The meeting wrapped up with a few follow-up questions and a plan to reconnect once the site codes were finalized. Ben would be her contact on this. She was surprised to learn he'd written the original script himself. Claire promised to reach out the following week, after she and Noah completed their testing.
As the others filed out, Claire lingered for a moment, gathering her things. She hadn't known what to expect walking into that room. But no one had questioned why she was there. They'd shown her respect and listened. And the only note-taker was Ben. She hadn't realized how much she resented the invisible labor—until someone else picked it up without being asked. That felt like real progress.
Claire added the last comment to her code and clicked the commit button to save it. It was late afternoon, and the office seemed darker than it should be. According to the weather app on her phone, the skies were overcast outside. Thinking back, she was sure someone at lunch had mentioned more rain was on the way.
She pulled her headphones off and stood to stretch. The last day and a half had been brutal. The MADS team were unhappy with what they discovered in Norway, but they'd come up with a fix. Fortunately, the fix was simple. Unfortunately, it was needed everywhere.
During the yesterday's morning meeting, Rick had handed out coding assignments for each developer. After two days of wading through hundreds of code blocks to update, she'd gained a new respect for VIG's organization and documentation skills. They rivaled her own. The need to be "excessively orderly" as Lucinda called it, arose from the memory problems caused by her epilepsy. If everything was in its place, she didn't need to remember what she'd done with it. It tickled her to imagine Lucinda laughing at her for finding people who were as rigorous as she was about organization.
Claire finished her water as she reviewed her to do list. Besides the MADS coding changes, Ben had sent over the documentation for their import process as promised this morning. She'd done an initial read-through, highlighting changes that jumped out at her. Once she finished her priority tasks with the MADS team, she'd do a more thorough analysis and get back to him.
Satisfied with her progress, she shook out her hands and wiggled her fingers. As happy as she was with today's work, she was eagerly anticipating the end of the workday. She was cooking for Noah at his place after work and looked forward to spending quality time with him before flying home to Houston.
"Claire!"
Ben crossed the large space and approached her cubicle. "Hey, Ben."
"Hello. Listen, I just ran into Noah. He's elbow deep in a problem on the floor, so I'm your chauffeur this evening."
She froze. "Um, we were supposed to do dinner tonight?" Was he coming by after he finished?
"Yeah, he mentioned you had plans that he had to cancel. He said to tell you he's sorry, and he'll call you as soon as he can."
Disappointment assailed her. They'd planned the meal on the drive to work this morning, and she'd thought about it all day between bouts of coding. After spending all their time together in Leesburgh, the shock of only seeing him during their short drive to and from work felt like they were falling back into coworker mode, and she was hoping tonight would present the opportunity to slide back into the easy friendship they'd enjoyed in their bubble in Leesburgh. And maybe she'd steal some more kisses from him. Claire blushed just thinking about it. She'd said no to sleeping with him, but kisses weren't off the table, right?
"Um." Ben's voice startled her out of her thoughts. He was watching her face, which made her blush harder. "If it makes you feel any better, he didn't look too happy about it, either. And his hands were full of oily gears, which meant calling you himself was a bit of a no-go."
"Of course." She collected herself and changed gears. "Thank you, Ben. What time should I be ready to leave?"
Ben glanced at his watch. "Can you leave in twenty minutes? I realize this is last minute, but I've got class tonight."
"Absolutely. Meet you in the front lobby at, uh, sixteen thirty-five?" Claire was still getting used to thinking about time using a twenty-four hour clock.
Ben grinned. "You got it."
As he walked away, Claire hastily gathered her things. If she hurried, she could watch Noah work from that large window upstairs before she left for the day. Seeing him in his element—out of his business casual trousers, smears of grease here and there—had been eye-opening. If she were lucky, he'd have his sleeves rolled up, showing off those sexy forearms.
"That's the third time you've yawned. If you're that tired, we should hang up." Lucinda's face stared back at her in the video chat on her laptop.
"I'm not really tired," Claire said. She plumped the pillows behind her as she sat in her hotel bed. "I'm just… I don't know. Do you think he ditched me on purpose? I mean, everything Ben told me made sense, but it seems like every time we make progress, something comes up. I'm starting to wonder if I'm imagining everything."
"Do you believe him? Noah, I mean."
"Yes."
"Well, there ya go. He's done nothing to make you distrust him, and he seems dedicated to his job. I totally believe he'd stay late to fix a work issue and I don't even know the guy. I'm just going by what you've told me about him."
"I guess so. Anyway—" Claire cut off as her phone rang. When she saw Noah's name on the display, she yelped. "It's him. I've gotta go!" She cut off Lucinda mid-laugh and answered her phone, shoving her laptop off to the side.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Claire." Noah's warm voice wrapped around her and she slid further down in her bed.
"Hi. You sound tired." She winced. Probably not the best greeting.
"Yeah, today was a tough one. It took us a couple of hours to figure out the problem, then even longer to fix it. Anyway, I realize it's late, but I wanted to call and apologize for missing dinner tonight. Ben got you home, okay?"
"Yes. He's kind of a chatterbox, isn't he?" Ben had talked her ear off all the way from the plant to her hotel. If he hadn't had to rush off to his night class, she suspected he would have invited himself to dinner, so he could continue to share his theories on the upcoming drilling year. "He really likes his job."
