24. Messages in the Corn
24
Messages in the Corn
From Barry Wright’s manifesto:
Crop circles are messages from extraterrestrials.
TESSA
W hen I pushed the cart into Oliver’s lab on a Friday in late February, I could feel the difference in the vibe. Even a couple days ago, people had bent over microscopes, furrowing their brows, pausing only to scribble a note on their lab tablets. The space had felt tense. Of course it had. Everyone knew the stakes. But today, people leaned against the tables, their goggles pushed up on their heads or folded neatly into pockets, smiling and patting each other on the back. Someone had ripped down the poster, which read, 9 days. We didn’t need it anymore. There was joy even in my jaded, dusty heart.
“Tessa!” Sadie scurried to my side, her lab coat flapping open in a way Oliver wouldn’t have approved. “It’s the lab techs’ job to bring in and put away the supplies.”
“Not these supplies.” I untucked the flaps of the beaker carton to reveal my prize.
“Champagne?” she squealed.
“We all earned it by getting both tests into clinical trials nine days early.” I pulled a sleeve of clear plastic cups from the box. “Let’s get this party started.”
As the team popped the corks and poured the bubbly, I held back a smile. How long would it take Oliver to realize what was going on and try to spoil the fun? It served him right after the sexual frustration he’d put me through over the past three weeks. Dinners at his place with his sleeves rolled up to reveal his sexy forearms, watching the action movies we discovered we both loved while I cuddled up to his side on his sofa, his arm around me and his warm, solid body full of promise.
And not a single kiss.
I imagined his face when he found us drinking in his lab, puzzled with that little line between his eyebrows. Then his lips would turn down, and his forehead would furrow. That adorable long piece of hair would flop down over it and then he’d growl my name in the tone that made me shiver.
Shiver? I stood straighter. I was a grown woman. I didn’t shiver. Not for any man—or woman—and certainly not for Oliver, who was my goddamn coworker. Because I knew how it would turn out. Humiliation, heartbreak, and all the work I’d done here wasted.
Though, would it really be wasted? We’d sent the ovarian cancer test to clinical trials this morning. Maybe someone else’s mother could get a diagnosis before it was too late. She’d recover and go back to her job as a teacher or an architect or an ambassador. Some other daughter, some other husband, wouldn’t lose their mother and wife and be irreparably broken.
More selfishly, I was proud that we were on track to send the endometriosis test to clinical trials next week. If it did well in the trial, as I was certain it would, I’d have made a difference to all the people out there who could get diagnosed and treated. Who could get relief. And I didn’t need credit or recognition for that. I’d know in my heart what I’d contributed to people like me.
But right now, I wanted to be called out for bringing a case of champagne into the lab, where food and drink were forbidden. For starting a dance party. I’d take the blame for it even though it wasn’t my speaker that was blasting out hip-hop. I blinked away from Yujun, who was doing the Running Man.
Where the fuck was Oliver?
I tapped Aanya’s shoulder and leaned in close to whisper, “Where’s Oliver?”
She shrugged. “Haven’t seen him all afternoon. But he should be here! Want me to find him?”
“No. Stay and enjoy yourself.” I handed her my untouched cup of champagne. “I’ll find him.”
In the hall outside the lab, the beat of the music thudded through the floor. Fortunately, Dr. Perrell’s office was at the far end, where I hoped she wouldn’t hear it. With her twins’ weddings looming, she’d been more joyless than usual.
I jogged downstairs toward the game room and winced when I heard the tinny electronic music of Pac-Man. Oliver should’ve been celebrating with the team, not communing with Simon’s spirit. Simon had nothing to do with this victory. This was Oliver’s win, and mine, and the team’s.
As I approached the game room, I checked the burning feeling in my stomach. Although my period wasn’t due for a few weeks, it didn’t feel like that. It felt emotional. It couldn’t be jealousy, could it? I couldn’t possibly be jealous of a dead man.
As soon as I turned the corner and saw West’s back hunched over the console, not Oliver’s, the heaviness lifted. Goddammit, I was jealous of a dead man.
