Chapter 20 Lincoln
LINCOLN
@pancakesareelite:
What do you look like?
@theanswerisno:
Like the character in this game
@pancakesareelite:
I love an 8ft, blue-skinned
man with elf ears and fangs
@theanswerisno:
I aim to please.
@theanswerisno:
How about you?
@pancakesareelite:
Before I tell you, please answer this totally unrelated question: What does your dream girl look like?
I’d spent the entire weekend thinking about my presentation, about Elizabeth being there and how badly I’d wished she’d stayed after.
Now I might have to resign because I could never face her ever again.
I pressed my forehead against my steering wheel and blew out the breath I may have been holding since fleeing the office.
Fleeing. I freaking fled. Because no part of me anticipated being half naked in front of an employee today.
Of all the employees, it had to be the prettiest one with the smartest mouth who took every opportunity to say something cheeky.
My entire body heated at the memory of the exchange. At the redness of her pale cheeks and the grin she wore when she teased.
But the jokes were good. I think. It meant she wasn’t too uncomfortable, and perhaps I hadn’t ruined the only real-life relationship I’d formed with anyone outside my small circle of friends.
I looked out of the truck at the intersection that was slowly being built. There was absolutely nothing for me to do here. Maybe I should head over to my mom’s and help her pack. I’d been promising her.
But I still didn’t have it in me to do that either.
I’d have to sit here until the fluttering in my chest stopped, and by then, hopefully, Elizabeth would have forgotten all the extra-mischievous comments she could muster in my time away.
Fat chance.
By the time lunch swung around, I was hungry enough to find my way to Zoya’s, where I grabbed two sandwiches.
Offering Elizabeth food would keep her mouth busy.
Being cheeky and chewing didn’t go all that well together.
And if there was one thing I knew about her—based on the hard-to-ignore sounds coming from the other side of the divider—it was that she got lost in her meals.
What I didn’t expect to walk in on was Elizabeth red-faced, not with an awkward encounter but with frustration.
“Mr. Carden,” she said with such relief in her voice I had to believe she was pleased to see me.
Then she started rambling. Interchanges.
Cedric. Anders. I don’t know, it was hard to focus when she spoke sometimes because, when she was all riled up, her animated expressions and speech speed reminded me of gaming characters who’d taken a booster potion.
She was so much crammed into one person that it amazed me she managed to get anything done.
I sucked on my teeth, and she took a big inhale, puffing out her chest.
“Okay.” She raised her hands. “I’m going too fast, aren’t I?”
“Way too fast. But I gather something is due, and you need some help?”
“Stringent interchange, and they want the horizontal layout by tomorrow morning.” A deep line formed between her brows.
I didn’t think I’d seen her frown that hard before.
After dropping my bag at my desk, I turned around and peeked at her over our divider. “Do you want me to do it for you? I could have it done in a couple hours.”
I held out the sandwich, and she launched out of her seat—her hand stretching out to receive the foil-wrapped square.
She unwrapped her sandwich and made way too intense eye contact with me. “No, I want you to teach me how to do it. I want to show them I can do it.”
A strange sense of pride bubbled up in my chest. “Atta girl,” I said before I could stop myself. I made my way over to her side of the office and scrutinized the drawings. Cedric’s initials were in the bottom left corner.
It was remarkable Cedric had learned how to design this by himself over the last few weeks, but it wasn’t uncommon. Every few years, they would find an engineer with a natural ability to pick up technical design and tricks.
Many moons ago, I was that intern.
I bit into my sandwich, glancing at Elizabeth, who, in all honesty, did not have that talent.
She’d have to work incredibly hard to prove herself against him.
It was a pity her year had a Cedric. Had she been part of the internship last year, she’d have easily been one of the best. She’d leveled up since starting and shown her dedication to the craft, to improvement, and sometimes, that was more important.
Engineering was ever changing, and Elizabeth had already proven she could roll with the punches.
That was part of the evaluation comments I’d sent to Anders. He’d seemed surprised, and I didn’t ask whether it was because of how well she was doing or because I’d actually started managing her.
Elizabeth hovered around me while eating. Her gaze flicked between the drawings and my face. She spent a considerable amount of time trying to read me. Everyone did that. She was one of the few who succeeded.
“You’re comfortable with intersection upgrades, yes?
” I asked, leaning in to read the contours while she stammered in the affirmative.
“Interchange design incorporates many of those aspects. We’ll start there and build up to the entire interchange.
What you can do, in the meantime, is tell me which kind of interchange would work best?
” I walked over to my desk and leafed through the stack of drawings until I pulled up a few other layouts.
“The options are endless, but these are the popular ones.”
She stared at them in silence. Her sea-blue painted nail traced along the curves of the four-leaf clover interchange. “They’re beautiful. I’ve driven on this one.”
“I designed it.” I shoved the last piece of the bread into my mouth to shut myself up.
Usually I wouldn’t tell anyone, but the genuine awe in her voice made me want to claim it.
“It’s art,” she said, still nibbling on her own sandwich. She ate with her mouth closed. Not a single crumb fell on her clothing or to the floor. She was like a princess.
