The Spark Between Us by Stacy Travis

Chapter Five

Braden

I wasn’t tryingto be a jerk.

I was trying to be a kind and polite host. But when I opened the door to the spare room, I nearly hyperventilated. In hindsight, it hadn’t been a great idea to wait until Sarah arrived to blow the cobwebs off that room—the room where Ellie had screwed her boyfriend before breaking off our engagement.

Staying in the same house with her at the end and knowing she had no interest in marriage had nearly broken me. Once she moved out for good, I’d shut the door—literally—on everything that reminded me of her. If I’d been smarter, I’d have sold the house and moved. But a part of me didn’t want to admit I’d gone to pieces, so I held it together and made the place mean something to me without her. Except for that room. I’d had no reason to go in there, so it sat like a shrine to a dead person.

Having Sarah as a roommate might breathe new life into the stodgy quarters. She was nothing if not bright and cheerful, despite my morose grumblings in her presence. I’d have to do better. She deserved a decent roommate who didn’t act like a stiff bore, carrying a torch for a woman who was long gone.

And she deserved a roommate who didn’t hit on her, no matter how much I liked looking at her pretty eyes and the pink in her cheeks when she blushed. I didn’t need to mess with a smart, gorgeous woman who was out of my league. Been there, done that, put my heart through a meat grinder.

In the morning, she’d go to work and get busy, and life would be fine. Six months would fly by.

I mulled these thoughts three times over as I carried her boxes from the truck to where I stacked them outside her room.

“So, could I buy you some dinner tonight as a thank you?” Sarah asked as she came down the stairs. She hadn’t showered.

Stubborn woman.

“Aw, you don’t have to do that,” I said, though I’d skipped lunch and the mere mention of food had my stomach growling.

She waved a hand. “I’m not offering because I think I have to do it. I just figured I’m going to get pretty busy with work and, this might be our only chance to get to know each other a little bit. Don’t you want to know the person who’s freeloading in your spare bedroom?” Her pale eyes caught me, and I lost the battle. All I wanted to do was Google seas from around the world until I figured out an exact match for the color. Probably somewhere in the Caribbean where the sand would dust our feet like sugar.

Good lord, get a grip.

I nodded. “Sure, we can do that.” She was right—we both worked a lot, and I should take the time to learn a little about her. One dinner would be harmless. “But let’s get one thing straight. You don’t owe me anything. I have the bedroom, no one was using it, and I’m glad to put it to use. So none of this ‘freeloading’ business. I’m happy to have you in my bedroom.”

I could feel the heat rise on the back of my neck and I squeezed my eyes shut. “I mean, my spare room is all yours.”

She grinned. “I knew what you meant. It’s all good.”

It did not seem all good.

* * *

“You know,the only reason I plowed into the fire truck was all the wine bars,” Sarah explained as we drove through town, and I pointed out various things—hardware store, grocery store, wine bar, wine bar.

“Why, did you stop off for a drink?” I eyed her suspiciously. None of my guys had said anything about her blood alcohol levels.

Her eyes went huge. “No. Never. I mean, I was fixated on how many wine places there are in a small radius. It’s cool.”

“Yeah. Surprises people who think all California wine comes from the Napa Valley.”

She put a hand on her chest with a mock-gasp. “What blatant grapism. I’ll admit I didn’t learn much about Carolwood. I was too busy nerding out about lasers at the lab to research things to do around here for fun. Do you think I’m a grapist?” She crinkled her nose, and I couldn’t help being charmed by her complete lack of pretense.

“I do not.”

“Good. I’ll have you know I’m an equal opportunity wine drinker, and to prove it, I’ll drink all the wine with dinner.”

“All of it?” I asked. She was adorable, which didn’t bode well for my leaving her alone plan.

She waggled her eyebrows. “Well, I can’t have you rescuing me twice in a day, so maybe I’ll behave.” Yup, she was going to test every bit of my will. Fortunately, fighting fires had gifted me with a lot of it.

I had the Uber drop us at Copeland Park and gave Sarah a history tour as we passed various shops on the way to dinner.

