The Spark Between Us by Stacy Travis

Chapter Six

Braden

I slept like the dead.That rarely happened. Usually, some errant thought woke me and kept running in a loop through my barely conscious brain until I gave up and went to my gym. But this morning, I woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed.

Sarah’s door remained closed, so I quietly padded past it and headed for the kitchen.

“Morning, sunshine. Did I wake you?” Sarah sounded chipper, holding a cup of coffee with both hands, her elbows on the concrete slab kitchen counter in front of her. She didn’t turn around when I walked up behind her, but she must have heard me coming.

My answer got caught in my throat as soon as I got close enough to see her tank tops and booty shorts. Women didn’t wear those in my kitchen, mainly because women didn’t spend the night.

Sarah’s legs dangled beneath her chair, and I intentionally glanced away. Even without looking directly at them, I could see they were toned and long. I made a mental note to keep the heat turned low in the house so she’d be forced to wear pants all the time. And maybe a parka.

Moving around the island into the kitchen allowed me to see her face and blocked the mostly bare rest of her body from view. Her smile was easy and free, like she didn’t have any place to be all day, even though I knew she had to be at the lab in a little over an hour. She sat with her back ramrod straight in a tall chair with an untouched slice of toast in front of her.

“Nah, I’ve been up for a while, working,” I said. It wasn’t the whole truth. I had been up for a while, but I’d mostly been staring at the ceiling.

Distracted by what I could see of her breasts through the flimsy material of her tank top, I didn’t realize Sarah was talking to me until I noticed her silent stare. “Um, sorry. Just got lost in my head for a second.”

She moved her eyes from her coffee to my face holding her head stiffly. “Say no more. Happens to me on the daily. I was just asking if you wanted some coffee. I used your French press. Hope that’s okay.”

I nodded, and she shifted her gaze to a second mug she’d already taken out. I filled it with coffee. “Of course it’s okay. This is your home for the next six months. Please. Do whatever you normally do at home.”

“Great. Well, normally, I walk around topless.”

And I spit my fucking coffee all over the floor.

Then I caught her smirk. And a laugh. “Sorry. You just seemed so serious. I was trying to lighten the mood. You not a morning person? Apologies if you’re not. I’m good in the mornings but I’m kind of a basket case after nine o’clock at night.”

I quirked an eyebrow at her. “Nine? So last night wasn’t a one-off?”

She shrugged. “Last night, I was tired and sore from getting attacked by an overzealous airbag.”

Rolling my eyes, I walked past her and grabbed a kitchen towel. “Hardly overzealous. If not for that airbag, we’d still be extracting your teeth from the steering wheel.”

I caught her grimace as I mopped the coffee from the front of my shirt. “That’s a horrible image. Okay, fine. Thank you, aggressive airbag, for saving me from having to wear braces into my forties.”

She was too much—still in denial that she’d been in a bad accident. “So what time do you need to be at work? I have to go in, catch up on paperwork. If you’re going soon, I can drive you.”

Her eyes closed in a long blink. “That’s right. I don’t have a car. All morning I’ve been picturing the drive between here and the lab, walking myself down the route, and I don’t even have a car.” Her face fell in disappointment and it made my heart ache. She shook her head and gave herself a pep talk. “It’s gonna be fine, Sar. Just . . . focus on work.”

Her eyes met mine, and she looked so vulnerable it didn’t feel right to abandon her gaze.

Absently, she twisted her watch, a digital gadgety-looking thing that she probably used to time the degradation of radioactive isotopes or something. Yeah, I might have done a little research last night about physics and why she’d been brought out to Lawrence Livermore Lab.

It turned out she was a pretty big deal in the physics world—super smart, working on ground-breaking research that people like Elon Musk wanted to get their hands on, and now she was s in charge of a giant project.

I noticed that she lifted her arm to eye level to see the watch instead of looking down at it. When she lowered her arm, she cringed a tiny bit. I’d worried it would happen.

“I’ll go get dressed. I can be ready in ten. Is that good?” she asked.

I hitched a thumb over my shoulder to indicate she should head upstairs. “Perfect. I’ll run you over, then I’ll work out and grab a shower before work.” I had no reason to tell her those things. She probably didn’t give a shit about my workout and shower schedule, but I was testing her, seeing if she’d hop off the barstool and follow me.

She didn’t move. I looked at her again, noticing how stiffly she sat, the unnatural straightness of her neck.

As another test, I walked slightly to the side while talking. “How are you feeling today? Any stiffness?” Her eyes tracked my movements, but she didn’t turn her head.

“Good. All good.” I moved even farther from her line of sight, and her eyes followed as far as they could until she wasn’t looking at me anymore.

