The Spark Between Us by Stacy Travis

Chapter Eleven

Sarah

Between workand his social life, Braden kept himself pretty busy. I barely crossed paths with him after the first morning he drove me to work, other than to exchange pleasantries over coffee. And even then, he rarely lingered once I came into the kitchen. As soon as I came home, he either headed out on a date, or one of us felt tired and went up to bed.

It was fine. I didn’t need a bestie. I didn’t need a dinner date. I just needed a place to stay.

By the end of my second week at the lab, I’d fully immersed myself in science and successfully kept my mind focused on the unique power of lasers to soften metals at the molecular level.

Keith had given me an abbreviated download on the work he’d been doing with Batwoman, and I felt even more optimistic about the prospects of our project before we’d finetuned of our approach.

Also, thanks to a parade of friendly Uber drivers, I’d stopped thinking about my smashed-up car and my mortifying grand entrance into town. Which meant I didn’t think about firetrucks or the people who drove around in them. It was mind over matter, and I had more important things to focus on than what my roommate was doing to keep his biceps in top form.

I’m not thinking about that at all.

So I was a lying liar whose mind drifted to Braden throughout the day. By five o’clock one afternoon, I’d gotten so fed up with myself and my lack of mental control, that I gave myself a stern talking to. It went a bit like this: “You are a grown woman with a doctorate who is here to do important work. You may not jeopardize it by letting your focus drift to a man. That is all.”

My inner lust child may or may not have told my bossy self to shut the hell up.

Ever since I’d seen him out on his date, my diligent powers of recall had replayed every look and touch recorded in my lecherous mind. I knew it was ridiculous.

On the other hand, welding metals and recording energy transfer and temperature conditions only provided so much entertainment. My work had the potential to produce an incredible outcome, but much of lab work was the drudgery of recording data.

Of course my attention was drifting.

Eventually, I’d get into a groove and forget Braden even existed. I hoped.

I needed to concentrate and plan for my team meeting in the morning, so I put my head down and dug into a report Keith had written and lost myself in the pages.

After work, I’d take an Uber back to the house. If I finished up early enough, I might even race over to the body shop and see if they had an updated estimate for completion.

Then I’d swing by the grocery store and stock up on some Greek yogurt, salad stuff, and baking potatoes, so I could make myself a decent dinner. I felt pretty confident Braden had a date and would go straight from work to pick her up like he’d done each time he had plans.

So it shocked me when he sent me a text.

Braden: Hey, I got done early. I’m out front if you need a ride.

Me: In front of where?

Braden: The lab… Where you work…?

Then he sent me a selfie with the main building in the background. He was squinting into the sunlight, which lit his face up in warm pinks and painted amber tones on his hair. It was official—my concentration destroyed.

Me: That’s so sweet. But I was going to Uber.

Braden: Well, now you don’t have to. Are you finished?

Am I ever.

I was finished the moment his face reentered my brain.

Me: Yes. Be out in a sec.

Braden: Take your time.

When I exited the building, Braden was standing outside wearing aviator sunglasses and leaning against his truck. Sipping something brown through a paper straw, he blasted me with a smile I’d yet to see in full force, and the combination of his white teeth and the confident curve of his lips made me forget my train of thought.

For a second, I let myself imagine I was on a real date with Braden, the object of that charismatic smile, for reasons other than being his roommate with no car.

“Hey.” He reached behind to where a second cup sat on the hood and handed it to me. “Do you like iced tea?”

I licked my lips, suddenly feeling parched by his heat. “Oh, who doesn’t? Thank you.”

“Lots of people, actually. Especially the super-sweet kind I like. I took a gamble.”

I grinned and stirred the tea with the straw. “I have a massive sweet tooth.” I took a sip. “Oh, this is heaven.” Braden smiled and opened the door for me.

I hopped up the step and onto the seat before he could reach out to help me. If the mere sight of him had my internal body temperature shooting up to scorching levels, I couldn’t risk what grabbing his hand might do. I busied myself pulling on my seatbelt, so he pushed the door closed and went around to the driver’s side.

“How was work?” he asked, pressing the keyless ignition button and ignoring the rear camera, instead putting a hand on the headrest behind me and turning to navigate the exit from his parking spot. I caught a woodsy whiff of pine and sweat and felt myself inhaling deeper before he plucked his hand away and dropped it to his thigh. With an elbow propped on the open window ledge, he steered with one hand, piloting the massive truck away from the lab and toward town.

“So great,” I said, unable to take my eyes off his hand or his leg, which flexed as he moved it from the gas pedal to the brake. His hand looked capable of things I’d never had the audacity to imagine happening to my body—soft touches in places that would make me melt and sigh and swoon.

I stifled a shudder at how quickly my mind drifted there and quickly covered with work talk. “My team’s really gelling. We all complement each other well.”

“Good to hear.”

“How about you? Rescue any cats from trees today?”

He smirked but didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Your impression of my job comes right out of a picture book, doesn’t it?”