“There’s a farmer’s market here every Thursday.” I pointed to the park that sat in front of the Copeland Library. Not wanting to remind her of the accident, I made sure to take us on a route that didn’t go down that street.

“Hiya Braden,” intoned a soft female voice as we passed a clothing store. I turned to see Anna, a preschool teacher I’d gone on one date with over a month ago. She flipped her blond hair over her shoulder, unleashing a cloud of perfume.

“Oh, hey. Good to see you.” I didn’t stop to chat, and I didn’t bore Sarah with how I knew her. We continued past a few more shops, a nail salon, and a pub.

Carolwood wasn’t big. In five minutes, we’d covered most of it. “This is Blacksmith Corner,” I said, pointing to the iron arch over the entryway that said the words. The square had an open courtyard and a couple wineries and restaurants. “It was an auto shop a bunch of years ago, before I moved to town, and before that—”

“Lemme guess . . . a blacksmith shop?” She nudged me with her elbow, and I stiffened at the heat that coursed through my veins.

“Yeah, I think so.” I picked up my pace to the restaurant.

We found an outdoor table at Carol’s on the Corner, a wine bar with a brick façade and lots of windows. I knew the owners, and the place had a good, casual vibe—a bunch of mismatched tables and strings of tiny lights. Nothing about the place screamed ‘date night,’ and they had tapas and an awesome meat and cheese appetizer.

“So . . . wine.” I signaled the waiter to put an order in right away. Maybe that would help the awkwardness. I picked out a bottle of red zinfandel I’d had before and exhaled a choppy breath. My rapidly-thumping heart clued me in to a feeling I hadn’t experienced before.

Sarah made me nervous.

Of course she did. With barely any makeup and her hair twisted into a knot, she couldn’t have looked less pretentious, and yet her subtle beauty floored me. But that wasn’t the source of the nerves. I’d dated plenty of attractive women. She made me nervous because she was smart, and if anything revved my motor, it was intellect.

I inhaled a deep breath to slow my heart rate and focused on the menu.

“You good with sharing a few things?” Sarah pressed her fingers in three strategic spots on the menu like she was afraid the dishes would disappear if she didn’t hold them down.

I shrugged. “Maybe. But we may not like the same things.” Couples shared food. Platonic roommates who planned on staying that way should not.

She leaned back and squinted at me. “It says right here that all dishes are meant to be shared.” Her other hand pointed to the top of the menu. I knew she had a thing for books, but did the woman have to read every word of everything she saw?

I put up my hands in surrender. “Sure. What do you see that looks good?”

“The cheesy bread. Do you like goat cheese? And the feta and fig jam and the artichoke dip, the sliders . . . Ooh, and the antipasto!”

I started to laugh. “So pretty much the whole menu? I can see now why you want to share.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I could probably eat all of that myself, but I’m willing to share. Up to you.”

“Fine. Done. Let’s get all of that.” I pushed my menu away, eager to watch this petite woman put away the mountain of food she proposed.

“You sure? Is there anything you want? It shouldn’t all be my decision.” She chewed her bottom lip like she felt guilty about commandeering the menu.

I shook my head. “I like all of it. Honestly, there isn’t a bad thing on the menu, so let’s go big.” Mercifully, the waiter returned with the wine and opened the bottle for me to taste it. “It’s fine,” I said, indicating he should fill our glasses.

Sarah held hers up for a toast. “To roommates who don’t drive each other crazy.” Her smile was already driving me crazy, but I clinked her glass anyway.

“How do you like it?” I nodded toward her glass after she’d taken a sip.

She took another sip, rolling it around on her tongue and licking her bottom lip. I almost growled.

“It’s nice. I like it.” Her voice suddenly sounded much more sultry.

I cleared my throat. “Are you a big wine drinker?” Normally, I brought my A-game to dinner with a woman, and tonight I felt lucky to string three words into a sentence.

She held her thumb and finger an inch apart. “Small wine drinker. I like it, don’t know much about it. Maybe I’ll learn a few things while I’m here. Seems like I could find a wine grower or ten if I look hard enough.” She glanced around as if to find proof of that, which came easily with three wine shops in the surrounding area.