“Yeah… for the birds,” I replied, pulling my gaze away from her. I crumpled up the foil and aimed for the wastebasket in the corner of my side of the office. I tossed it, and it ricocheted off the rim and onto the floor.
She giggled in a way that was gentle, warm, and caused flutters for whoever heard it. Probably. I’m sure it wasn’t only me.
“Diamond, I think?” Her voice peaked at the end in question.
“I’d have chosen that too.” I started scribbling on the drawing.
From the corner of my eye, I spotted her crumpling up her wrapper. She bit on her tongue as she aimed. When she released the silver ball, it landed inside the wastebasket. My mouth dropped open, and she spun around, her expression as shocked as I was.
“I’ll increase your evaluation by one point based on that alone.” I walked over to pick up my missed ball and tossed it inside.
She almost collapsed with the laughter that bubbled out of her.
She leaned across the desk and watched me draw.
If I hadn’t spent years doing this, I may have had some performance anxiety.
But this was something I knew how to do.
One of the very few things about myself I didn’t doubt.
I explained everything as I went along, reciting guidelines from memory and enjoying how intently she listened.
Having her full attention was alarming. It made me feel somewhat… invincible. Like what I said mattered.
“I don’t recall them teaching this in college. I mean, the idea of it, yeah… but maybe I missed that class,” she said as we moved to her computer and opened the design software.
“There’s no way they can cover everything in the few years you spend there. You’ll learn as you go along. Or you can go wild in your postgrad.”
“I’d like to do mine eventually, but part-time. I don’t think I have the luxury of full-time studies considering I’m already behind.” She navigated to Cedric’s design and imported the data as I’d previously taught her to do.
Without saying anything, I waited to see if she’d perform the checks I always recommended.
She did.
I grabbed my laptop and wheeled my chair into her office space. Her desk wasn’t that large, but before I could change my mind, she scooched over and shoved everything out of the way to make space. For me.
This was a completely normal thing for people to do for their bosses. Just because she laughed at my jokes or listened to me when I spoke didn’t mean anything. She was Elizabeth Gordon-
Bettencourt. Aside from being my intern, she was way out of my league. We weren’t even playing the same game.
After going through all the design principles and some trial and error, she hit PROCESS on the software and leaned back in her seat, her chest dropping with a heavy exhale.
She undid the giant bun that held her red waves out of her face but then redid it.
Her glance fell toward her phone. “Oh my goodness, it’s already after nine. You probably need to go.”
Time had flown.
“I’m fine. Do you need to go? We can carry on tomorrow morning.”
She shook her head. “I really appreciate you doing this. I feel like… maybe I stand a chance of acing this internship. I really, really need this job. Am I being delusional to think I could get it?”
Despite what everyone said about her and her wealth, Elizabeth genuinely seemed to need this job. There was a desperate panic behind those eyes whenever she spoke about the internship ending.
“Not delusional, but you’re not there yet. We could get there in time.”
“We?” She smiled.
I had to look away. Sometimes her beauty overwhelmed me. “We,” I managed. “Best manager-intern team at Simucon, remember?”
She hopped up. “Damn right. In that case, could I make you a cup of coffee?”
My gaze, now eye level with her waist, swept upward until it met her face. Something foreign tightened in my abdomen. “I can make my own coffee.”
She crumpled up a scrap piece of paper. “Loser makes coffee.”
I grinned, activating muscles that didn’t often get used. “Okay, but we have to stand farther back than last time.”
“Deal.” She danced around and then tossed the ball. It hit the edge and fell to the floor.
I collected it and took her spot. I focused on the center of the wastebasket and threw it. Somehow it landed even farther away. I turned to face her. “I clearly didn’t play team sports.”
Her laughter was contagious. “I think I expect you to be good at everything.”
I nearly choked, even though I had nothing in my mouth to choke on. But getting a compliment like that from a woman like this was too much for my esophagus.
On the next throw, I got it in. Sheer luck.
“Fine,” she huffed. Less playful than usual.
I hadn’t expected her to be so competitive.
“I didn’t expect you to be so competitive,” she said.
“Likewise,” I said, stretching. My muscles were loose and light. It was weird.
“Sugar and cream, right?”
I nodded, unable to hide the smile creeping onto my face. I wasn’t a stranger to working late, but I’d never worked late with someone else. Not even during my studies on the tightest deadlines. I’d always send the rest of the group home and finish the assignment by myself; they never minded.
But this was… nice.
“Mr. Carden,” she said as she entered a few moments later with two cups of coffee. Her mug had cat ears. Obviously.
“You can call me Lincoln, if you’d like…” I heard myself saying even though no one called me Lincoln around here. Not even Anders. “We’d need a retaining wall here.” I changed the topic and pointed at the large amount of fill required on one side of the on-ramp.
“Do I have to design that?”
“No. Mark it up and send it off to the structural engineers. They’ll take a look and give it to the right person.
” I took a moment to observe her before asking my next question.
For someone who had been concentrating for more than twelve hours, she didn’t look tired at all.
“Do you want me to tell you about the basic retaining wall structures often used alongside roads?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” She flopped into her office seat and kicked off her shoes before tucking her feet underneath her. “If you can take off your shirt in here, I can take off my shoes, right?”
And there it was. Cheeky little thing.