Love on the Brain(22)
That’s the moment something shifts. The moment Levi realizes that he’s going to have to deal with me. He stands, walks around his desk, leans against it. He folds his arms on his chest and regards me calmly for a minute.
Look at us. Just two archnemeses, casually standing in front of each other in fake-relaxed poses while tumbleweeds roll their merry way around us. A modern spaghetti western.
I shoot first. “So, it’s all a big email misunderstanding?”
He doesn’t answer. Just stares somewhere above my right shoulder.
“It checks out. Emails that should be delivered, aren’t. Emails that shouldn’t, are. It would explain the one that canceled the order for my TMS equipment. It probably just sent itself. Vigilante emails going rogue. Uh-oh, Outlook’s in trouble.” His fake-calm is getting less convincing. “If you think about it, it’s the only possible explanation. Because last week, when I asked you if you had an ETA, you said that we were close. And you would never lie to me, would you?”
His annoyingly handsome face hardens. Yes, even more than usual. “I would not lie to you.” He says it in an earnest, pissed-off tone, as though it’s important to him that I believe him. Ha.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t.” I push away from the door and amble around the office. “And you would not single me out to point out a dress code that is obviously never enforced, nor would you make it impossible for me to get into my office without having to beg to be let in.” I stop in front of a library shelf. Scattered between the engineering tomes I notice a handful of personal items. They humanize Levi in a way I’m not ready for: a child’s drawing of a black cat; a few bobbleheads from sci-fi movies; two framed pictures. One is Levi and another tall, dark-haired man free-climbing a rock formation. The other, a woman. Very beautiful. Long, dark blond hair. Young, probably Levi’s age. She smiles at the camera, holding a toddler with a full head of dark curls. The frame is clearly homemade, buttons and shells and sticks glued together.
My heart lurches, heavy.
I knew he had a child. I’ve even turned this piece of information around in my head several times since finding out. And I’m not surprised that he’s married. He doesn’t wear a ring, but that doesn’t mean anything—I often do wear a ring, and I’m most definitely not married. Honestly, I’m not sure why this hits me so hard. I certainly have no personal stake in Levi’s romantic life, and I don’t usually go about feeling jealous when people find themselves happily paired. But the domesticity that the picture conjures, just like the soft, intimate tone his voice took last week when he answered the call . . . very clearly, Levi has a home. A place in the world, just for himself. Someone to go back to every night. And on top of that, his career is more stable than mine.
Levi Ward, lord of a thousand glares and a million rude nods, belongs. And I don’t. The universe is truly not fair.
I sigh, defeated, and turn around to face him. “Just tell me why, Levi.”
“It’s a complicated situation.”
“Is it? Seems pretty simple.”
He shakes his head, carefully considers what to say, and then somehow lands on the most ridiculous five words I’ve ever heard. “Give me a few days.”
“A few days? Levi, Rocío and I moved here to work. We left our friends, families, partners in Maryland, and now we’re twiddling our thumbs—”
“Then go home for a few days.” His tone is harsh. “Visit your partner, come back later—”
“That’s not the damn point!” I aggressively run a hand through my bangs. Reike said that I should confront him calmly, but that horse is out of the stable and galloping around the moors. I’m pretty sure Levi’s neighbors can hear me raise my voice, and I’m fully okay with it. “I have the head of NIH wanting progress reports from me, and my boss threatening to send in someone else if I don’t get him results soon. I need my equipment. I’m not asking you to do this for me—do it for the project!” I must have moved closer, or maybe he to me, because all of a sudden I can smell him. Pine and soap and clean male skin. “Do you even care about BLINK?”
His eyes blaze. “I care. Do not ever imply otherwise,” he grits out, leaning forward. I’ve never hated someone this intensely. I never will again. I believe it as deeply as I do cell theory.
“You sure don’t act like you do.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And you”—I step closer, stabbing my finger into his chest—“don’t know how to run a project.”
“I am asking you to trust me.”
“Trust you?” I laugh in his face. “Why the hell should I trust you?” I stab my finger at him again, and this time he closes his palm around it to stop me.
Something odd happens. His grip slides down to my palm, and for a moment he’s almost holding my hand in his. It makes my skin tingle and my breath catch—his, too. It must be his cue to realize that he’s touching me—me, the most abhorrent creature of the seven seas. He lets go immediately, as if burned.
“I am doing what I can,” he begins.
“Which is nothing.”
“—with the resources I have—”
“Oh, come on.”
“—and there are things you don’t know—”