The Spark Between Us by Stacy Travis

Chapter Eight

Sarah

When I’d driven downto meet with the physicists at Lawrence Livermore Lab, I’d been as starry-eyed as an astronomy kid who gets invited to NASA.

I’d swooned at the IMB Sequoia supercomputer. I’d gawked at the giant lasers and the areas of the lab that required top national security clearance. I’d imagined myself among kindred spirits in the physics world. But I hadn’t really anticipated how it would feel to arrive on my first day.

It felt amazing. Like all the work I’d done for my entire life had paid off.

My new boss procured my badge and escorted me to my first meeting of the day. A middle-aged man with a full head of graying brown hair, Dr. George Prescott walked at a brisk clip. His rimless glasses cast orbs of light on his cheeks and his shoulders slumped as if he’d spent many hours at a computer.

“Dr. Finley, your team is excited to meet you,” he said, leading me down a long hallway. He’d learned about my research at Berkeley and invited me to apply to the program. Nervously fiddling with my badge, I craned my neck for signs of physics luminaries I might recognize.

“Oh, please, call me Sarah,” I said, surprised that colleagues used such formal greetings. I’d called him George.

He grinned. “Aw, I was just teasing you. Thought it might be nice to sound official on your first day here. And rest assured, you won’t be left to muddle around in the dark. If you have any questions about how things run here, we’re all ready to answer.”

I took in his khaki pants, brown shoes, and navy-blue button-down and felt an unexpected wave of relief wash over me. For the first time since I’d arrived in town, I didn’t feel nervous, which was crazy because this job had big career implications for me. The feeling came from finally being around my people, the science goofballs who found humor in messing with each other’s data, rather than people like Captain Braden with his intimidating abs and disarming smile.

Until I stood next to a man who reminded me of my fellow professors, I didn’t realize how out of sorts I’d felt around Braden. I wanted to know more about him, and even though Finn had told me to ask Braden questions, I preferred to observe and intuit. So far, that hadn’t gotten me very far.

What a relief to be with a man like George who wanted to answer my questions. A man who put on a nice, no-fuss work outfit that didn’t emphasize his muscles because he would move mountains with his brain, not his abs.

“Dr. Finley?”

I flinched when George waved a hand in front of my face. We stood at the conference room door. “Um, yes?”

“I said your first name several times, but you were off dreaming.”

“Oops. Sorry.” First day and I can’t focus.

“It’s quite alright. Shall we?” He gestured to the door handle, and I nodded before he pulled it open.

It was a windowless room with a whiteboard on one wall, ergonomic chairs around a glass-topped conference table, and a minifridge in a corner. On the other walls, poster-sized images conveyed all science, all the time—the hadron collider, atomic lasers, and a periodic table with the element Lawrencium, named after its discovery at the lab, highlighted in yellow.

For the first time since I’d crashed into town, I felt the full impact of what I had the power to accomplish. My work here could have big real world implications.

Three people sat at the conference room table, all of them occupied on their computers and multitasking with notepads open next to them. George quickly made introductions.

Drew was a tall, lanky man with a shock of white-blond hair and a bowtie around the neck of his white shirt. He looked a few years older than me, and he let me know he had a husband of ten years, four kids, and two cats. “A lot of eyeballs at my homestead,” he said.

“That must be intimidating when they’re all looking at you,” I said.

“You have no idea.”

“Glad to have you on the team. Your research on joining methods and nuclear materials will be key to this project.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “For sure. I’m excited to see where we go.”

Charlotte was the eager young newbie at the lab who’d work wherever she was told and absorb whatever information we threw at her. She reminded me of myself when I’d just finished my PhD—eager to please, a little worried she’d be challenged with a question she couldn’t answer, and determined to skate past the grunt work and do something meaningful. “I don’t have kids, so I’ll work the weird hours. I don’t need to have a life.” She shoved aside a tendril of her curly brown hair that had fallen out of her hairband.

“I get that. I work weird hours too sometimes, so we can compare midnight binge foods,” I told her.

Then there was Keith, the oldest member of our team at fifty-six, an expert with lasers. He’d worked at a Japanese lab with the world’s highest powered laser beam and operated the solid state lasers we’d need for our project.

Keith wore a hoodie sweatshirt with a picture of a laser on it and the quip “Do not stare into the laser beam with your remaining good eye.” He wore dark-rimmed glasses and had a full head of hair and a gray goatee. “Glad to have you with us, Sarah,” he said.

After some small talk and discussion of research methods, we agreed on what parts of the project we could work on independently and what we needed to do as a team. I spent two hours in meeting with them, and my mind only wandered to Braden once, wondering what he was doing. Maybe twice.

I quickly got myself back on track. “We’re going to cover new ground in friction stir welding and that excites me. I hope it excites you too.” There was a smattering of agreement that we were all onboard to revolutionize the tiny area of science where physics met engineering. I loved that these humans shared my enthusiasm for something like this. I could already tell George had done great work at assembling a top-notch team.

After our meeting, I went to my new office, closed the door, and sat at my desk. I pumped my fist and let the grin spread across my face. I’d dreamed of working here since first checking the box to select a Physics major on my college application.

I took a few minutes to let it sink in that I was actually here.

Then I went and took a selfie with the world’s highest energy laser. I sent it to Finn because I knew he’d find it interesting.

He texted immediately.

Finn: Hey, nerd girl. Is that a giant laser, or is that Braden walking around naked again?

Me: Haha.

Finn: How’re you doing? I heard you had a little fender bender.

Uh oh. That wasn’t good. How had that news already gotten back to Finn?

Me: No big deal. Just a rear-ender.

Finn: You sure you’re not downplaying? Braden was worried.

Braden reached out to Finn? Well, at least that implied there was no local news item on the girl who crashed into a firetruck. I couldn’t figure out why Braden calling Finn both mortified me and warmed my heart. The guy was so stoic that it surprised me he’d given me a thought beyond our necessary interaction.

Or maybe I seemed like more of a basket case than I’d realized.

Me: I’m totally fine. Your friend has a weird machine that unlocked my muscles.

Finn: Not sure I want details on that…

Me: Not giving any, and get your mind out of the gutter.

Finn: Impossible. Oh, and hey, my apologies in advance for the skirt parade.

What was that supposed to mean? Maybe it was a quaint Carolwood tradition I’d learn about soon.

Me: ???

Finn: Your new roommate and the lineup of women you won’t be able to keep straight. He’s notorious.

Me: Whatever. I can handle it.

I clicked my phone off and leaned back in my chair, trying to figure out why it bothered me to have Finn spell out what I already knew. Of course a sexy firefighter would have a slew of attractive women on speed dial, and it wouldn’t stop just because I was crashing in his spare room.

If there wasn’t a pole dancing studio in town, I needed to find some new way to blow off steam and occupy whatever free time I had.

That way, I wouldn’t have a free moment to think about Braden and who he was dating. Or see it in person.