It was easier just to tell any guy who asked me out that I didn’t date co-workers. Eventually, they had all stopped asking.
However, when I met Noah for the first time, there had been something about him that made it hard to look away. If I was honest with myself, it wasn’t exactly a problem that had gone away.
Which was why I was thinking about him and Jenny.
I didn’t even like Noah!
I snuck another peek at him. At his hard jaw, the high cheekbones. The fingers that laid on the top of the wheel, in control of the vehicle with barely a touch.
Did I fantasize about how those fingers might feel on me?
Maybe that one time.
When he’d described to me how he’d planned to fuck Jenny that first day she’d landed in Hope’s Point. I should have written him up for a sexual harassment complaint. Instead, I had gone back to my room at the camp and angrily masturbated thinking about him every second.
No, I didn’t like Noah Aikens. But as I sat there in truck next to him, I had to face the hard truth.
I wanted him.
Like all my other denials when it came to him, I was just going to have to lock that one away.
Because it was never, ever going to happen.
2
Dyson North ShoreDock
Olivia
“Shit! Shit, fuck, shit!” Noah barked as soon as we pulled up to the dock.
“What?”
“That’s my crew. They abandoned the rig.”
Before I could say another word, Noah was out of the truck marching toward where Cal stood among the men. I quickly followed behind him.
“How much worse?” Noah asked of Cal.
“Bad enough that I pulled them,” Cal told Noah. The five guys were huddled together on the dock, all of them looking out over the water.
I followed their gaze to where the rig was perched practically holding my breath. As if the well might blow at any second, when really, there was no way to know without seeing the data.
“Sorry Ark, you said to call it if I thought it wasn’t safe,” a roustabout I knew was called Simmons said to Noah.
“No, you did the right thing,” Noah said, clapping him on the shoulder. Then he looked at Cal, his expression grim. “Take Liv and the guys to camp and I’ll go out and see what I can do.”
Cal nodded in agreement and it took me a second to realize what had just happened.
“I’m not going to camp,” I said. “You brought me here to look at and confirm the data to see if we need to blow the well. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Noah shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. I’m not risking anyone if I don’t have to.”
“Ark, do not play the hero,” Cal told him. “You get on quick. If you have to blow it, blow it. If you think for one second you’re in trouble, get off the rig. Dyson has a recovery team on standby in case she blows. Take a radio and keep me updated.”
Noah took the walkie-talkie and attached it to his back pocket. He flashed Cal a smile. “She’s not going blow. Lizzie wouldn’t do that to me.”
He turned then and started toward the end of the dock to the boat that was tied there. Again, I scrambled to keep up.