I’d have to process that later. “Hey, West,” I called.
Immediately, he turned. “Tessa! Did you want to play? I suck at this, so my game should be over in—” The unmistakable pulsing, falling tones of Pac-Man’s death interrupted him. “I guess it’s your turn now.” He plucked a token out of the bucket and held it out to me.
“Actually, I’m looking for…” Nope.
I would not admit I was looking for Oliver. I’d made him promise not to say anything about us to West, and I wasn’t about to blow our cover. I’d never let West know that although we were professionals in the lab, there was a Tessa-shaped indentation on Oliver’s couch. Or that we talked for a few minutes every night before bed. Or that he texted me a silly photo or meme each morning. This morning he’d sent me a picture of an adorable orange kitten glaring at the camera. He didn’t even know I had cats, but he said that one reminded him of me. My phone and that photo weighed in the pocket of my black blazer like incriminating evidence of my feelings.
“Oliver?” he prompted. His expression was neutral, not the knowing smirk I dreaded.
“Yes.” Heat spread from my cheeks, down my neck, and into my chest. My blazer was suddenly suffocatingly hot. Was this shame or one of the perimenopausal hot flashes Savannah and Carly were always talking about?
“Haven’t seen him. Have you checked his office?”
“No. I’ll try there. Thanks.”
“Oh, and Tessa?”
I’d already turned to leave, but I stopped, steeled myself, and turned back.
“I’m glad you’re settling in at Discovery. You seem happy here.”
“I am. I’m excited to come to the office every day. We do good work.”
“That’s excellent news,” he said. “You should love your work. You deserve happiness.”
“I…deserve it?” I echoed. How did he not know what I’d done? How I’d betrayed my employees the last time I’d fallen for someone? It wasn’t exactly public knowledge that I’d been sleeping with my number-two at Red Rover, but practically everyone we worked with knew or suspected. It was why I’d turned down every partnership and board position any man had offered me since. I couldn’t shake the fear that it came with expectations. Or that people would assume it did.
“Of course you do.” He shrugged. “Everyone should seek out what makes them happy.”
He’d said it so matter-of-factly, like it was one of my friend Lucie’s truths. But as I climbed the stairs toward Oliver’s office, I wondered. Did Oliver make me happy? Was that the feeling in my stomach when my phone buzzed every morning? Was that why I’d let Carly paint my nails in a light pink instead of the black polish I always chose? Was I…happy?
When I was in my twenties, I was excited. Striving. Energetic. I supposed I was happy. I’d never paused to examine my feelings.
In my thirties, I was broken. Sad. Repentant. I definitely wasn’t happy. If I was being honest, I was lonely.
Now, in my forties, I was trying to let go of the past and live in the moment. It was why I’d gone to that terrible seminar. I thought if I could find my power, I could make something of my life again. And even though the seminar was garbage, I’d met Carly, Lucie, and Savannah. They’d inspired me with their strength and hope. Maybe that seminar wasn’t the magic bullet I’d wanted, but it had set me on the road to a brighter future.
Still, happiness wasn’t anything I’d ever imagined for myself. I didn’t deserve it after the mistakes I’d made in my youth.
I paused in front of Oliver’s door. Could I have been wrong about that too?
I didn’t have the answer when I knocked.
“Yeah?” It was only one word, but after four months of working together, I could picture his expression when he said it. His voice was brusque, like he’d been thinking deeply about something but was too polite to ignore an interruption. He’d be running his hands through his hair until whatever product he used was gone, and it flopped over the rims of his glasses.
I turned the handle and walked in. The overhead light flicked on. He’d been sitting so still at his desk that the automatic light sensor assumed it was vacant.
When he tore his gaze from the screen, he didn’t smile. He pinched his lower lip between his thumb and his fist, and the line between his eyebrows had deepened into a ravine.
“My god, what’s wrong?” I stepped into the office and shut the door. Had someone died?
“Now that we’ve gone to clinical trials, we’re going to have data coming back in a few weeks. I can’t decide how to analyze it.” He frowned at his screen. “Should we use LDA or logistic regression?”
