Applied Electromagnetism

by Susannah Nix

  “Okay.”

  He fell silent, and she breathed out a sigh of relief.

  “How about this…” he said after a moment. “How about I tell you what I think is wrong, and you tell me if I’m right or not?”

  She could say no. He would probably drop it if she told him she didn’t want to play this game right now. But then she’d never hear what he thought was wrong—and she needed to know.

  “Fine,” she said. Her gaze was still fixed on the window, but without seeing what lay beyond the glass. All of her awareness was concentrated on the inside of the car. On Adam and what he might be about to say.

  “I think you were hurt that I went to my own room and didn’t spend the night with you last night. I think you think I did that because I didn’t want to spend the night with you, and I want you to know that’s not true at all.”

  She swiveled her head to look at him, but his focus remained on the road ahead. “Then why?” she asked, feeling that familiar flare of longing again.

  “I really was exhausted. I don’t know if you noticed, but I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before.”

  “I noticed,” she said, closing her eyes against the memory of his body sliding against hers into the wee hours of the morning.

  “Yeah, well I didn’t get much sleep the night before that either.” He was talking about the first night they’d shared a bed, when the storm had displaced him from his room. His fingers squeezed the steering wheel. “Or the night before that, truthfully.” That was after the wrecker had dropped them at that creepy motel.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Too much adrenaline after the flat tire.” He hesitated, like he wanted to say something else. And then he said it, and it blew her mind a little: “Or maybe it was because you were so close—right on the other side of that door you’d asked me to leave open—and I was starting to have a lot of feelings that I didn’t know what to do with.”

  “Feelings? About me?”

  “Yes. Feelings about you.” He glanced over at her, and their eyes caught and held for a second before he looked back at the road. “Anyway, I was pretty much running on empty by the end of the day yesterday, and I knew we still had a lot of work to do today, and I wouldn’t be able to focus at all if I didn’t get some sleep.”

  “I want to go back and talk about these feelings you were having about me.”

  “I like you, Olivia. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

  Maybe she had. Maybe she’d known but hadn’t let herself believe it.

  “I like you,” he repeated. “But we work together, and I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure if you liked me back—”

  “I do,” she cut in, because she felt like she needed to put that on the record. He’d laid his feelings on the table for her, and she wanted him to know he wasn’t the only one out there on the ledge.

  He breathed out a long breath, and his shoulders relaxed a little. “I didn’t know that, and I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He paused, and the muscles in his jaw tightened. “And also I really, really didn’t want to jump into another relationship with someone I work with.”

  “Right,” she said, feeling a knot start to form in her stomach. Of course he didn’t. He’d already told her as much.

  “If I’m being honest, that’s partially why I left last night. I knew if I didn’t get out of there, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you…”

  It sounded like a good thing, but she just knew there was another shoe coming, and it probably wouldn’t be as awesome.

  “And I wasn’t sure any of this was a good idea,” he went on. “I thought maybe it would be best not to let it go further.” The other shoe dropped with a crashing thud that reverberated through Olivia’s chest.

  “I see,” she said, feeling the numbness creep back into her fingers and toes. “I was thinking the same thing, actually.”

  He cut a glance at her. “You were?”

  “Yeah. Maybe it’d be better if we quit while we’re ahead.”

  His teeth bit into his lower lip and he gave a slow nod. “Well, I don’t know what conclusion you came to, but I decided that was bullshit.”

  She was so startled it took her several seconds to respond. “You did?”

  “It was just me being scared of getting hurt again and trying to protect myself. But I’m tired of being scared. You have no idea how lonely I’ve been.”

  She had an idea. She’d always assumed he had this whole life outside work and that was why he didn’t have any work friends. But now she knew he didn’t have any friends. And it was all because he’d been hurt, and was so afraid of being hurt again that he’d shut himself away from everyone in his life. Even his family to some extent.

  “Fuck being scared,” he said. “Let’s just try this and see what happens.”

  It was exactly what she’d wanted to hear.

  The words yes, great, let’s do it hovered on the tip of her tongue, but for some reason she couldn’t make herself say them.

  Because what if he was wrong? What if they tried and failed, and it ended up causing even more pain and awkwardness that made things hideously uncomfortable at work? He’d already been through that once, and she didn’t want to put him through it again. He needed a friendship that wouldn’t self-destruct more than he needed a bed buddy.

  Olivia was a pragmatist, so she tried to calculate what odds she’d give them. Based on their personalities and past failed relationships, and all their previous interactions, she tried to assign a number value to the chances of them surviving even six months as a couple.

  It wasn’t a good number. If this were an Oscar pool, she’d put her money on a different nominee.

  Adam was still waiting for her to say something. He kept throwing hopeful little glances her way, and she didn’t want to disappoint him, but she knew it was better to get it all out in the open now.

  “Counterpoint,” she said. “Maybe your first instinct was right, and we should put the brakes on things now, before it blows up in our faces.”

  He nodded slowly. “You’re scared too.”

