“I’ll have to talk to Cara and Geraldine. We’d want to release preliminary scans immediately, of course.”
“Naturally.” He inclines his head regally, keeping his eyes on hers.
Ripley looks away first. “I’m very grateful for your incredible work securing funding. But that…we…we can’t be seen like that again. I don’t want rumors circulating about you and me.”
He says nothing, only bends to pick up his pencil, flashing the silhouette of his velodrome ass through his stretchy pants. When he stands up, his expression is neutral.
“I wasn’t the one screaming, Ripley.”Or kissing,he doesn’t say.
“Oh, like you didn’t—” She breaks off. His breath against her shirt, the seeking press of his hands—she can’t bring herself to use that as banter fuel.
Oh, Adams, you idiot. What have you done?
Nothing. She’s done nothing, fallen into nothing, and she’s not going to either.
She turns on her heel. “Send me Will’s abstract. I want the funding contract in writing; no handshake deals. And thank you!” she calls, not turning around. “Again!”
“You’re welcome,” he calls after her, his accent crisper than ever, his words full of British ambiguity.
She’s starting to think it’s better if neither of them says what they really mean.
14
June 21:
Sixty-Eight Days Until the End of the Summer Excavation Season
The sun is very confusing.
It’s bright yellow, for one thing, instead of rosy gold. That, and it’s shining full on her back instead of peeking through the lowest part of her window. The vivid remnants of a dream swirl in her head, her skin shivering from almost having touched…Smithson?
She startles up in shock and horror. A bolt of red-hot pain behind her eyes puts her right back down.
“Ow, fuck!”
It’s not a sex dream if you don’t even kiss,she tells herself, holding her skull together with both hands. And yet she’s warm between her thighs, echoingly lonely in her chest, and more than a bit disgruntled.
And hungover. Fuck, she’s so hungover.
Ripley hates this feeling. Hates the physical misery, yes; but more than that, she loathes the lost time. Last night, gone. Today gone even before it happens, hour after wretched, half-dead hour to slog through.
A plastic tumbler lies sideways on the plywood floor, a wet mark outlining the water she was probably supposed to drink. The pair of jeans she keeps for trips to town are accordioned inthe middle of the room like she teleported out of them. Her good white T-shirt is now a crop top with a jaggedly scissored hem. Her bra dangles from her reading lamp.
Last night had been fine at first. There was the usual Saturday-afternoon run to Herc: laundry, Albertson’s for personal snacks (which always get eaten by Thursday no matter how much the crew buys). Then the hardware store for burlap and a bucket to replace the one Jordin forgot to rinse before the plaster hardened.
At the checkout, Matteo slung his arm around Jordin’s back the way Smithson had wrapped his around Ripley. “I’ve done that a million times, Jord.”
“Not lately.” Jordin sniffed, her lip wobbling harder.
For dinner, they went to the Golden Palace. Its foyer is ringed with dark wood pews salvaged from the Episcopalian church fire a few years ago. No matter how empty the place is, the owner always makes them sit in the pews and wait for a table.
The crew keeps coming back because even Finn and Fiona, who are from San Francisco, admit the egg rolls—savory and meaty, with perfect deep-fried crispness—are the best they’ve ever had.
Ripley usually ducks out of the trips to the bar they’ve dubbed Alphabet. The place is actually called, as far as anyone can tell,Licensed by ABCD—the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division—of Montana, with theAand half theNcut off. The decor is dingy, the service is ghastly, and it’s quite possibly a front for criminal activity. One time, Griff tried to order from the menu. This resulted in the bartender making a furtive phone call, walking out the front door, and coming back twenty minutes later with a takeout box from down the street.
Obviously, the crew loves everything about it.
When the one employee can be bothered to tend bar, heunhurriedly slings dusty-tasting rail drinks and cans of warm Budweiser from cases he keeps on the floor, clearly hoping they’ll get impatient and leave.
