by Susannah Nix
Pull it together.
This was just a regular business trip and they were just two regular coworkers. Why should she be uncomfortable sitting next to Adam?
“Are you uncomfortable sitting next to me?” he asked.
Fuck me dead. She was usually better at hiding her feelings. How was Adam seeing so many things she didn’t want him to see? More importantly—why was he looking at her at all?
He was really looking at her too. Like, so hard it was impossible to pretend otherwise. Those piercing eyes of his were focused on her face like she was a puzzle he was trying to solve.
“I’m not uncomfortable,” she said.
“That’s a lie.”
“How would you know?”
“Because it’s obvious. Your kinesics are an open book.”
“My what?”
“Body language. Your cheek is twitching, you keep reaching up to touch the suprasternal notch at the base of your throat, and that’s the third time you’ve tried to count that row of stitches and had to start over.”
Maybe she’d never been good at hiding her feelings. Maybe she’d only thought she was good at it because most people didn’t look at her closely. When they looked at her at all, they only tended to see what was on the surface. But not Adam, for some reason. It was unsettling how much he saw.
Olivia’s fingers tightened on her knitting needles. “I’m uncomfortable because I’m squeezed into a tiny seat in a flying tin can that smells like portable toilets and fast food farts, okay?”
“That’s not it,” he said. “I mean, it does smell like farts in here, but that’s not why you’re uncomfortable.”
“You don’t know as much about me as you think you do.”
Except he did. Somehow, he seemed to know everything about her, just by looking at her.
He really needed to stop looking at her, or he’d figure out the secret she didn’t want him to know: that she’d liked him, and he’d crushed more than just her ego last week. He’d crushed her heart as well.
“Why won’t you just admit it?” he persisted.
“Because it’s not true. Can you drop it, please?”
“Fine.” He faced forward and fastened his seat belt.
They’d started preparing for takeoff, thank god. The sooner they got off the ground, the sooner Olivia would be released from this metal prison. They were only a few hours into this cursed trip, and she already felt like one of the characters in No Exit, condemned to spend eternity being tortured by her companion in the afterlife. Hell is other people, indeed.
As they taxied to the runway, she couldn’t help noticing that Adam was staring straight ahead. He wasn’t reading his phone or a tablet like nearly everyone else on the plane. He wasn’t doing anything.
Who did that? Just sat there staring at nothing instead of reading?
His hands were clenched on the armrests, and she wondered if maybe he was a bad flyer as well as being uncomfortable in crowds. He better not get airsick on her. She snuck a glance at his face. His color looked okay, but he seemed tense, like he was bracing himself for something terrible.
“You all right?” she asked. “You’re not scared of flying, are you?”
He shook his head slightly. “I just don’t like takeoffs and landings. I’ll be fine once we get in the air.”
“Okay.” She went back to her knitting. But as the plane picked up speed in preparation for takeoff, she threw another glance his way, just to make sure he wasn’t going to ralph. He still had the same look of determined resignation, so she figured she was probably safe.
To be honest, she wasn’t a huge fan of takeoffs and landings either. The g-force was unpleasant, and the bumpiness made it impossible to focus on anything without triggering a headache. She laid her knitting in her lap and closed her eyes as the wheels left the ground and the plane hurtled itself into the sky.
The sensation was an odd mix of exhilarating and terrifying with a side order of uncomfortable jouncing and jolting. Sort of like riding a rollercoaster, but without the spectacular views and the feel of the wind in your face.
Adam probably didn’t like rollercoasters any more than he liked flying.
Gradually, the plane leveled off and the unpleasant sensation passed. Adam seemed to relax as they gained altitude, his fingers uncurling from the armrest and his shoulders loosening, until it was like he’d never been tense at all.
Olivia picked up her knitting again, and by the time the flight attendants began moving around the cabin, Adam was so chill she could almost believe she’d imagined the whole thing. He’d never been nervous at all. What a ridiculous idea, that someone as cool and confident as Adam could be afraid of flying.
And yet, she remembered it. It had happened.
Now that he wasn’t a ball of tension anymore, his broad shoulders had spread out, bleeding over the invisible barrier into her seat. The top of his arm was pressed against the top of her arm, and her skin felt warm where it touched him through his shirt. His warmth sank into her and traveled straight to her chest. It made her body feel tense but also somehow like syrup. Viscous and slow-moving. Warm, oozing, and entirely too sweet.
And now she could feel his eyes on her again. He was looking at her in that too-perceptive way he had. It was almost like a physical touch. Like a finger stroking over her cheek. It was practically a caress. The tiny hairs on the surface of her skin were bristling where his eyes bored into her, and she was too hot inside her shirt. Her bra felt like it was strangling her, like the straps were too tight, abrading her skin and digging into it all at once.
The tension was unbearable. He was about to say something. She could feel it building in the air between them. And whatever it was, she was certain she wasn’t going to like it.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“Nothing.” The word came out too quickly and too loud. Instead of easy, breezy and nonchalant like she’d intended, she sounded defensive.
