“Controversial, I know. Bit of a lightning-rod flavor in the ice cream world.”
“Filing that away for blackmail later. Anyway, we’d split a sandwich and fries and talk. He’d ask about school. Tell me what was happening down at the garage. We’d pick something fun to do that weekend, mostly fossil hunting in summer, movies or pickup hockey in winter.”
Ripley takes a bite of her sandwich, hoping Smithson hasn’t seen her eyes mist over. The bread’s stale and untoasted. The lettuce is a little frozen after getting shoved too close to the cooling element in the fridge. It still tastes like home.
Smithson angles his body in her direction, bringing his leg to rest along the weathered wooden bench. Under the stretch of his pants across his thigh, she imagines his scar, the tan line from his bike shorts, the hint of pale skin where his tattoo hides.
“Your mum didn’t come along?” he asks.
The urge to spin up a lie whispers along the back of her neck, chased by familiar shame. It never goes away, even though she sticks to palatable half-truths these days. “Mom was away a lot. For work. What about your family? Did you and your roving pack of siblings bond over weekend chemistry experiments?”
“Why, Ripley Adams,” Smithson drawls. “Did you google me?”
“Some,” she says, not embarrassed. “Enough to know your dad’s supposed to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry any minute now. Enough to decide whether I wanted to keep you on my dig.”
“And? Will I be staying?” He takes a bite of his veggie-and-cheesesandwich, then dabs crumbs from his lips with a paper towel that he smooths back across his lap afterward.
Ripley puts down her half-eaten triangle of sandwich. “No, Professor,” she says softly, so the team won’t overhear. “None of us will be staying.”
He crumples his makeshift napkin into a ball. “Don’t give up, Ripley. I couldn’t bear it if you did.” His voice at a whisper is devastating—low and smoky, like he’s been drinking single-malt for breakfast.
“I’m fine. It’s just…hard.” Hard to imagine Clever Girl breaking up piece by piece, people and fossils scattering. Hard to lose Cara and Geraldine, even if she’s never quite let herself get close. Or maybe especially because of that. If Ripley’s mom’s absence taught her anything, it’s that losing something you never quite had still hurts. She covers her mouth so Smithson won’t see it twist with her effort not to cry.
His thigh is suddenly next to hers, firm and warm. “Ripley.”
“Yeah.” She looks up, expecting pity. Instead, she finds something a little inscrutable and a lot Smithson. It feels like the steel of his growledLet themand the exhaustion-drunk curl ofWhy birds, Ripley Adams?
“It’s going to be all right. Trust me on this.” He brings his arm around her back, letting her see how he’s watching her, ready to stop if she gives the slightest sign. She might be imagining the brief, almost imperceptible flutter of his fingers as he tucks his hand around her waist and gathers her to his side.
“I know you said no nonessential touch. But this is essential. And I never see you do this, Ripley. Never see you take comfort from the people around you. Your friends would gladly offer it, if you let them see you needed it,” he murmurs, his tone so dry she could mistake it for pained.
A near-tranquilizing wave of ease washes down her spine. “You’re good at this,” she says unthinkingly.
“Does that not fit your British stereotype?” He’s amused, obviously.
“Not really.”
His laugh feels amazing against her chest. “One of my younger sisters calls this ‘bolstering.’ She’s insisted on it since she was a baby.” He adjusts his body so her head drops into the cradle between the muscles of his shoulder and his chest.
Her dig fever spikes in a dizzying rush. She feels anything but sisterly right now.
Don’t go too far, Adams,she tells herself, but he’s so close. His body is firm and sun-warmed, the pressure of his fingers at her waist the only thing holding her bones together. All she wants to do is breathe him in, grass and sweat and earth.
No, that’s a lie. She wants so much more than that. She wants to tip her head up and stare into his fractal eyes, simultaneously sure and not sure thatsomethingis happening. She wants him to lean in slowly, then all at once. She wants him to kiss her with that precise control she’s imagined, and she wants to kiss him back until she shatters that control.
She shouldn’t do any of those things. But no one is watching, and he’ll be gone on Monday, and she’ll probably never see him again. The thought makes her close her eyes, turn her face into his shirt, and take a breath.
“Ripley,” he says, his voice tightening. “Are you—”
Her internal voice goes off like a klaxon:Too far.
She stands up so fast, she scrapes her bare thighs against the rough wooden tabletop. The hot sting brings her back to earth—a place where huffing Smithson’s shirt and imagining unlocking the beast inside him are not approved workplace activities.
“I should get back to prospecting.” Her nerves jangle under her skin, desire and fear sparking dangerously off each other. She came way too close to forgetting her rules. Forgettingherself.
Smithson comes to his feet, stepping out of the picnic bench. She forgot he never sits when she’s standing. “I’m sorry. I crossed the line.”
“No, you’re fine. You were just…being kind.”