  “I’m not scared. I’m trying to be logical.” She tugged at the cuffs of her shirt, pulling them down over the backs of her hands.

  “What’s logical about giving up before we’ve even had a chance to get started?”

  “We don’t even like each other.”

  “We both just admitted that we do.”

  “What if we’re wrong?”

  “I think I know how I feel.”

  She shook her head. “You only think you have feelings for me because we’ve been stuck together like conjoined twins for the past three days. We’re both suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.” She couldn’t stop herself, even though she was arguing against the thing she wanted.

  “That’s not what Stockholm Syndrome is. If anything, all the stressful situations we’ve been through this week should make us like each other less, not more. The fact that it brought us closer means something.”

  “No, it doesn’t. It’s like one of those wartime romances that burns really hot for a short time and then flames out when life goes back to normal.”

  “You think this week is what war is like?”

  “No, of course not. All I mean is that relationships based on intense experiences never work out.”

  He glanced at her in disbelief. “Are you quoting Speed now?”

  “Maybe, but Sandra Bullock was right! Keanu wasn’t in the sequel, was he? She was with Jason Patric!”

  “Yeah, and Speed 2 sucked. But I don’t see how the casting problems of a failed nineties action franchise have any bearing on what’s happened between us.”

  “All we ever seem to do is argue.”

  “I love arguing with you.”

  She loved it too, although it surprised her to realize it. Arguing with Adam wasn’t like arguing with other people, because he actually listened to her. Like, super intently. It gave her a rush to have
all of his attention focused on her and her ideas. And unlike a lot of people, he didn’t play devil’s advocate or argue just for the sake of disagreeing. He was willing to have his mind changed, and didn’t shy away from admitting when he was wrong.

  Arguing with Adam engaged her competitive instincts, but it also got her hot. Even now, arguing about their possible non-future, she could feel the heat pooling in the pit of her stomach. She was staring at his mouth and thinking about how much she wanted to feel his lips on her again.

  She made one last attempt to parry. “If we try this and it doesn’t work out, it could make work really hard.” It had seemed like such a good reason before, but now it felt like a lame excuse.

  “Maybe, maybe not.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “If it does, I’ll get another job. I can work anywhere.” He made it sound so easy, like it hadn’t ruined his life the last time he’d had to do it.

  “I don’t want you to have to do that.”

  “I think you’re worth the risk.”

  A well of emotion burst inside her. How was he just sitting there calmly driving the car and saying such incredible words to her? And why did he have to say them now, when she couldn’t climb into his lap and kiss him without killing them both in a fiery vehicular crash?

  He dared a glance at her and must have liked what he saw in her expression, because a smile lit up his whole face, so beautiful it made her eyes water.

  He laid his arm across the console like he’d done yesterday, with his palm face up and beckoning to her. “Marco.”

  “Polo,” she whispered, and slipped her hand into his.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Adam was staring at her again. He’d been staring at her for hours, devouring her with his eyes.

  Instead of sitting behind her, today when they’d arrived at the control shack he’d chosen a desk farther away, but facing hers. So he could gaze at her with those glorious dark eyes that turned her legs to jelly.

  She felt ensnared by every look he cut her way. How was she supposed to survive the whole day with him watching her like a terrier tracking a squirrel? The sensations it inspired in her made it difficult to concentrate. There was some self-consciousness, and some embarrassment, but also something deeper and wilder. Craving. Desire. Excitement.

  It was killing her that they couldn’t touch. They hadn’t even been able to kiss when he’d parked the car, because there were security cameras outside, and they didn’t need the weekend shift manager watching them suck face. She was boiling with the need to feel Adam’s touch, and from the look in those eyes of his, he felt exactly the same.

  It was torture.

  But also sort of fun?

  Olivia’s competitive streak had been activated again. As the hours wore on and the sexual tension crackling across the room between them amped up, she’d turned it into a contest.

  They were playing an adult version of the Quiet Game that Olivia’s elementary school teachers had inflicted on her and her fellow classmates. In this version of the Quiet Game, they weren’t allowed to do anything to arouse the suspicion of the shift manager or his weekend crew. They could share meaningful looks and flirt with their eyes, but only if they could do it without being noticed.

  They could even touch, occasionally, but only in the most innocent and unobtrusive ways. The way two coworkers might accidentally touch in the course of conferring over a laptop or sharing a meal from the vending machine. A casual brush of fingers here, a slight press against the thigh there, but nothing an observer would notice as untoward. Which turned out to be far more erotic and intoxicating than she’d imagined it could be.

  She’d never fully appreciated the power of a tease before. How the lightest of touches when there was no possibility of follow-through could set her on fire, burning her from the inside out. And how she could do the same thing to someone else.

  She propped her elbow on the desk and rested her chin on her palm, gazing across the room at Adam. Until the next batch of tests finished running, there wasn’t much for her to do.

