Sweet Rivalry (1001 Dark Nights)(9)

To Alan from Developmental, with his half-tucked dress shirt and messed up hair, and I know that his socks are probably mismatched—both gray, but definitely with different patterns––because he gets dressed in the dark of his bedroom to let his wife, who works the graveyard shift as a nurse, catch up on her sleep. A good guy but sometimes so distracted by his kids and wanting to be a good dad that he does his math a little too quickly or overlooks a line item and comes in at a number too good to be true and therefore is often disregarded.

To Patrick from Lux, with his slicked back hair and smug smirk that I know rakes in the ladies and yet I want to wipe it off his face because I know after he reels them in, he treats them like shit, and that’s unacceptable. But it’s representative of how he treats his projects: thrilled to get them but then mishandles them once he does.

There are others around me but I don’t bother to study them because they’re here simply for the experience. Century needs to prove to whomever they’re running this project for that they’ve gotten the best of the best. And that means having a multitude of qualifying companies compete so they have more numbers to show fairness.

But not Brandon, Alan, or Patrick. I’ve worked with all of them before. Have bid against them. Have done the mandatory social bullshit required to be a part of the building industry. I know them well enough to know where they’ll fall in line with their numbers, what their bosses demand and dictate in a profit margin, and how they react to the unpredictable, such as this situation.

I can read everything about them. That’s what I do. I study. I remember. I use it to my advantage when I package my bid together.

And yet when I return my focus to the land before me—Mason talking in the front and Harper just off to my left—I hate that I can’t read her. I know she’s just as important competitively—if not the most important one—and yet her edges seem sharper, her demeanor hardened from what I remember it to be.

I may be a take it as it comes type of guy, but f*ck if the unknown isn’t unsettling.

“…let’s head back to the office now and I’ll get you the rest of what you need so you can get started.”

There’s a murmured consent among all of us as we all follow after him toward the waiting cars. I walk a few feet and then swear at my mother and her inherent need to hammer manners into my head as a little boy. But I listen to her silent voice nonetheless, and even though I have a feeling Harper’s going to be pissed I’m calling her out as a woman with the gesture, I turn around to let her pass and go ahead. Ladies first.

But just as I turn, I’m met with a small yelp split seconds before Harper’s body collides squarely into mine. Already off balance, I stumble backward a few steps the same time as my hands tighten in reflex to prevent her from falling farther.

Seconds feel like minutes. Her hard hat slips off and clatters to the ground when she tilts her head up with eyes wide and lashes fluttering to look up at me.

Our eyes hold. A solid punch of too many things hits me—the heat of her body pressed against mine, how tiny and fragile she seems in my arms when she’s always strong and in control, and the flicker of vulnerability that flashes through her eyes.

It’s gone just as quickly as I see it but in that second, we’re back in the darkened classroom. My lips are still warm from hers, my body reeling from her taste, and she’s looking up at me with that mixture of shock, desire, and vulnerability that I was probably too young to understand and too stupid to appreciate at the time. The one that should have led me to chase after her when she ran out the door instead of question the consequences first and never get the chance to later.

But there was more there. I know there was. And right now, the look in her eyes when they meet mine—with the dirt beneath us and the sky above us––brings it all back.

Déjà vu like I’ve never experienced before.

As quick as the memory comes, it’s gone. And I know she must have thought it too because within a beat, we’re a sudden mass of hands pushing off, eyes averting, and throats clearing so we can erect that professional wall back between us. I step away and pick up her hard hat while she smoothes her hands down the line of her skirt.

“Are you okay?” I hand her hard hat to her. Watch her throat move with a swallow. See the flush of embarrassment in her cheeks.

Does she think all these same things when she looks at me?

“I’m fine. Thank you.” Her voice is tight, movements determined, as she takes the helmet and strides past me without another word.

Curious yet cautious thoughts start to spin out of control in my own head, that I can’t allow myself to think. I turn on my heel to follow her just in time to catch her shrug off the other men asking if she’s okay. She strides right past them with a laugh but determination in her gait.

We climb into the waiting town cars ready to bring us back to the office tower and pull out of the dirt lot with a billow of dust around us. She refuses to look my way the entire return trip. And even though Alan’s presence in the front seat prevents me from asking more, I have a feeling even if he wasn’t here, she’d still refuse to acknowledge what happened.

But my unfinished thoughts prevail. What if I had chased after her that night? How would things have been different, or would they have at all? And when I tell myself what-ifs aren’t worth dwelling on, my mind shifts to the look that was in Harper’s eyes.