“I finally gave it a try a few years ago.” I shuddered at the stiffness in my voice.

“Oh, right. I saw the grape arbor in your yard. Though you’d be hard-pressed to get a bottle out of that.” Then she blushed. “Oh my god, worst pun!”

I pressed my lips together to hide the sheer delight I found in her. My grape arbor wasn’t what I meant, but I didn’t need to tell her I’d bought a few acres and planted a vineyard. We wouldn’t be taking any romantic drives through the wine country, so what difference did it make?

Carol’s owner came by with an appetizer, one of the few we hadn’t ordered. “Hey Captain, always a pleasure.” He dropped off a plate of black olive hummus, pita chips, and a breadbasket. “On the house.”

“Hey, good to see you. You know you never have to do that, but thanks.” We’d known each other for years, and I’d gotten called to more than a few kitchen fires there.

He pretended to rescind his offer, picking up the plates. “You telling me how to run my restaurant? Or just trying to impress your date?”

Sarah put her hand on the arm holding the food and piped up immediately. “Wait, not so fast with that. And I’m not his date. I’m the sister of a friend, and I’m crashing in his spare bedroom for a bit.”

“Oh yeah? Well, welcome to town. Thanks for coming out to see us.” He introduced himself and gave Sarah his card, which had a twenty percent discount for any wine in the store. She seemed delighted. Then he put the plate on the table and went to chat with another customer.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Sarah pinned me with a sharp stare. “He called you ‘Captain.’ And since I haven’t seen you in any Marvel movies, I’m thinking…Captain and Tennille cover band? Or do you sail the seven seas?” Her wide eyes sparkled with mischief.

Why did she have to be smart and gorgeous and cute? I swallowed hard. “It’s my job. I’m captain at Engine 97,” I told her.

She rearranged her wine and water glasses to make better room for the hummus to sit in the middle between us. “Is that something different than being a fireman?”

It made me laugh. “We don’t refer to ourselves as firemen. Firefighter is the term we use. I’m a paramedic as well, but we have other guys with that training, so I don’t do much of it anymore.”

“Oh, firefighting and medical knowledge? I have tons of questions. Is that okay, or do you not like talking about work?”

“I don’t mind talking about it. What do you want to know?” I rarely talked about it, mainly because most of the people I spent time with were people from work.

Every shade of blue in Sarah’s eyes shimmered like a heatwave. “I want to know everything.” Warmth spread in my chest at the way she said it, guileless and honest. “Then I’ll return the favor if you want.” She scooped a bite of hummus into her mouth, and I stared fixated when her tongue slipped out to lick the corner of her lips. “Ask me anything. I love talking about my work, but I hate talking about myself. So if someone asks about me, I pivot so we end up talking about work instead. Little peek inside my brain.” She bit into a chip.

“Why don’t you like talking about yourself?”

She tilted her head to the side and blinked a couple times. “I’m still a work in progress. No conclusions to draw yet.”

I’d never heard a person describe herself that way. I wanted to know more, but quizzing her didn’t seem wise when she’d outright said she didn’t want to talk about herself. Maybe once I knew her better.

Her pale eyes flickered with intensity, and I felt a little like an interrogation subject, but strangely, I didn’t mind. “So to start, what do you have to do to become a captain? And how’d you pick this career? And why can’t I call you a fireman? Sorry, I guess that’s three questions,” she laughed.

Before I could answer, Sarah’s gaze shot past my shoulder and I turned to see what caught her eye.

“Seems like they’re trying to get your attention.” Sure enough, on the other end of the patio, two women—both drunk, judging from the way they held each other up—were whispering to each other and burning a hole through Sarah with their stares.”

I adjusted my chair to block them from her view and ignored them. “I know one of them. Not well. Don’t worry about it.”

“Someone you dated?” She shot me a knowing glance.

I shrugged. “Something like that. Okay, in answer to your first question, like every job, there are levels. Everyone starts out probationary—we call them probies. It’s scut work, extra cleaning, the worst hours, et cetera.”

“Do you haze them?”

“What?”