  Adam pretended not to be aware of her staring, but she knew from the way he reached up to run his fingers through his hair that he was very aware indeed. Christ, she loved his hair. It was unfair that he should have such lustrous, silky waves. She couldn’t wait to run her fingers through them tonight.

  The weekend shift manager was in his office, eating his lunch. His attention was mostly divided between his club sandwich and his computer screen, but he could look up at any second. He was their ever-present chaperone. The principal standing over the punch bowl, whose presence kept the kids on the dance floor from engaging in too much hanky-panky.

  Olivia let out a quiet little sigh of boredom, and Adam’s eyes drifted her way. He reclined in his chair and crossed his arms. His biceps bulged, straining at the fabric of his shirt, and she felt a bit of drool collect at the corner of her mouth.

  She squirmed in her seat and crossed her legs. It wasn’t easy to be seductive in clumpy Doc Martens and a baggy plaid shirt.

  There was a pencil cup on the desk in front of her, and she chose a long yellow Ticonderoga, spinning it between her fingers like a student waiting to take the SAT. Adam watched her intently, mesmerized.

  She held the pencil up in front of her face and stroked it from eraser to tip.

  His eyes flashed in response. Somehow he was grinning without moving his face.

  She turned the pencil over and stroked it again, running her fingers slowly down its length and back again. Her heart gave a little leap of triumph when the corner of Adam’s mouth twitched.

  Invigorated, she gripped the pencil as if she were about to write something, opened her mouth, and touched the tip to her tongue.

  It was a powerful high, watching Adam’s eyes go black and wide because of something she’d done. She smiled to herself as she reached for a Post-it and wrote out a question.

  He was leaning forward, curious to know what she’d written. She held the note up so he could read it.

  You OK over there?

  His expression was half amused and half something else that made her stomach flutter and her chest feel hot. The two of them were like Jim and Pam on The Office, sharing a silent in-joke and communicating across the room with heated glances and smirks.

  Olivia tore the Post-it off the pad and wadded it up. Adam’s eyes were heavy and watchful as she leaned back in her chair, lifting up her shirt and thrusting her hip forward to tuck the crumpled note into the front pocket of her jeans. His tongue was practically lolling out of his mouth like a salivating Labrador.

  That was when she remembered the toy robot she’d gotten in her kids meal at the airport—the one she’d named Tiny Adam. She dug it out of her purse and held it up, smiling. Adam pressed his lips together, barely containing a laugh as she wound the tiny crank with exaggerated movements.

  She was enjoying this too much. If she wasn’t careful, she’d get carried away.

  As she set the toy robot marching across the desk, Olivia glanced at her computer screen and sat bolt upright. “Come here,” she said, beckoning to Adam with her index finger.

  He lifted his eyebrows in inquiry, trying to decipher if this was part of the game.

  “I’m seeing a lot of packet loss coming from the number three turbine.”

  He pushed himself to his feet, the Quiet Game forgotten as he peered down at her screen. The software was ticking out how many kilowatts were being generated by each turbine, and instead of numbers it was throwing zeros.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  Fuck was right. It could be anything, including a fire, but since none of the plant’s alarms were going off, chances are it was a problem with their software and not with the turbine itself.

  “Could it be a loose connection?” she asked.

  “Maybe.” He grabbed his hard hat on his way to talk to the shift manager. “I’ll go outside and see what’s up.”

  It took them two hours to identify the problem. It turned out the
new network switch Adam had installed was in direct sunlight in the latter half of the day, causing it to overheat. Which of course he couldn’t have known when he’d installed it under thick cloud cover on Wednesday.

  Once he’d relocated it, they were good to go again. A simple fix for a simple problem, but it could have caused major complications if they’d been interfacing with the market and dropped telemetry like that. One tiny error like that could have cost the company millions of dollars in fines, like a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a hurricane.

  A disaster had been narrowly averted, and they both knew it.

  Adam had pulled a chair up beside Olivia’s desk to watch the sub-second telemetry reporting on her screen. He swiveled to face her, his expression contrite. “You were right about waiting another day.” There was an apology in his voice, if not in his actual words. “We would have been in deep shit if I hadn’t listened to you.”

  It was gratifying to hear him commend her for the same caution he’d criticized her for before. But her sense of fair play was too strong to take all the credit for this victory. She wouldn’t have been able to pull this off if it hadn’t been for him. She wouldn’t have even had the courage to try, if not for him pushing her to take a risk and stretch herself.

  “Yeah, but you were right that we could do the integration in half as much time as I thought we needed. If it’d been up to me, we would have insisted on a whole extra week, and pissed off the CIO and the board.” She spun her chair a little, so her knee bumped against his leg. “So we were both partially right, and both partially wrong.”

  A smile played across his lips. “The truth was halfway in between. You know what that means?”

  “What?”

  “We make a good team.”

  A matched set, her mind whispered.

  If only.

  It was hard to picture her and Adam ever being as cozy and easy with one another as Penny and Caleb were. But maybe they could make their own kind of cozy.