“No, but the cat thing goes along with me imaging you in scenarios that aren’t dangerous. I can get pretty far denying reality and living in my head. A girl needs to sleep at night, after all.” I couldn’t explain it. I barely knew the man, but some part of me had felt protective of him from the moment we’d met. His gruff moments hid a softer side that I sensed had gotten bruised along the way.

He turned down a leafy street we hadn’t gone down before, and he cast a glance my way. “Tell me about that. I know Finn’s got a caretaking gene, but he’s the oldest male, so it kind of makes sense. Where does your protectiveness come from?”

I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Probably same place as his. I was the oldest kid in the house when my dad died and everything fell apart. I had to keep everyone on track—my sisters, even my mom. Guess the habit stuck.” It was a simplified explanation, but for most people a satisfactory one.

“And you like to be in control,” he said, not looking at me. When I eyed him, I saw his smirk. “Is that why you control the narrative, make it up if you have to?”

I felt myself flinch.

I hadn’t expected him to zero in on my exact psyche, at least not so quickly. I inhaled slowly to slow the panicky thumping of my pulse that resulted from having my motives laid bare. Normally, it was a side of myself I protected by deflecting or laughing off an observation.

“You got me. Probably comes from watching cancer take my dad and not being able to do anything about it. So having a plan makes me feel like I’m in control in a world where things don’t make sense—probably why I chose a field where I study the laws of the universe.” I shook my head at the realization. I hadn’t quite put it into words before.

Braden looked into the distance and chewed his lip. “I understand that. But I hope you allow yourself to experience the magic sometimes, you know? Sometimes the unexpected yields the most beauty.”

I patted his leg, ready to wrap up the navel-gazing. “That’s a beautiful thought, Yoda, but not for me. I like to know what to expect. It calms me. Unforeseen dangerous situations do not make me happy. So can you please humor me and stay out of trouble?”

He nodded, the corner of his mouth ticking up. “Understood. Only cats in trees. No unnecessary risk.”

“All I’m asking.”

In my cartoon firefighter episode, Braden would hoist himself from a lower branch to a higher one, his biceps making the tree look like an unworthy opponent. Then he’d scoop the cat into his arms and carefully climb down without a hint of sweat from the exertion. “You have to admit, my cat-rescuing version has its perks. You could end up with a kitten playmate for Bella.”

We turned down a residential street with houses like Braden’s neighborhood. It felt like he was taking a longer route than usual. I didn’t mind the extra time chatting in the truck.

“Bella would eat a cat.”

“Oh. Okay, no cats.”

He rolled his neck and tapped a finger lightly on the steering wheel. “Your version wasn’t so far off from my day today. Wildfire season’s just starting, so most of our calls were for pretty basic stuff.”

“What’s ‘pretty basic’ to you? Leaping from a flaming six-story building into a tiny net?”

“Funny. No, we had some small calls—smoke alarm in an office building, kitchen fire. Then we got called to a highway incident with a sixteen-wheeler that hit the center divider and flipped. That got a bit gnarly. Truck was carrying butane gas, and it started to leak, so there was an explosion risk.”

“No, no, no danger.” I put my hands over my ears. Then I took them off. “Okay, my curiosity won out. What did you do with a flipped truck full of gas?”

“Extracted the driver. Cleared the scene, closed down that stretch of highway, and soaked up as much of the spill as possible with peat moss, vermiculite, and clay. Then we waited for a hazmat team to deal with the larger cleanup.” His voice was deep and commanding, and its powerful rumble sent a straight shot of heat between my thighs. Apparently, authority and skills turned my crank. I looked out the window so he couldn’t see my lust-filled eyes. “Fortunately, it was more of a leak than a spill. When it’s more than twenty-five gallons, we need to report it to the EPA, and if there’s any groundwater contamination, it goes to OSHA . . . there’s a protocol. But like I said, it wasn’t needed.”

“Wow,” I exhaled, impressed. “That’s a basic day? I pretty much sat at a desk.”

He chuckled, and my skin heated even more. He was so serious most of the time that it felt like a huge win to elicit some laughter. “We have different jobs. Sometimes I sit at a desk, but that’s when it’s quiet, and I can study burn patterns and fire behavior.”

I swiveled in my seat and tucked my legs under me. “Ooh, now you’re talking. Hit me with some science, fireman.” Anything involving new information excited me. But then I spotted something as we drove down First Street that interested me even more. “Ooh! Hold on, can we stop? Or can you drop me here? I need to get something.”

He swerved the truck into a parking lot in front of a Domino’s Pizza and looked around. “What’s here?”

I was already opening the door and hopping out.

“Hang on. Where are you going?” he called after me, exiting the truck.

Walking a few paces ahead of him, I pointed. “Bike shop.” In three strides, he caught up to me and grasped my elbow.

“You couldn’t have just said that? I cut someone off back there. I thought it was an emergency or something.” He waved his hand up and down my body in the universal uncomfortable male sign for feminine issues.

“Well, it kind of is. I may never drive again. I don’t want to rely on Ubers. I’m getting a bike.”