“Like fraternity pledges. They have to do all kinds of things to prove they’re worthy. Sorry, I work at a university. I see a lot of pledge hazing.”

“Well, no. Not in the way you mean. We are master practical jokers, and most have us have been locked out at night in our underwear at one point or another, but we don’t make them eat onions soaked in Tabasco sauce or chug beer . . .”

“Sounds like you’re familiar . . .” She waggled her eyebrows and smiled.

I gave a small salute. “Zeta Psi, UCLA, at your service.”

“Nice. Okay, so once you’re done being a probie, then what?”

I took another sip of wine. “Then you move through the ranks. First firefighter, then if you specialize, you can be an AO—apparatus operator—which means you’re a driver engineer or operate some of the equipment and pump water.”

She sat up straighter. This wasn’t idle small talk to her—she was a knowledge sponge. The sparkle in her eyes told me she wanted me to keep going.

“Captain or lieutenant is the next rung up, but an engineer can pull rank and be acting captain if need be. Our AO was doing that earlier today until I showed up and confused everything. I probably shouldn’t have done that, but it was hard to leave when I saw it was my unit. Anyway, captain is when you start moving more into supervision and management, but I still get to work every fire and emergency. The main thing that interested me was being able to control a scene and still do the work.”

“So you like control.” She winked at me.

“I do.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Me too. But we’ll get to that later.” Her lips twisted into a sassy smile.

My mind immediately wandered to what she meant, envisioning her controlling me in all sorts of sexy ways. I took a deep breath and refocused on my firefighter lesson, but the words came out through gritted teeth.

“Anyhow, that’s why I like being captain.”

She nodded, seemingly satisfied with my explanation. “Okay, next question. Can I please call you a fireman?”

“Why do you want to call me a fireman so badly?” I ran a hand through my hair.

She took a big sip of wine and exhaled. “Finn had a fireman costume one Halloween with this awesome hat. Fireman sounds a little less threatening than calling someone a firefighter, which, for me, conjures all kinds of images of rushing into fiery buildings and burning forests and battling blazes.”

I cast her a side-eye. “Well, yeah, but . . . going into burning places and fighting fires is literally what we do.”

“Sure, I know that, but the image of running into an inferno is terrifying. It seems more dangerous and apt to get a person killed than my image of a fireman, which is Finn in costume playing with a hook and ladder truck.”

“But . . . that’s the job.” I couldn’t figure her out. She wasn’t naïve, but she seemed to want to live in a kinder, gentler reality.

“I understand that, I do. But calling you a fireman sounds more benign. Firefighting sounds like something that would put you in danger, and I’ll sleep better at night if I know you’re safe.”

It was charming. Also curious. Yesterday she’d never met me, and now she was worried about the dangers of a job I’d had for over ten years? “So you’re saying you don’t want me to get hurt?”

“Of course I don’t. I realize I don’t know you at all. But . . . no.” She shrugged. “Please don’t get hurt. I wouldn’t . . .” She blinked hard and shook her head. “Look, I know what firefighting is, and I understand that you don’t play with plastic firetrucks. Your job is real. And important. And now that I know you, I want you to stay safe, that’s all. Promise me?”

Her genuine concern tugged at an errant scrap of my heart that had been boxed up and shoved on a back shelf for . . . years. I couldn’t remember a time when someone put it that way, just laid out concern about my safety, and it stirred something up that was probably better left dormant. Even my ex had never put it that way, and I’d wanted to marry her.

“I promise. I’ll do my best.” I had a resting heart rate of fifty-five, and this was the second time this evening she had my heart thudding like I’d just hit the treadmill.

It unnerved me that this woman I barely knew had gotten real so quickly.

Because I didn’t hate it.

Rather than think about what it meant or give it any sort of weight at all, I changed the subject. “Hey, how’s your mom doing? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“She’s good . . . oh—” Her eyes got wide when the server came over with a shit ton of food. “Maybe I overdid it on the ordering.”

Plates of charcuterie with olives and cheeses and dried fruit were placed on the table next to pulled pork sliders and cheesy bread. I’d lost track of what else we’d ordered, but I was pretty sure there was more to come.

