My mouth dropped open. “No way.”
I enjoyed how close he was. How relaxed he seemed to be.
“Name anyone in this firm,” he said.
All the tension in my stiff shoulders slipped away with every playful laugh I earned from Lincoln. Every shared joke. I loved this level of our relationship. Of whatever we were.
“Sarah Mbali?” I asked, thinking of the only senior female engineer in Traffic Analysis.
“Qualified as an engineer, didn’t want the stress, left the industry, and went back to South Africa, where she became a music teacher for, like, ten years, then returned to engineering later on.” He grinned now with both sides of his mouth.
A mouth I wanted to kiss.
“Why do you know this?” I managed.
“They didn’t give me any work on my first day, and that was a bad move on their behalf. I spent the entire day in a hyperfixationspiral researching all of their credentials and college results.”
There wasn’t anything more Lincoln than that.
“You?” I said softly, knowing he’d hear me because of how close he was now. “I’ll bet you don’t fail at anything.”
He pursed his lips. “Not any of my engineering courses, no. But I landed Simucon in some hot water after ignoring a client. I was working on their report, and I didn’t realize clients needed so much reassurance. Why waste five minutes on an update email when those five minutes could be spent on the design report?” He let loose a soft whistle. “Well, they were our biggest clients at the time and dropped us for our competitors.”
“No!”
“Simucon forced me into a communications course, which I nearly failed.”
I didn’t mean to giggle, but I couldn’t help it.
Lincoln pushed himself off my desk. “I think you get what I’m trying to say… It’s not easy doing this work, but it isn’t meant to be. Especially at first. We’re supposed to be problem solvers and all. It’s tough.” His gaze was so soft. “You’ve got the knack, Elizabeth. You’re incredible and far from useless. You need to cut yourself some slack…” He pointed his finger at the drawing. “When’s this due?”
“Before I leave. And…” I paused. “I can’t stay late tonight. I need to leave before seven p.m.”
Lincoln looked over at the clock. It was already 4:30 p.m.
At that exact moment, Mr. Anders zoomed inside. “Ah, you’re here. Cedric said he saw you come in. Thank goodness. We have a meeting tonight with Mitchell Herman at around six.”
“I can’t tonight.”
“Hot date, Carden?”
Lincoln delivered an unimpressed glare. “I have a really important event to attend.”
“I won’t keep you longer than seven. It’s Mitchell Herman.”
“Fine.”
“Great. I’m off to grab some dinner, but I’ll be back before then.” With a final thumbs-up, Mr. Anders disappeared.
“Who is Mitchell Herman? He sounds important,” I said.
Lincoln let his head fall to one side and rolled his eyes. “Mitchell Herman is one of the biggest developers on this end of the world. He always hires me to do traffic studies for developments in countries I’ve never been to. I keep telling him to hire someone locally.”
“It’s because you’re the best.”
Lincoln’s lolling head snapped straight, as did his entire body. “Stop it, you.”
I bit my tongue to resist saying something I might regret.