My shoulders dropped away from my neck. Classic Oliver. My college statistics course was a long time ago, and I’d had to deep-dive into statistical methods for this job. “Well, the benefit of linear discriminant analysis is that it’s simple and efficient. But logistic regression could be more appropriate, assuming our data doesn’t follow a normal distribution.”
“I know,” he said. “So how do I decide what’s best?”
His uncertainty wasn’t because he was unintelligent or young or even indecisive. He proved in the lab every day how brilliant he was. And despite being ten years younger than me, he’d grown this company from a couple of college kids at a lab table to a billion-dollar company. That required emotional maturity. No, it was because Oliver cared so much about his company and everyone who worked here that he didn’t want to take even the tiniest risk of letting them down.
I got it, I really did. But I also understood that success requires risk. Though in this case, there wasn’t much. Either model would work to evaluate the test results. Maybe one would be slightly more predictive than the other, but we wouldn’t know until the product was out in the market and we had a larger data set. I circled his desk until I stood behind him. Then I reached over his shoulder and turned off his monitor. I set my hands lightly on his shoulders. “Is this okay?”
“Yeah.”
As I kneaded his muscles, the tension in his shoulders eased. When they’d softened from apocalypse-tense to everyday-tense, I said, “Got a coin?”
“A what?” His voice was low, almost dreamy.
“A quarter. You know, we used to use them in vending machines and arcade games before everything went cashless.”
“Maybe?” He opened his top drawer and fished in the corner. He pulled out a quarter and blew lint from it before holding it up. “This is what you charge for a shoulder massage?”
“No. This is how you make a decision between two equally good—or bad—options. Flip it. Heads, LDA. Tails, logistic regression.”
His shoulders tensed, and I lost every bit of progress I’d made in softening the muscles. He leaned forward to peer back at me. “We can’t flip a coin! This is a decision I have to make as the lead scientist.”
“You are making the decision,” I reminded him. “You’re just using a tool to help.” I tapped the coin sticking out of his white-knuckled fist. “Aren’t the models equally good?”
“Yes, but?—”
“Then it doesn’t matter. Go on.” I nudged his fist.
He opened his hand until the quarter lay flat on his palm. Then he picked it up. “Heads, LDA, tails, logistic regression?”
“That’s it.”
He flipped the coin, caught it deftly in his right hand, and plopped it onto the back of his left. When he pulled back his right hand, he said, “Tails. Logistic regression.”
“Does that feel right to you?” I asked. “Can you accept it?”
“Yes. It’s a valid model.”
“Then logistic regression it is. Done.” I pushed back the hair that flopped over his glasses. “You should go down to the lab and celebrate. Someone brought in champagne.”
He snorted. “You brought in champagne.”
“I’ll neither confirm nor deny it,” I said, starting to step back.
He grasped my wrist, stopping me. “Thank you.”
“For the champagne? Like I said, I?—”
“No.” He was up out of his chair faster than I’d have thought possible, still holding my wrist and crowding into me. My hand landed over his pounding heart. “Thank you for being my…my partner in all this. For helping me. For grounding me when I get too deep in my head.”
“That’s what I was hired to do,” I reminded him. But I knew I’d done more than what was in my job description. And here I was, edging over the line of what was appropriate for my job as I tipped up my face to stare at his lips. He’d bitten them while he’d been mulling his options, and they were pink and plump.
“That’s not what this is,” he growled. “This is more.” He angled his face down until his lips hovered a breath above mine.
He was right. We were more than coworkers. More than friends. And we were about to cross the border into the land of Even More. It shimmered in the air for a moment in the narrow space between our lips.
Then I leaned across the divide and kissed him.
I’d kissed him before, in Vegas and again in the supply closet, when it had been a desperate attempt to smother the sexual tension that glowed like a Bunsen burner’s flame whenever I was near him. But this was different. Gentle. Exploratory. Like we were mapping a new territory. His lips pressed against mine, firm but soft at the same time, moving like he was speaking lazily against my mouth. What was this kiss saying? I want you. I need you. But let’s take it slow.