Sarah blushed at the amount of food, and I found myself staring at her wide eyes as they took in the full plates that fought for space on our table. I allowed my gaze to linger on her face and take in her pretty mouth and long lashes while she was too preoccupied to notice.

Her skin was flushed and accented by soft curves from her cheekbones and a dimple in one cheek. It popped when she smiled. The pink swell of her lips that were already a little stained from the wine made me want to take a bite out of them. Right before I ran my tongue down the milky skin of her throat.

Stop. Just . . . stop.

Maybe if I told myself that enough times, the stubborn piece of my brain imagining all kinds of impossible things would fucking listen.

“You said you like to talk about work, so how about you tell me some things,” I said, pulling a breadstick from the basket and breaking it in half. I didn’t know much about physics, so I felt at a loss for what to ask. “What will you be doing at the lab?”

“Oh, you’re going from zero right to a hundred. I thought you’d ask about my teaching job first.”

“Sure, start with that. I majored in English, so everything I remember about physics comes from studying in high school with your brother.”

She grinned. “So smug and arrogant, wasn’t he? I’d ask him to help me with pre-algebra and he’d say something like, ‘I’ll try to get back to that simpler mindset.’ Please tell me he annoyed you too.”

“Finn . . . he was smart, sure, but he never used it to make anyone else feel dumb. He just didn’t hide it.”

“Of course he didn’t. Guys don’t do that.”

“You saying that girls do?”

“Of course. If you’re a high school girl and you’re smart, like smarter than average, you have a choice. You can be smart and alienate ninety percent of your peers, go on very few dates, win lots of awards, and find your true calling in college. Or you can hide what you know, work hard to fit in, and have a good time.”

“Which one were you?” I’d have put good money on the first one. She didn’t seem like one to suffer fools, so I couldn’t imagine her hiding.

She raised her eyebrows like the answer was obvious. “The second one.”

“Really? You didn’t let people know you were smart?” I frowned, disliking that women felt they had to do that.

She took a bite of a slider, and a little drip of barbecue sauce ran down her chin. It was all I could do not to reach over and wipe it away. Or lick it. I was evolved in my feminist thinking, but come on.

A second later, she caught it with a napkin and smiled. “I was smart quietly. I studied and did well on my assignments and the tests, but if I knew the answer in class, I kept it to myself. I never told people what grades I got. And I had a life—dates, stupid teenage fun, broke curfew, got grounded. All of that. Then I went to college and found other physicists who were way smarter than me, and I needed to work to keep up. I didn’t give a crap what people thought anymore. I wanted to be a scientist. And here we are.”

I had a feeling it wasn’t quite as easy as that. “So you majored in physics?” She nodded. “Then you went to grad school?”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“I’ve spent the last ten years studying and working on my PhD, then studying and publishing and teaching. It’s been tough.” She frowned at the recollection. Then she perked up and raised a finger in the air. “But! This fellowship at the lab could change everything. I’ll be doing work in a new area of physics, which means I’ll publish the shit out of whatever I discover, and that will earn me tenure track.”

“And that’s what you want? To be a tenured professor?”

“Yes. It’s been my dream since I started grad school. I know it sounds dorky, but . . .” She tipped her hands to the sides and pointed her fingers at herself.

“You’re not a dork. Tell me what you’ll be doing at the lab.”

This was a helluva lot more interesting than most dinners I had, which admittedly were just a small talk prelude to sex. If we even bothered with the dinner.

She shook her head and waved her hands like she’d rather shut down the line of questioning. “You’re kind to ask, but we don’t have to get into that whole thing. Trust me, it’s a snooze if you’re not interested in lasers and nuclear materials.”

“Try me,” I said, beckoning with my hand.

She took a deep breath and hit me with an enthusiastic grin. “Okay, so, the lab has a visiting scientists program, where they bring in people with specialized knowledge to apply it in a real-world study. So I’m doing something called diode laser-assisted friction stir welding.”

My brain tapped out. That was too much science.

Not to mention that at the word welding, my brain was off and running, picturing Jennifer Beals in Flashdance, welding in a tight tank top before leaving work to dance in a club. “Um, okay, so what does it mean you’re actually doing?”

