“Sam, does your mother work?”
The question seemed to catch him off guard, and he actually stammered. “Yes, my mother works,” he said haughtily. “She’s a high school principal.”
Elias smiled, but his eyes were still very unfriendly. “How would you feel if people came up to your mother at restaurants and on her way home from church on Sunday to tell her she doesn’t know how to do her job?”
Tsehay made a sound that I was pretty sure was a suppressed laugh, and I had to bite my tongue not to chuckle. Sam spluttered, furious for getting called on his bullshit. “That’s not—”
I cut him off because no one had time for this. “The hell it isn’t. What you did was disrespectful and Mr. Dawit has a right to an apology,” I told him, already walking away. Sam could get as red in the face as he wanted. That had to be said.
Tsehay and Elias took their cues from me, and we all hurried out to where the teams were waiting by the vehicles. “I think this is a good plan,” I said as we got outside. “But let’s make sure we have a long debrief tonight.”
As everyone rushed off, I stood rooted to the passenger side of my vehicle. I realized that even though I was ready for the work, there was pang of loss in my chest that I would spend the day without Elias. Like he could read my mind, his voice called from somewhere behind me.
“Desta.” I tipped my head up to look at him, trying very hard to keep inside the things that wanted to come out of my mouth. “Don’t listen to Ari and Dante without me.”
My gut turned liquid at the conspiratorial humor in this voice. “Okay.”
He winked at me, and my extremities went numb while all the blood rushed up to my head. “I’ll see you tonight.”
I was sure that had only sounded like a promise to me, but still I watched him go. His long limbs eating up the gravel as he went to his vehicle, that gorgeous ass encased in dark blue jeans. He always wore his work shirts tucked in, making him look neat and trim and edible. He was a beautiful man and he seemed so completely unaware of it, which just made my thirst for him that much more pronounced.
“Are you really going to let them do this?”
Fucking Sam.
I sighed as I peeled my eyes off Elias’s powerful forearms pulling on the door of the Cruiser and turned my attention on Sam. “They didn’t do anything. You did. I suggest you apologize before you ruin the entire week for the team.”
I didn’t bother waiting for an answer and got into the truck, which already had Sam’s usual driver sitting at the driver’s seat since Elias would be driving for that team.
Our tiny convoy drove out of the gravel parking lot for the day in the field. I kept my eye on Elias’s truck until our own vehicle took a turn in the opposite direction. And when my eyes drifted to the clock on the dashboard, I barely managed to keep myself from counting the hours until I’d see him.
Chapter 8
I made myself go up to my room first.
The day had its low moments, but it had been mostly good. My team, despite the last-minute changes, got the work done, and from the texts I’d gotten from Tsehay and Elias, it seemed like they also did fine. Not that I expected any different. Figured that Sam being out of the picture would make no difference.
Except there had been one difference.
I’d missed Elias.
Throughout the day I’d constantly found myself turning to ask him about something I saw on the road or about the book I was reading. I’d missed his presence literally, his body next to me in the Land Cruiser. And the little things, like the way his eyebrows popped over the top of his sunglasses when I said something to make him laugh.
I’d been doing that—collecting comments and things I thought he’d find funny. I liked seeing Elias smile. It’s not like he was stingy with them either; his face was open and bright for everyone. And people were drawn to him because of it. But there was one kind of smile that tugged at one side of his mouth and made the corners of his eyes crinkle. That one only happened when I was being a particular brand of smart-ass, which my fool head decided made it my smile. And I was hopelessly addicted to it. I’d been desperate to see it all day.
I made it upstairs without interacting with anyone and rushed through getting ready for dinner. I tossed my dusty clothes in a corner and jumped in the shower, not even bothering to turn on the water heater, making quick work of getting clean and dressed. In less than ten minutes I was walking downstairs again, my laptop over my shoulder.
At one point during the day we’d made plans to have a working dinner in a small private room next to the restaurant, which Elias had reserved. He’d said that way our group would be able to debrief without bothering the other diners. Because he thought of everything. I pressed a hand to my chest as I made my way to the room, my stupid heart already skipping in anticipation of seeing him. It was sad how far gone I was. It hadn’t even been twelve hours since I’d been with the man, and here I was acting like a lovesick teenager.
I stepped in and found him alone in the room, and I took a second to look at him. A smarter person would have made note of the way my entire body ran hot just from seeing him and kept their distance, but I couldn’t bother with being rational at the moment. I moved to slide my water bottle into my
