Trade Me (Cyclone #1)(38)

I’ve got to get my mind off that before I go any lower. No—too late now. I can feel my body heat and I sigh, trying to imagine that the sound of water means anything other than Blake naked a scant few yards from me.

Like…baby elephants playing in a stream, splashing each other. Really ugly baby elephants. It works, kind of. At least I’m no longer flushing by the time the water cuts off.

He comes out wearing jeans and…and… Nope, that’s it. Jeans.

I wad up an advertising circular that’s sitting on his desk and throw it at him. “Put on a shirt.”

“Am I distracting you?” He smiles, like he knows that he is.

“Yes. You’re going to catch a cold, idiot, and then where will you be?”

He turns to me, which does not help. Transitioning from hot shower to cold room has made his skin tighten all over, pebbling his flesh with goose bumps that cry out to be smoothed away.

“Hey, science genius,” he says, “germs don’t work like that.”

“Fine. Freeze. I don’t care.”

He turns away—alas, not to put on a shirt. Instead, he takes an apple from the kitchen counter and comes to lean against the desk near me. He doesn’t say anything at first, just passes the apple from hand to hand.

My imagined reconstruction of his chest, it turns out, isn’t as sexy as the real version. I forgot about his tattoo—that weirdly translucent circuitry tracing down his left arm. He’s looking me over frankly, his eyes traveling slowly down my body. It should make me feel uneasy. Out of place.

It doesn’t. I just feel warm.

“Here.” Instead of looking at him, I open my laptop—a brand-new lightweight Cyclone model in black matte metal. “This is what I have for the script so far.”

He picks it up and opens the file. He scrolls through the pages one by one. I hate feeling like I’m waiting for his approval. His face doesn’t change as he reads. He just keeps going. When he’s done, he looks up at me. And instead of telling me what he thinks, he asks his own question. “So, what do you think?”

“I think this part here—” I scroll through the file until I find it “—isn’t funny enough. We’re going from one serious part to another. We need to break that up.”

“I agree.”

“I think we need something way better to demonstrate the relatively smooth video tracking that Fernanda can manage. Something escalating—so at first, mild hand gestures. Then bigger ones.” I demonstrate. “Then something completely over the top—juggling, maybe? It has to be something that looks super-cool on screen but gives us stable video. We’ll need to do some experiments.”

“Sounds good.”

“And then there’s the Blake and Adam Show. It doesn’t feel quite right to me.”

He stiffens, not looking at me. “Yeah.” That comes out a little lower.

“So,” I say with a sigh, “I guess it’s back to the drawing board.”

“Hell, no.” He raises an eyebrow. “This is the part where we upload it to the team, give them the direction you just gave me, and have them brainstorm. They’ll do the testing. They’ll generate ideas. That’s what they’re there for.”

“So it’s okay?”

“It will be more than okay by the time everyone’s done with it.” He makes a few tiny alterations and then uploads the file.

“Congratulations,” he tells me dryly. “Now you’re going to start having to mediate arguments about whether a or the is the proper article to use.”

“Fine.” I reach for my purse. “That’s it, then. Next week, same time?”

He simply raises an eyebrow. “You can’t go yet. You’re holding out on me.”

“I am?”

“Yep. We spent this whole time talking about my life.” He takes a bite of the apple he’s holding. “Trade me: Why is your mom terrifying?”

I shake my head. “Trying to explain my parents is a futile endeavor.”

“Too bad. Rule one: your life is as important as mine. We just spent half an hour on the piddly details of my life. And here’s the thing: I’m working hard. I’m exhausted. I’ve never had this little money in my life. But I’m not terrified by your life. So what am I doing wrong?”

I thought he would never notice that he’s missing the bulk of my life. I hadn’t planned to press the issue, because what good could come of it?

But he’s looking at me now as if he expects some kind of explanation.

I let go of my purse and tilt my head back. “You’re never going to be terrified.” My voice is low. “Because if something goes seriously wrong—if you get sick, if the laptop stops working—you can always cheat. I can make you walk a tightrope, but yours is only a foot off the ground. If you work so hard you can’t keep up with your classes, you get Cs…and then what? It makes no difference. I would lose my entire future plans.”

“Okay.” He runs his hands slowly over his bare arms. “I get that. But you said your mom was terrifying. Not just your life. How does that play out?”

For a moment, I don’t know how to respond. My throat closes, trying to communicate everything. Instead, I open my laptop again and navigate to a familiar website. I motion him to sit down next to me.