She laughed. “Well, it’s literally welding. You know, fusing two sheets of metal together, but the novelty is the process. I’m a physicist, but I also studied mechanical engineering. Then I got into friction stir welding, which is a way of joining two pieces without melting the metal. But the lab has these incredibly powerful lasers, and I want to use them to weld more efficiently.”

The way she said it made it sound like she was adjusting seasoning in a bread recipe, and I knew she was downplaying her intelligence. My mind was officially blown.

It was also still very preoccupied with Flashdance, only now I pictured Sarah welding in a tank top. “And just so I understand, what’s the reason you need to fuse the metal without melting it?”

“It makes the bond stronger, and it allows us to join different types of metal alloys. Some of the private space exploration companies are really interested.”

“So the work you’re doing could end up in a rocket?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Could be cool, right?”

“Wow. Yes. Very cool. I’m impressed, Sarah.”

She blushed, and the creep of pink that spread over her cheeks made me want to brush my fingers over them. “Anyway, that’s why I’m here, roomie.”

I held my hands in my lap, far away from her cheeks. “Awesome. Well, it’s a great place. I hope you like it. Lots to do here, outdoorsy and good weather most of the time.” I speared some meat and cheese from the platter in front of us. “Don’t know if you have any hobbies.”

She nodded. “I do. I may have to take a break from it for a bit while I’m out here, but normally when I have a light day on campus, I go to a class . . .”

I waited.

“It’s . . . pole dancing.”

I stopped breathing, but at least I didn’t choke.

Nodding, I took a sip of my wine to block my face, which I was pretty sure had turned the shade of a beet.

“So, like Flashdance? Welder by day, dancer by night?” I barked out, feeling a stirring in my pants that was wholly inappropriate for my roomie, who’d been talking about diode lasers a minute earlier.

She’s a goddamn pole dancer.

She chuckled and crossed her arms over her chest as though trying to keep me from picturing her dancing. “Excellent movie reference. But no, that’s not even close to what I do.”

It hardly mattered. My brain was stuck.

Like a white-hot strobe had blinded me to everything except Sarah wearing lingerie and grinding on a pole under hot lights. For me.

Stop picturing it. Fuck!

“Cool,” I finally managed to say with a straight face. Like it meant nothing.

She nodded. Like it meant nothing.

Then she spread some brie cheese on a cracker and took a bite. I choked out an excuse and went to the bathroom to get a grip.

This will be okay. It will. It has to be.

In the bathroom, I splashed some cold water on my face and took a hard look at myself in the mirror. What was happening? I hadn’t been this jacked up over a woman anytime in the past two years. My emotions had been buried in caverns so deep I felt confident they were gone for good. I was fine with that.

It made no sense. Or . . . maybe it did. I’ve always been competitive as fuck. If I’m told I can’t have something, I want it all the more and do anything in my power to make it mine.

That had to be what was happening here.

It was all in my head. I knew she was off limits, so the competitive motherfucker in me started bucking against that. I just needed to get my head together and think of her like any other human who happened to be using my second bedroom.

When I got back to the table, Sarah looked up at me with a thin slice of Parma ham twirled around her fork and put the bit into her mouth. I had no defensible reason to focus on her lips or the soft contour of her jaw while she chewed.

She swallowed and smiled at me. “I figured I should get a head start on eating while you were gone. In case you had more questions.”

“Good plan. Maybe we should focus on the food for a few minutes, or we could be here all night.”

I bit into a slider and closed my eyes at how delicious the slow-roasted meat tasted on the brioche bun. Who needed to cook when someone else could make food that tasted like this? It was how I’d become addicted to takeout and why I rarely ate at home anymore. That, and I spent a lot of time at work.

Sarah finished the last of the cheesy bread and wiped her lips gingerly on a napkin before looking right at me with those gorgeous eyes. “This is weird, right? It’s not just me?”

I tilted my head, trying to read her expression and decipher her meaning. “Could you be specific?

She waved her hands between us. “This. Us. We’re in our thirties and we’re roommates. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a roommate for about ten years. Does it freak you out a little bit?”