I came back in front of her and looked her in the eye. “You can’t turn your head, can you?”

She blinked a couple times and took a sip of her coffee. Stalling. “I’m fine.” Her eyes darted away.

“How long did it take you to get down the stairs and onto this barstool?” Given what I could see of her limited range of motion, I couldn’t imagine how she’d hoisted herself on there.

She took a deep breath, then exhaled, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “A while.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked calmly.

She started to push herself up like she planned to get off the stool, but the movement caused her to suck in a sharp breath, and she lowered herself back down. “I’ll be fine. I took an Advil.”

She took an Advil.

“Why are you like this—so stubborn?” I tried and failed to keep the frustration out of my voice.

“I’m not stubborn. I’m self-sufficient.”

She was stubborn. And I knew stubborn.

I’d been accused of being an immoveable chess piece willing to throw the entire game rather than admit I was on the wrong square. I used to take pride in my obstinance, thinking it was grit. Now I knew it came mainly from not wanting to rely on other people, and I wondered if she was the same way.

My heart squeezed at the visible pain she was in, but it ached more at the amount of pain she was willing to endure rather than ask for help.

It was all too familiar, and seeing it from the other side made me feel worse for her.

“Damsel, an Advil isn’t the answer. Your body’s gotta recover.” I reached for her, wrapping my hands around her hips.

“What are you doing?” Her eyes were wide with shock.

“I’m getting you down from the stool, so you don’t have to wrench your neck doing it.”

“Oh. Okay.” She relaxed a little bit and let me pick her up and put her on the floor.

Gently, I put my hands on the slope of her shoulders and splayed my fingers across the back of her neck. “Are you completely locked up?”

“Yeah. I can’t turn my head without a sharp shooting pain.” I heard the defeat in her voice.

“Dammit.” I could feel the muscles in spasm. They were hard as river stones. “I’m hoping this is just muscular. If you herniated a disk, you’ve got a bigger problem.”

“Don’t get mad at me. I probably just slept weird. I’m not used to the pillows. I’ll go walk on your life-sucking treadmill and it’ll loosen up, I’m sure.”

I took my hands away and came around to look at her. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself for not insisting you get checked out by a doctor or at least doing some preliminary physical therapy.”

She pressed her lips together, stiffening at the obvious pain. She shifted as though she was going to reach and touch my arm, but the motion made her cringe. “It wasn’t on you to force sense into my stubborn brain. I should have been smarter. The wine was helpful though.”

“I’m glad. But I’m not getting you drunk and sending you off to work. Can you skip today?”

Her look of horror gave me my answer. “No way. It’s my first day. I have the whole team meeting me. I need to be there.”

“Fine. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ve got an e-stim machine and some ice packs. I’ll get you moving again so you can look people in the eye without grimacing, but you have to promise me—promise—that you’ll go straight to a neck and back guy I know in Pleasanton. If I can, I’ll drive you.”

“You don’t have to drive me everywhere. I can take an Uber.”

“That’s hardly the point of this morning’s lecture.”

“Fine. Yes. I’ll go. Where’s Pleasanton?”

I shook my head. “You’re kidding, right? You grew up in Oakland. Did no one teach you local geography?”

“Guess not. I know about Pleasanton. I’ve heard of it. I just don’t know where it is relative to here.”

“One town over. You might want to orient yourself.”

“I’ll do that.” She dropped her voice down an octave, mocking me.

I pointed in the direction of her room. “Go, smartass. Put on a long-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants. Do you have that?” I prayed she had that. Or better yet, a burka.

If I was going to work on her muscle aches, I wanted the least amount of skin exposed as possible. It would take an iron will not to enjoy putting my hands on her, but I’d prevail.

“I do. It might take me a sec to change since I can’t see my feet.”

I regretted the question as it was leaving my mouth. “Do you need me to help you change? Or carry you up there?”

She practically shrieked. “No! I can walk just fine. And dress myself. It’s just my upper body that’s messed. I’ll manage. Be back in a minute.”

When I heard her door slam, I went to the fridge and dumped a big dollop of creamer into my coffee, added three spoons of sugar, and slurped down the now-lukewarm sludge. It was awful. Finn wasn’t kidding with her not knowing how to cook. How does a person screw up coffee with a French press? There weren’t too many options for how to use the thing.

Now for the bigger problem—the swelling dick in my pants.

I couldn’t fucking touch her, I knew that.

Off. Limits.

She was my roommate, the accident victim who hit our truck, and a visiting physicist so out of my league that it felt ridiculous to consider anything but taking a very cold shower. So I did.