“Why is your first instinct always to lie?”
“It’s not.” More defensiveness. Why was she always so defensive around him? She didn’t think of herself as a defensive person in general. But something about him made her dig in and start fortifying her walls.
“You were thinking about something. People are always thinking about something. So it’s a lie to say you’re thinking about nothing.”
The knitting needles clacked as she channeled her irritation into them. “Maybe it’s none of your business what I’m thinking about.”
“So why not say that instead of lying?”
“Because it’s rude.” She recited the shawl pattern in her head like a meditation mantra as her fingers formed the stitches. Knit three, knit two together, yarn over.
“Lying’s rude too. Do you think it was rude of me to ask what you were thinking?”
“Maybe a little.” Knit three, knit two together, yarn over.
“You really can’t stop equivocating, can you?”
“Yes, it was rude to ask me that,” she snapped, and the man sitting on the other side of Adam glanced their way.
“So if I started the rudeness, you should be able to be rude back.”
“The world doesn’t work that way.” Olivia reached up and raised the window shade. The view outside was an icebox gray haze. Too bad she wasn’t in an exit row, so she could hurl herself into oblivion.
“Sure it does,” Adam insisted.
“No, it doesn’t.” She couldn’t believe she had to explain this to him. But then look who she was talking to. No one would ever dare be rude to Adam Cortinas—or point out his own rudeness. They were too busy throwing roses at his feet. “If everyone escalated every time they were annoyed or inconvenienced by someone else’s behavior, no one would ever get anything done and society would break down. The world works because people compromise and forgive. The ones who don’t are the gremlins in the machinery, they just don’t realize it because they’re only thinking of themselves.”
“So
according to you, we should all just let people take advantage and walk all over us for the sake of compromise and pretending to get along.”
Olivia unclenched her jaw and blew out a breath. Knit three, knit two together, yarn over. “Not always. Just sometimes. When it benefits everyone.”
“Like when one of the traders wants a generator configuration that you know won’t work, and you don’t say anything because you don’t want to rock the boat? Is that the kind of compromise that benefits everyone? Or is that just you being afraid to stand up to the trade desk?”
His words struck her like an electric shock, bringing belated realization. She turned on him with an accusing look. “Is that why you wouldn’t give me a reference? Because of Tulelake?”
“That mistake cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“You think I didn’t try to warn them?”
“You should have tried harder. You should have taken a stand.”
“Yeah, like Cassandra.”
His forehead scrunched in confusion. “Cassandra in accounting?”
“Cassandra from The Odyssey who was cursed to utter prophecies no one believed.”
“I’m familiar with the mythology, but—”
“You heard me in that meeting with Gavin and Brad, and how much good it did when I raised my concerns about the timeline for this integration. I was immediately overruled in favor of you. That’s what it’s like being a woman in business, every day. Being talked over and ignored, having your mistakes put under a microscope while your ideas and accomplishments are credited to someone else.”
“I’m not saying sexism in the workplace doesn’t exist—”
“Gee, thanks for not denying my lived experience.” Her voice had risen again, and the man beside Adam looked like he was regretting his seatmates.
Adam, on the other hand, actually seemed to be enjoying himself. His eyes were bright and he had a self-satisfied look that made Olivia’s molars grind together. “I’m just saying nothing will ever change if you don’t stand up for yourself. You need to be more assertive, not less.”
“Don’t feed me that Lean In bullshit,” she spat. “It’s not that simple to be more assertive when you’re a woman. Maybe you can get away with acting like a jerk, but if I tried that crap I’d be labeled a ‘problem’ and suffer repercussions.”
“I didn’t say it was simple, just that it was something you need to do. You can’t just give up and go along to get along.”
“Why not? Why can’t I do that?” Her stupid window seat was making her feel trapped. Her only means of escape from this conversation was to climb over Adam’s and a complete stranger’s legs.
“Because it’s wrong. It perpetuates a broken system and allows incompetence to rise to the top.”
“I didn’t break the system,” she said through clenched teeth. “Why should I have to take all the risks to fix it?” Her jaw was aching from all the clenching.
“Because you actually care about doing a good job.”
“Stop acting like you know me. You don’t know anything about me or what I care about.” She unsnapped her seat belt and stood, setting her knitting on her seat. “I need to use the bathroom. Get up.”
Adam and his neighbor stepped out into the aisle, and Olivia made her way to the bathroom at the back of the plane. She really did hate airplane bathrooms, but she needed some space and some quiet. Just for a minute. She needed to breathe in an Adam-free zone—even if it was gross toilet air.
She glared at her bright pink cheeks in the water-spotted bathroom mirror. It was the curse of her complexion. Even the slightest rush of blood to her face announced itself like a flashing neon sign. No wonder Adam thought she was an open book.
