I snorted. “Don’t I know it.”
“Is that why you and Jenny aren’t more serious? You don’t have a lot of time to be together?”
“And now we’re back to me,” I said as a way of not answering.
“I answered your question,” she charged.
“And I think I’ve answered enough of yours,” I said.
“Fine.”
“Fine,” I barked.
All things considered it was probably one of the more low-key conversations Olivia and I had ever had.
On a positive note, she didn’t hit me, either.
* * *
Olivia
Ugh! Why did I lose my shit every time I was around him? Just once it would be nice to have a pleasant, boring conversation that didn’t leave me with a vein throbbing in my head.
Now he was driving without speaking to me, and I certainly was done speaking to him. We probably had another twenty minutes until we reached the shoreline where the boats would be docked. Which meant twenty minutes of me silently seething instead of being focused on the task at hand, which was bringing a well back under control.
I glanced at the notebook and tried to focus on the numbers he’d given me.
Did he seriously name his wells? And why Lizzie? An ex-girlfriend?
It didn’t matter. Because now he was with Jenny. Sweet Jenny who had been super polite the first time I met her. Who was pretty with hazel eyes that were super clear.
Petite, too. If you liked that sort of thing.
Which, obviously, Noah did. As for me, I was probably only about three inches shorter that Noah, who was a little over six foot. And when I wore my heels…we were nearly even.
Had he done it on purpose? The whole texting Jenny thing? Just so I would know they were still together.
Not that I cared. Noah was nothing but an obnoxious, arrogant asshole who thought he was smarter than everyone else around him.
Okay, so maybe he was smarter than most people around him but that didn’t give him the right to act like the god of engineering.
Okay, sure, having studied his work he might be on the Pantheon of Engineers someday but that didn’t mean other engineers couldn’t bring something to the table.
After all, he’d called me in, hadn’t he?
I took a quick peek at him. His jaw was clenched so I had no doubt he was still fighting me in his head. It’s what we did to each other.
I tried to imagine what Jenny saw in him. Physically it was pretty obvious. He was more than just a brain. His chin was scruffy, but he never went full-on beard like a lot of other guys at camp. And his greenish brown eyes turned this really amazing color when he was mad.
Since he was mad at me a lot, I often got to see it.
I tried to picture him with Jenny, what his eyes might look like when he was aroused, but when I did, I got this horrible feeling in my stomach.
I had a suspicion that feeling was jealousy. Since my plan was to stay in complete and total denial when it came to Noah Aikens, I wouldn’t actually give it a label.
Why him? Why?
I didn’t date guys I worked with. Period. As a woman in a predominantly male industry, I knew the drill. You were either a virgin or a whore to these guys and I took the virginal path.