It wasn’t enough for me. It was one thing to observe and another to act as a catalyst. I slid my hand up the side of his neck and tunneled my fingers into his hair. Then I pressed with my fingertips, pulling him closer into me.
He let out a quiet gasp, and I licked across his lips. His hands landed on my lower back and slipped lower to my ass, gathering me against him until I felt the press of his erection against my stomach.
Now we were getting somewhere.
I widened my stance, and as if he’d read my mind, he moved his thigh between my legs. I clenched his leg with mine until I had pressure right where I needed it.
Flinging my head back, I groaned at the pleasure that sizzled up my spine. He kissed along my neck, up to the tip of my chin, then across to my ear. His breath roared against it, making me shiver everywhere. I ground harder against his leg.
“You like that, huh?” He slid his hand inside my blazer and palmed my left breast over my shirt. As I pressed against his thigh, he scissored his fingers against my nipple, plucking it to a needy peak. It wasn’t enough, not with two layers of fabric separating his fingers from my skin, and I let out a frustrated grunt.
“Fuck, Tessa,” he whispered in my ear, “you think you can get there like this?”
“No,” I whined. “Too…many…clothes.”
“I think you’re wrong.” His words shocked me—I was never wrong, and certainly not about my own damned body—but what shocked me more was when he bit down on my earlobe. Simultaneously, he pinched my nipple hard enough that the sting radiated down my body and set off an earthquake between my legs. I let out a choking gasp.
“Let go, Tessa,” he rumbled as he kissed the spot under my earlobe.
And I did. My breath stuttered as my control detonated. Everything narrowed to that spot where I met his thigh until elation exploded through my body. He held me up, murmuring words I didn’t have the brain cells to understand into my skin. I sank into it, letting the climax ripple through me like raindrops into a pond.
When the waves stilled, I was in his arms, pressed against him from my thighs to my chest. He cradled my head against his shoulder, twining his fingers into my hair while his lips rested on my temple. I got the sense he’d been purring soft words the whole time, but I caught the phrase, good girl.
I was no one’s good girl. I was a woman, ten years older than the man who’d rocked my world with his thigh and a goddamn kiss . But damn me if my blackened heart didn’t give a silly flutter at his words.
I was sticky between my legs, so I dismounted his thigh, hoping my release hadn’t soaked into his trousers. I brushed against his hard-on, and he hissed. I’d show him I wasn’t a good girl. I set my hands on his belt and started to tug it free.
His hand landed on mine. “What are you doing?”
“Returning the favor.” I tried to shake off his hand, but he kept it there, stilling me.
“This isn’t that. Besides, we’re not having sex in my office.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll just blow you.” I tugged the end of his belt out of the loops.
“A blowjob is still sex.” He stepped back, out of reach.
“A handjob, then,” I said.
“No.”
I had to respect the line he’d drawn. But I didn’t have to like it. “You got me off in your office.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
He ran his hand through his hair. His glasses had started to fog where they met his cheeks. “It just is.”
“Fine. Good luck with that.” I tipped my chin toward the bulge in his flat-front pants.
“I’ll survive,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Then let’s go join the celebration in the lab. We’ll see if there’s any bubbly left.” I tossed my head, hoping I didn’t have sex hair.
“You go,” he said. “I’ll join you in a minute.”
But it was more than discomfort about his erection that deepened the line between his eyebrows. He bit his lip and wouldn’t meet my gaze. Oh, no.
“Are you worried about our bargain?” I asked. “I know you said no sex, but?—”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Finally, he glanced up at me and smiled, and I wished he hadn’t. It was soft and…and… sweet, and it set off fluttery feelings in my midsection, which was still sensitive from the orgasm. “I’m good. Are you good?”
I had been, a minute ago. “Look, this doesn’t have to change anything.”
“Doesn’t it?” Those blue eyes speared right through me, like they could see the oxytocin sloshing around in my brain.
“No. Just…just don’t fall in love with me, okay?”
“I won’t,” he said.
I wasn’t sure I believed him.