Yes, but not for the reasons she meant.

I shrugged. “Yes, it’s . . . new. But we’re both adults. I think it will be . . . fine.”

“Well, okay . . . great.” Her eyes came back to me. She leaned her cheek on one palm, elbow resting on the table.

I wanted to know more about her. “So in Berkeley, you live by yourself? With a boyfriend, or what?”

Subtle.

Her eyes had such a dreamy, pale blue cast, I had a hard time not staring again. She shook her head. “Nope. Neither. I don’t date. No dates, no kissing. It’s not the right time in my life for that. I have a plan.”

The corner of my mouth hitched up in amusement. “Are you on a fixed calendar? When’s go time?”

Those eyes pinned me like I’d missed out on understanding some law of the universe. “When I’m on tenure track and I’ve checked some career boxes. I like to have a plan. Probably why science suits me.”

“What does science have to do with dating?”

“I just mean science is comforting because it has expected outcomes. I try to plan my life so I know what to do and what to expect. Right now, that’s work, not dating or relationships. No unexpected detours.”

“I get that. I don’t do relationships either.” For entirely different reasons. But hearing her lay out her “plans” only reinforced that I needed to stop gawking and let her pursue her career in peace.

Between my schedule and hers, we’d probably rarely see each other. Six months would fly by, and we’d have another dinner like this before I sent her home to Berkeley. I had plenty of women in my life. There was no sense in getting worked up over her.

She hadn’t moved her cheek from her hand, and for a second, I saw her eyes droop. They shot open, and she jerked to an upright position, frowning. “Wow. I don’t know what happened. I just suddenly got really, really tired.”

“It’s trauma. Mental, physical. Your body went through a lot, even though you’ve been doing your best to pretend it didn’t.”

She nodded slowly. “Personality trait. I like to be in control. So if I don’t like the way something feels, I push it away. I didn’t want to feel like an accident victim, and I really didn’t like the attention, so the easiest thing was to say I was fine and get everyone off my case.”

“But then what? What do you do if there’s really something wrong?”

She shrugged. “I deal with it myself. Without all the drama.” She stifled a yawn.

I signaled our waiter for the bill. “Let’s get you home.”

I could tell she was stiffening up. The wine probably helped in dulling the aches that would settle in later, but I had a feeling she had no idea the pain she was in for.

“How does your body feel right now?” My voice came out in a rumble. Her sleepy eyes widened a little and she tilted her head. “I mean, after the accident. Are you hurting? You probably took a beating.”

She exhaled and shook her head as though she was disappointed with herself. “Yeah, I calculated that at the approximate speed I was going, it was about nine hundred, seventy-five pounds of force on my body at impact where my head hit the headrest plus four-hundred twenty pounds from the detonation of the airbag.” She cringed a little after she said it, then shrugged off her calculation. “You know, give or take.”

I couldn’t help but smile at her modesty. “‘Give or take?’ Something tells me your physics knowledge puts you a lot closer than ‘give or take,’ Damsel.”

She flinched at the nickname, then smiled. “Damsel? Guess I had that coming, since I said you could call me a damsel in distress. But you know I’m not, right?”

“I do. That’s why I like it. So over a thousand pounds of force, eh?”

“Yeah. And that’s a lot.” This woman was smart—there was no question—but it seemed like her high school habit of downplaying was still an active part of the way she interacted with people.

I nodded. “It is. So are you doing okay?”

Her eyelids looked heavy and unfocused. “I’m a little sore, but I’m fine. If I get some sleep, I’ll be back in fighting shape.” She smiled. “Give or take.”

I poured the last of our wine into our glasses. “Finish your wine. It’ll help relax your muscles. And I have some anti-inflammatories you can take before you go to sleep.”

“Sleep . . . ah, that’s a beautiful word. It might be past my bedtime.” Her sleepy smile caused that dimple to pop. Her opposite cheek smushed into her hand, and the lazy way she stared at me made me want to think there was more to her look than just fatigue.

But I knew that’s all it was. I didn’t need to be a physicist to understand scientific fact. We were roommates. That’s all.