in the shower, not even bothering to turn on the water heater, making quick work of getting clean and dressed. In less than ten minutes I was walking downstairs again, my laptop over my shoulder.

  At one point during the day we’d made plans to have a working dinner in a small private room next to the restaurant, which Elias had reserved. He’d said that way our group would be able to debrief without bothering the other diners. Because he thought of everything. I pressed a hand to my chest as I made my way to the room, my stupid heart already skipping in anticipation of seeing him. It was sad how far gone I was. It hadn’t even been twelve hours since I’d been with the man, and here I was acting like a lovesick teenager.

  I stepped in and found him alone in the room, and I took a second to look at him. A smarter person would have made note of the way my entire body ran hot just from seeing him and kept their distance, but I couldn’t bother with being rational at the moment. I moved to slide my water bottle into my bag, and the sloshing sound made him pop his head up. When he saw me he smiled wide, like I was the best thing he’d seen all day. And all I wanted to know was: how was I supposed to rein myself in when he looked at me like that?

  “Hey,” I said, lifting a hand up like a complete jackass.