Chapter 36
Ava and my dad are already at my workstation when I drag my weary body into the Bay.
I’m exhausted and sore. The mixture of long hours and—much to my chagrin that Jacob was right—adrenaline has me slogging through the mud of fatigue.
Jacob shows up moments later with coffee and pastries for all of us.
I set my pink glitter cane next to my purple backpack on one of the extra tables behind us before we dig in.
Jacob looks at it with interest, and suddenly, I might throw up.
It’s not like he hasn’t seen me use it before.
I’ve been better about using it every day.
Maybe he’s rethinking what happened. Nope, I am not caring about this anymore, I remind myself.
“What?” I ask him gruffly.
“So, what is your favorite color?” He chuckles when my brows furrow. “Pink or purple?”
The tension in me dissolves like cotton candy in the rain. “Pink.”
“Thought so.”
We work throughout the day to get Zeta ready for the fights tomorrow, laying out rows of components ready to swap in and out as fast as possible. I teach my dad and Ava the inner workings of the robot, glad that this sport has been a family affair for us.
When they go off to find us some lunch, Jacob and I keep working in silence. Our hands meet over a wrench, and a bashful giggle escapes me. He gives a glance around the room—basically empty as everyone is also in search of sustenance—before his lips are mapping mine.
“You’re so fucking beautiful when you work. All the time, actually,” he says between kisses. The doors open to the Bay, and we jump apart, turning back to our work. The wrench is in his hand.
“Did you kiss me to steal the wrench from me?”
He winks at me and goes back to what he was doing. My heart flutters, unable to match the quiet rhythm of our work.
I wonder if this is what it’s like for Fatimah and Sonny?
Or any of the dozens of partner teams in combat robotics, many of them meeting through the sport.
Is it this easy for everyone? Why is it so easy with him when we were at odds for so long?
It’s the same as when we were teenagers, like we never forgot how to be friends: bodies twisting around each other in close quarters, expecting the next move and never in the way; wordless handing of the correct tools; the harmony of a well-oiled machine.
How do I reconcile these emotions with the Jacob I knew?
The one who lies, the one who put my dreams on hold.
The one who was a light in the chaotic darkness of my teens.
When he kisses me, I forget everything. I can only think of his heat, his handsomeness, his hands on me.
When his back is to me, everything I lost comes out of the shadows.
The scratches and dents are being buffed out of the Jacob-shaped spot in my mind, but has it been irreparably warped?
I want him as much as I did at nineteen, but it doesn’t erase everything that’s happened.
I grab a different wrench from across the workspace, needing some distance between us.
By the time we call it a day, my nerves are buzzing.
Pain wracks my body, tension in every muscle from the long day, the thought of tomorrow and tonight.
Ava yawns and stretches dramatically, and my dad looks every year of his age.
We’re as ready as we can be for the trials of tomorrow.
My dad and Ava go off to their room with a quiet “Goodnight.” Ava’s already ordering a pizza.
Jacob studies me like a test, questioning everything, waiting for a sign. It would be so easy to call it a night, sleep and rest and recover. Steam like a clam in my shower until my muscles relax. Pretend none of this ever happened.
I’d also spend all night tossing and turning and thinking about tomorrow’s fights. And about what would have happened if I had taken his offer.
Nervousness is written plainly across him.
Something I’ve only seen once, on the night he apologized.
Tension buzzes in the air, an uncomfortable electric charge across my skin, so unlike the exhilarating one that ignites when he touches me.
When I don’t move, frozen with indecision, a series of emotions flickers across him like birds in flight.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Mari,” he says with precise blankness.
“Wait,” I say, grabbing his wrist. It’s a mirror of the moment he grabbed mine less than three weeks ago.
This time, neither of us pulls away, trapped by the dizzying change in tension.
Any question of whether I want this is gone.
Whether it’s a good idea is something I don’t care about anymore.
Not when every atom of my body is alive with his skin on mine. “You could see me tonight.”