“I can drive you where you need.”

The butterflies in my heart fluttered at the idea. The past few minutes in the car was the most time we’d had together in two weeks, and I liked talking to him. I liked him. But I couldn’t impose like that—it went against my principles of self-sufficiency.

Damn principles of self-sufficiency.

“No. It’s an imposition for you to drive me around.”

He reached past me and pulled the door handle of the shop open. “I don’t mind driving you around.”

I couldn’t look at him. If my eyes took in any part of his face or body, I’d cave and hop in his car, go with him everywhere, even if it was the opposite direction of work. I walked into the shop with bikes lined up in the middle of the floor and a group hanging from the ceiling. “I’m already staying at your place. There’s a limit to what you should have to endure.”

“Will you stop it? I’m not enduring anything.” He sounded aggravated, his tone gruff, a tiny muscle ticking in his jaw. But I was too entranced by the multi-colored bikes to worry about it.

I bypassed the section of mountain bikes and zeroed in on the pastel-colored beach cruisers. Carolwood seemed pretty flat, so maybe I could get away with a bike that didn’t have gears. “Hey.” Braden put a hand on my shoulder.

I wondered if there’d come a day when he could touch me and I wouldn’t feel like he’d cranked the e-stim machine to a hundred. “Yeah?” I turned to see him looking concerned.

His voice was soft, careful. “Why did you said you may never drive again?” I shrugged. “C’mon, don’t think like that. I know car accidents can be traumatic, but you’ll get over it.”

He was being so kind. But PTSD wasn’t really the issue. “Right. I guess.” I looked back at the bikes. “You know, I can buy one and ride back to your house. You don’t have to stay.”

He reached for my face and tilted my chin to look him in the eye. My breath hitched, and my insides melted like a chocolate fountain.

I couldn’t look away. Why would anyone look away . . . ever?

“Sarah, what aren’t you telling me?”

I couldn’t decide whether it frustrated me that he could see through my attempts to be stoic, or whether I loved that he just knew. What a relief not to hold everything in all the time. But . . . what did I have left if I lost my ability to control what people saw?

Not all people. Braden.

I blinked away from him and let my shoulders drop. “Fine. I guess if you’re going to live with me, you might as well know . . . I’ll probably lose my license.”

I saw the recognition on his face. “You’ve had other accidents?”

“A few. It’s not just that. I have . . . I don’t know how to describe it. My mind wanders when I drive . . . Like, a lot. It gets worse with the longer distance or when there’s traffic, and I . . . ”

“Crash into things?”

I nodded, ashamed that I couldn’t do something as simple as drive a car. “I can calculate the annihilation rate of slow positrons, but I can’t take a road trip without running into a bus. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

He nodded in sudden understanding. “That’s why you couldn’t commute here from Berkeley.”

“Not without a driverless car.” I lowered my gaze to the floor. He might as well know everything.

“I wondered about that. Finn didn’t say.”

“Well, now you know. And even if I don’t get my license suspended, my insurance rates will pound me, so I’m really going to need this bike . . .” I started to pull away, but his light touch on my skin made it impossible.

“Hey.” He moved his hand from my chin to my cheek. A sweet gesture, but I knew it didn’t have the same meaning for him—he was a professional lifesaver, after all. He knew how to comfort people going through trauma. “There’s nothing wrong with you. So you’re a distracted driver. In this day and age, join the club. At least you weren’t texting.”

“Because I don’t have a death wish.”

He smiled at that. Then I noticed the dawning of recognition on his face, and he checked the time. I’d waylaid him. “You have plans. I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t worry. I can push them back.”

“No, no, don’t. I’ll feel even worse. Please. Go enjoy your date, and I’ll ride back to your house and learn my way around.” I did my best to smile convincingly.

He hesitated, lines creasing his brow.

“Relax. I’m not going to call up Finn and say you abandoned me,” I said.

He looked again at the time. “I’m happy to help you pick out a bike if you want to come back tomorrow. I just . . .”

“No, no. I’m good.”

After another moment of indecision, he nodded. I watched his easy saunter to the door, imagining an alternate universe where he’d turn around and tell me he’d rather cancel his date to hang with me. The shop’s bell jingled as he pushed it open. “Okay, just . . . text me that you made it back to my house, okay?”

I gave him a thumbs up and moved into the depths of the store, ready to find a two-wheeler that spoke to me. It didn’t take long. I settled on a one-speed cruiser with a rack on the back, onto which I attached a square basket.

I calculated that the ride from Braden’s house to the lab was about five flat miles. If I caught all the lights, I could make it to work in under a half hour and probably wouldn’t be so sweaty that I’d need to change clothes. My new yellow bike, with its bell and brown leather seat, fit the bill perfectly.

After paying, I dropped my purse into the basket and rode to a grocery store for some dinner things. And maybe wine.

I’d been exhausted most nights after work, but my new purchase energized me. Tonight I’d have the place to myself. Time to have some fun in the kitchen while the hot roommate painted the town fire engine red.