Her cheeks went even redder at the thought of Adam reading her so easily. Or was it the mere thought of Adam that made her face hot? Of Adam looking at her and really seeing her—which was what she’d wanted for so long.
But no more. She didn’t want Adam’s attention.
Did she?
Ugh. How could she be simultaneously so attracted to and so infuriated by someone? It boggled reason.
Her only hope of getting through this week with any sort of dignity whatsoever was to convince him all her red-faced blushing was anger rather than…all the other things he made her feel. Unwelcome, inappropriate things. Things she absolutely did not want to be feeling about Adam Cortinas.
She could do this. She had excellent social skills. She was a calm, collected person, capable of having benign conversations with a coworker. He didn’t need to know there was anything extraordinary about their interactions—or her reactions to them. She could pretend to be cool and normal.
She’d have to, if she was going to survive the next five days.
When Olivia finally went back to her seat, she found Adam examining her knitting. “Don’t touch that!” she exclaimed in alarm.
He withdrew the hand that was caressing a corner of Penny’s shawl and moved so Olivia could get back to her seat. “I was just looking.”
She directed an apologetic look at the gentleman in the aisle seat as she stepped past him. “You were touching,” she said to Adam. “If you hold it wrong, the stitches will drop off the needles.”
“I wasn’t holding it. I was just poking it.”
“Don’t do that either.” She cradled the half-knit shawl like a newborn baby and sat back down in her seat.
“See how good you are at being assertive?” Adam said.
She hated herself for the involuntary thrill she felt at his approval, even though she knew he was mocking her. “I’m not talking about this with you anymore.”
“What are you so afraid of?”
That you’ll guess why the blood keeps rushing to my face. That I’ll lose control and punch you in your smug, handsome face. That you can see all the flaws I try so hard to hide.
There were so many things she could say, but she didn’t say any of them, because that would be handing the nuclear codes to an enemy agent. Self-assured destruction.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” was what she said. “I’m just tired of this conversation. Why don’t we talk about your failings instead?”
Adam’s gaze was sharp and penetrating. “When people don’t want to talk about something, it usually means they’re afraid of revealing some truth about themselves they’d prefer stayed hidden.”
How did he keep doing that? Was he telepathic?
She stroked her thumb over the stitches on her needle. “And sometimes it means you’re on their last nerve and they want you to listen to them asking you to drop it.” She meant to sound tough, but there was a tremor in her voice that made her sound pathetic instead.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“What?” Her ears had to be deceiving her. Adam Cortinas could not possibly have just said the words you’re right and I’m sorry. She’d expected him to pounce at the first sign of weakness, not lay down his sword.
“I was doing exactly what you were complaining about: talking over you without listening because I thought I knew better.” His dark eyebrows drew together, forming a triplet of creases above the bridge of his perfectly straight nose. He was being serious. He was actually disturbed.
She lifted her chin in vindication. “Yes, you were.”
“I apologize.”
“Apology accepted.”
“I was just trying to help.”
She’d heard that excuse too many times to let it go by. “Until you’ve spent your entire life navigating misogyny, maybe don’t criticize how I choose to do it.”
“Fair enough.”
She wasn’t used to hearing him agree with her and didn’t know how to respond to it. “I’m going to review the site’s operating manuals, if that’s okay with you.” Maybe if she was studying up on the equipment they’d be working with in a few hours he’d stop trying to talk to her.
“Knock yourself out.”
She traded her knitting for her laptop
, and pulled up one of the manuals she’d downloaded yesterday. It was boring and technical and had way more information than she needed for a simple integration with their market systems, but it made her feel a little better. Like she was actually doing something to prepare.
She could sense Adam reading over her shoulder, but at least he was being blessedly quiet. Even if he was breathing on her. Each exhalation warmed the side of her neck and stirred the strands of hair that had escaped from her bun.
Which meant his lips must be very close to her. Nearly touching her, in fact. If she turned her head and moved it just a few tiny inches, those sulky, tantalizing lips would be perfectly positioned to brush against hers.
Now that she’d had the thought, it was impossible to think about anything else. Impossible not to imagine actually doing it. How would he taste? Salty, probably, from the fries they’d shared in the airport. And sweet, from the Coke he’d been sipping.
Salty and sweet happened to be her favorite combination of flavors—like the sea salt chocolate chip cookies Penny made. Olivia’s mouth was watering just thinking about it.
And the longer she thought about it, the stronger the impulse became to do something about it. Even though she knew it would be a Very Bad Thing.
You don’t just randomly kiss your coworkers on an airplane when they’re reading a generator operating manual over your shoulder. Especially not a coworker you could barely even stand, and who, more importantly, couldn’t stand you back.
And yet.
It would be so easy.
Just a little taste. Just—
Was that a snore?
Oh good Christ.
He’d fallen asleep again. How did he keep doing that? Not that she could blame him. This manual was about to put her to sleep too. If she hadn’t been so busy fantasizing about the taste of Adam’s lips, she might be the one snoring right now.