How could she trust her narrative sense when all other senses had betrayed her? When she’d been so blind, deaf, and dumb as to mischaracterize all of her mental and physical data about Ethan Meyer?
She’d hungered for his notice on that first day at SVLAC—though after their collision in the corridor, how much of her zeal had sprung from his compelling, paradoxical research, and how much from her heated awareness of her own body in proximity to his?—and when he’d sabotaged her instead of offering respect and collaboration, she’d lashed out in frustration. In humiliation. She’d been determined to hate him then, because he obviously hated her. Proving that their animosity was mutual meant mean-spirited pranks that escalated from petty to dangerous, desperate to have the last word and show that she didn’t care about his good opinion.
She’d wanted his attention, though.
Craved it.
Three years on, she’d been sure thatyes, she did loathe him—and also deserved his undivided focus…
Any supervisor who didn’t fire her for such a disastrous analysis of her own data—whether the Forster-and-Bannister bombshell was in the mix or not—was an idiot.
The data was her;shewas the idiot.
“Everything’s on you,” she muttered to the astronauts under her pencil.
But she smiled—idiotically—while she wrote through her lunch hour, while her characters simmered in growing suspicion about why they had no dessert. She returned to her desk and the crew after her budget meetings (did closed office doors—no:airlock doors—feature too prominently in the story?) and then she holed up in her bedroom with her notebook that evening as Kai and Ashley commented their way through a documentary on the latest Silicon Valley titan to fall under the weight of turtleneck-wearing hubris, too much unicorn investment, and not enough regulation.
“She’s such an interesting case study. Do you think any man would be getting this much negative press? Or would he just fail upward and into a new company?”
“The fraud was pretty egregious. Erin, what do you think?”
“Want to join us?” Kai raised a bowl of popcorn dusted with nutritional yeast. “We’re watching a film on that FinTech startup founder who’s on trial for fraud and criminal negligence.”
“Uh—sorry, I have to work.”
She didn’t look at her LIGO exports, though, or read through the Kitt Peak National Observatory’s multi-messenger astronomy review of the last batch of data that she’d sent over prior to her quantum gravity assignment. Instead, hunched up against her headboard, she scrawled nonsense onto the page until her pencil gave out—and she realized that she’d been scribbling in the dark. Writing about the chilly conditions of ice cream and space had failed to cool the heat still lancing over her skin, however. She tossed away her pencil, then eased out of her jeans with a grimace at the drag of damp denim down her thighs.
A little better.
Stripping down to a camisole, seeking elusive cool patches on her sheets and pillow, she splayed herself across her mattress and picked up her phone.
8:59 p.m.
Damn.
She’d missed Monday’s call with her family. She tapped into the Monaghan thread to apologize and assuage their worries about her absence.
Erin
Sorry! I got caught up working on the Department of Energy’s contract and lost track of time.
Not quite true, but better than a cross-examination from her brothers.
Dad
Good to hear from you, kiddo. But we kept it short today.
Mom
Adrian had to leave for the airport. You’re not working too hard on your new project and those management responsibilities, sweetheart?
Adrian
When is she not working too hard? (Arrived and boarded. I should touch down in Austin around 4 a.m.)
Wes
Working too hard is a family trait.
